day EIGHT HUNDRED and SIXTY TWO

Don’t Give Up on Us, Baby: A Letter to Europe

"Don't give up on us, baby.
Lord knows we've come this far."
Think of it, almost 250 years.
Ever since dandy Lafayette
came to us, and dowdy Ben Franklin went to you.
Remember, my French students,
when you showed me Chandler in a box,
learning what friendship means?
We're in the box. Two years of this calamity.
Don’t nail the coffin on our amity.

"Don't give up on us, baby.
We're still worth one more try."
Remember when we watched George Bailey deciding
between his trip round the world
and saving the family business and the town?
And you murmured, “Ah, oui, le dilemme cornélien”?
We took the wrong fork in the Cornelian dilemma,
sacrificing others and losing ourselves.
We’re in the slum of Potterville now.
Pray for us, like George’s neighbors, family, wife,
so we can awake to our real, our wonderful life.

Listen to this silly song by Soul,
an Anglo-American one-hit wonder.
Watch Stephen Colbert joining forces
with John Oliver, Trevor Noah and Samantha Bee.
Remember the time we watched Gene Kelly
singing in the rain, and you said,
“This song tells us that love is waterproof”?
Stand by us, your soggy American cousins. Be true.
"Don't give up on us, I know
we can still come through."

--Cheryl Caesar

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SIXTY ONE

IMPEACH THE MOTHER FUCKER

                                           Photo by John Grochalski

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SIXTY

Making Feminism Great Again

Today a man spit in my face.

Then, while he held my head in place

Until my throat relaxed around his cock,

And moved me into a position

Where he could force a toy up my ass,

I thought about how he had voted for Trump.

I wondered if I was a disgrace to feminism.

And then I came.

--India LaPlace

This poem was taken from the current (and TERRIFIC) anthology

of poetry HORROR SLEAZE TRASH POEMS which you can

find to purchase right HERE 

Also, I've been lucky enough over the years to have some poems

published in Horror Sleaze Trash, for years by editor, Ben John Smith,

and for the last few by the wonderful team of Arthur Graham & India LaPlace.

for more of an inkling into what they do, you can check more HST action

out right HERE (note for the fainthearted: there's some NSFW content here)

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY NINE

**Got this one in the ol' WineDrunk inbox and found it pretty interesting
I'll let the creator explain***

This past Fall I co-curated an exhibition in Lisbon, Portugal, Tributaries, that opened on Sept. 30th and ran for ten weeks, under the auspices of the international artist's cooperative, Urban Dialogues. While in Lisbon, I went into the oldest continuous bookstore in the world, Chiado Bertrand Bookstore, that was founded in 1732 (the year of George Washington's birth). I found this Portuguese published book about Donald Trump that I immediately bought because a redacted title of the book jumped out at me, O Me Too.

When I got home I was able to also redact A Trump Pee Poem an as I progressed down the book cover, I was also able to redact I Go More Anal and then I placed DJ-45 in front of a golden wall.





--Mark Blickley


Mark Blickley is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN American Center. He is the author of Sacred Misfits (Red Hen Press), Weathered Reports: Trump Surrogate Quotes from the Underground (Moira Books) and the forthcoming text based art book, Dream Streams (Clare Songbirds Publishing House). His video, Widow's Peek, was selected to the 2018 International Experimental Film and Video Festival in Bilbao, Spain. He is a 2018 Audie Award Finalist for his contribution to the original audio book, Nevertheless We Persisted.

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY EIGHT

The Color Only Found in Caves

for Phil Geist

It isn’t something I’m sure I can properly articulate.
A sort of struggle between my mouth and my mind.
Either it’s getting better or I’m just growing used to
the pain. Baldinger says that we are all getting old
and weird and we were already weird to begin with.
Look at us with our brand new medical conditions.

People regularly disappoint me. Even those closest
to me. Maybe especially those who’re closest to me.
I disappoint myself too—but I forgive myself easily.

I’m too in love with certain things of this world—
and I know that. That young student who snorted
when she laughed. Or the boathouse on the river
that my old teacher Petey pointed out to me while
we were out on his Boston Whaler. Or else the box
of letters I have sitting on a shelf, waiting for me.

And stories—I love a story with a surprise ending.

Phil told us the story of how once, when he was
a child, he was climbing a tree and his grandfather
saw him, but instead of yelling at him for doing it,
which Phil thought he was going to, he yelled up
at him, “Keep on going—you’re almost at the top!”

--Scott Silsbe

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY SEVEN

Man of Mar-a-Lago

You do not have to be good

to have a quest. Evil dreams

can be impossible too.

When you tilted at the windmills

of our government, you were unhorsed

and bruised, but so were we.

Your Aldonza remains Aldonza, because

you never believed in “Dulcinea” anyway.

You were just the head muleteer,

who crossed her palm with silver.

Your Sancho was already the governor

(if a bad one) of an island.

And no, he doesn’t really like you.

Your only dream was to be knighted

with universal adulation:

Don the Stable Genius. And even this

would never be enough, never equal

the flash of approval in old Fred’s eyes,

the nod of acceptance that never came.

And now Fox and your last Friends,

are circling you, turning their mirrored shields,

and you fall, blinded by the glare

of reality. But still, forever chanting:

I am the best.

I am the greatest.

I alone can fix it.

--Cheryl Caesar 

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY SIX

The Island of Misfit Toys

when the shit hits the fan

he’s got a go bag packed

all he has needs is to grab

his .22, his 30-06

and a twelve gauge

speed down to the Allegheny National

climb a tree

wait out the end of would

wait till he doesn’t see smoke

then he’s gonna come down

the first man

alone in the ashes of his great society

and he’s gonna get his ass up

to what used to be Cleveland

there was a Ferrari dealer

back in the good old days

when times were bad

once he gets to the lot

he’s gonna drive every

damn car there

drive every fucking one

till they’re out of gas

leave them wherever

he’s gonna be the only living

survivalist in an island

of misfit toys

--Jason Baldinger

 

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY FIVE

Can he be as dumb as he

seems on TV?

Or is he merely

the psychotic dog

in a dog and pony show

holding our horrified

attention while behind

the scenes the gray men

in the halls of Congress

change rights we thought

immutable? Is his

smarmy smile trying

to hide the Howdy

Doody strings pulled by

Putin from his faraway

palace that Fascism built?

What do his followers

see in him? Were they

so frightened by Obama’s

complexion they wanted

someone, anyone, who would

tell them being white still

meant being the best?

It doesn’t matter their jobs

pay minimum wage,

and they barely finished

high school, but their kids

didn’t. But they are white,

and they can hear the

“code words” he speaks

telling them what they

need to hear that white

is right and white folks still rule.

Or is it the Edsel Effect?

People who bought them

vigorously defended them,

when they knew they

were junk because they

had invested too much

money and ego in them.

Or are his supporters

like abused women,

who forgive and forgive

his many moral lapses,

his “Grab them by the

pussy” attitude and

many mistresses,

his repeated lies given

with such a cavalier

attitude, his neglect

of their welfare

because, despite all the

evidence to the contrary,

they still believe he loves

them?

Or are they afraid

of the cost of being

a Trump traitor?

The shaming, the shunning,

the loss of community?

Would they miss the

heady rallies bordering

on worship, cheering

every word, no matter

how untrue, because they

are being told over and

over, they are the elect,

the saviors of America

if they just follow him

and believe only him.



if they shut their eyes,

and ears to the Fake News

who is anyone that

disagrees with him?

He is their only savior

in a world bounded by

his words which have

built his real wall -

a wall between his

followers and reality.

I really want to know,

what has created this

phenomenon because I,

too, love America,

But it’s an America Trump

doesn’t know and never will.

--Janet Stotts

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY FOUR

Here in America

tRumpism triumphs.

Democracy is in crisis—

unemployment low,

the economy booming.

Those in power willingly trade

catastrophic species extinction,

befouled water, poisoned air,

for immediate profit.

Neo-fascist, dystopic America

drains the public treasury,

encourages violent intolerance,

control over women’s bodies.

It’s stupid Watergate, the end of days.

More of us feel disenfranchised, ignored.

Drug use and suicides multiply.

Rule of law has been declared obsolete.

--Jennifer Lagier

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY THREE

“The smiler: On Jared Kushner”

(Following Laurence Tribe’s tweet on 3.9.19,

and thinking of Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale”)

Here we see plain the dark imagining

Of felony, and all the lobbying;

No cruel ire, but cool and slimy greed;

The pickpocket; the smarmy smirking weed;

The smiler with the knife under the cloak;

The White House burning in the dirty smoke;

The treason, murder in the Consulate;

Benedict Arnold selling out the State;

Not head of government: a hidden part

Of this corruption: evil’s beating heart.

--Cheryl Caesar 

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY TWO

REMINDER: WineDrunk SideWalk is doing an American Flag photo project in July. No political agenda, just spending the month posting people's pictures/art of flags (or a poem if you have). Think of this as a small examination of that most ubiquitous of American Symbols. So please send me photos (mostly) or any kind of art you think would fit the project. I'm setting no deadlines, and if i get more subs than the month allows we'll have multiple people on multiple days. 

SUBMIT2RESIST: winedrunksidewalk AT gmail DOT com

American Meme

Paris Hilton
doesn’t know where we go
when we die
and neither do I
and neither do you
but today
I don’t feel so special
to be afraid

I guess
the documentarian
wants me to feel sad
that these kids
who got what they wanted
are now hooked,
that modeled themselves after
sex tape sluts
and underage drunks
are 30
and feel alone
that watch their friends
living a life
that follows a traditional course
and they think
they’re having fun

no one is having fun
anymore than they let themselves
3 kids is a worry
maintaining love is a worry
just like having a brand
just like pedaling vodka
on instagram

--Luke Kuzmish

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY ONE

TO BE HEARD

The rich man may speak softly,

politely, sound benevolent,

and still be heard

as he passes the cash

beneath the table -

The poor man must shout

and bang at the table

to be heard

not once

but over and over again

until the table shatters

and the machinations

of the rich are exposed,

the corruption made clear

the greed in their hearts

loosed at last to speak

louder

than their quiet, hollow

words would ever allow -

then will we be heard -

--M.J. Arcangelini 

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY

Knapsack, on his back

Like his black

Shirt, and he walks

To school

Never sure who

Might shoot.

And he’s afraid

Because a boy his

Age

Might make Fox News

And all of you

Wearing red, white, and

Blue

Will sit back

And watch

While the crooked

Cops

Take another

Life,

But they are all

Disposable

To you.

So, you’ll never

Say a word.

I bet you have

A blue stripe

Sticker too.

--Hannah M. Tyree

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY NINE

BROKEN AXLE, FOREVER QUEST

No more broken axles,
abandoned wagons,
failed settlers returning
from colonies that could not
take root in hostile soils,
acres defensive of their own life.
Now, just digital failures.
Credit report stigma.
Unrenewed domain names
in lieu of unestablished
domains of green pasture.
Our hungry entrepreneurs
connect us again with pilgrims.

--David Pring-Mil

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY EIGHT

ALABAMA RAPTURE

Can someone please bring on the Rapture now,
for Christ's sake, at least in Alabama,
and give the poor sods there a break?
Get the far-right state politicians gone?
If that is the only way, I’ll take it.
When the Rapture comes, so the story goes,
the good souls all fly up to Heaven.
The rest of us, I have been warned for years,
are going South to live in warmer climes
for any action that the good God squad,
in their wisdom, judge to be a sin.
But salvation won't be that clear-cut,
I reckon, if there is a Hell, or Heaven,
and both aren't just Earth.
I think they’re both just Earth.
If there's anything except the ground beneath us,
though, the Rapture will be quite a shock
to the rabble-rousing evangelists,
and the Repubs and other righteous bastards,
who spend their hate-filled hours at work
passing laws that steal a woman's rights away.
They might find Donald Trump’s their neighbour
in marbled buildings under clear blue sky.
They might say, ‘Jesus, we made it boys,’
and open up the bubbly to celebrate.
But the president’s a giant ball of ear wax.
Will they think twice when he begins to melt?
Who’ll be the first to work out where they’ve landed?
Will they smell the smoke before they see the fire?
Who’ll make a chain for splashing water buckets
when the flames engulf them and they flail and scream?
No one. There won’t be a single person,
because that’s how karma takes its satisfaction.
We’ll all be loafing in the higher place,
watching Hell on giant television screens
with our feet up, forking in potato chips.

--Bruce Hodder

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY SEVEN

                                    Good Morning Iran

Good morning Iran

it’s Friday, eleven pm
my streets are quiet yet vibrant
the weekend is blooming over Manhattan
its lights are a halo across the Hudson

it’s morning in Shiraz
the weak winter sun
paints the Persian Gulf golden
I watch you from
seven thousand miles away

you’re another foreign target
to be crossed out
like Iraq
like Libya
like Afghanistan
you don't want to play with atoms
do you know what it feels like
to vaporize seventy thousand lives?
Do you know what it feels like
to play God?

Good morning Iran

I see your militias outside of Aleppo
trying to push the rebels to sea
have you seen mine?
Have you seen Uncle Sam’s artillery
firing shells from the rubble of Homs?
Have you seen the black issued combat boots?

I will turn your mosques into shopping malls
and build Disney Lands in Tehran
I will paint you as another villain in history
I will take your lands and scar your children
I will bring you liberation

Good Morning Iran

you don’t think I’ve forgotten
about those hostages do you?
You rejected my banks
what do you mean sovereignty?
You will know freedom

I am morality in a copper casing
I am the thunder of a thousand bombs
I am the desert tempest
I am bullet shock
I am the machinery of consumption
I am the bloody talons
I am empire

Good morning Iran

I don’t hate you
but I need you to build bombs
I need to sell helicopters
I need to turn the cogs
I need to keep these wheels moving
or my people will start looking around
there must always be another enemy

Good morning Iran

the eagle spreads its wings at dawn

--Damian Rucci

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY SIX

it’s just a gun

cold steel

oiled clean

a marvelous machine

it’s the finger and

the cold steel mind

that scares me

--Thomas R. Thomas

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY FIVE

white house reviews

military plans against iran

in echoes of iraq war

those drumbeats of war

are always drumming in america

like car bass

when you’re trying

to get a good night’s sleep

and when republicans go to the beach

it’s always with their dicks in the sand

missiles like dildos

shoved up their self-righteous asses

with the democrats

running right along

to keep slopping up the mess

still 120,000 troops

ain’t no slouch

iran you expensive mistress!

and 461,000 iraqi civilians isn’t either

just in case anyone needs a reminder

of what western-style freedom is worth

still the cost must be outrageous

you can count it

on the number of kids who won’t eat today

you can see it

on the big grins and big dicks

over at lockheed martin and boeing

but god bless the THAAD system

and god bless the air craft carrier

for dragging all of those EA-18G growlers

half-way across the world

to prove that america

is once again the great i am

to show the world

that this kind of violence and aggression

is all we’ve got left.

--John Grochalski 

                                             

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY FOUR

The Politics of Living: Which Side Are You Gonna Take?

While you listen to rap with closed windows

There is a man being shot in the streets

Blood stained skin and red and blue lights flicker like stardust in the background

You tell me I am lovely and ask if I speak English

While the children are being lit up with toxic fumes for loving their native tongue

You do not offer me a place at the table

But instead, ask to wipe your mouth on my sleeve

And I will let you, with a smile

Because that’s the American way

--Hannah M. Tyree

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY THREE

AUTHOR NOTE: This is a paraphrasing of “Song of Myself” condensed into tweet form (less than 280 characters).

@Tweet Of Myself.

I tweet of myself
and contain multitudes
of assumptions.
You hardly know
who I am or what I mean.
Do I contradict myself?
Probably.
But hey, look at me!
Your thoughts are nothing.
I absorb all to myself
even though
I have nothing much to say.
Blah Blah Blah.
What is common and cheap is me.
Follow my barbaric yawp at #.Walt

-- Stew Jorgenson & Walt Whitman

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY TWO

SHADOW JACK

 
                                                   By Steven B. Smith

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY ONE

                                  Dimebag Poem #2

he asks for an eighth
declares my sainthood
upon delivery

says wait
what’s your stigmata?

I answer
being poor
in late stage
capitalist
america

--Jason Baldinger

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY

fear and loathing at the hibachi restaurant

the suburban goth girl

with the blue hair

and purple eyeshadow

didn’t know you could refuse the side salad

so it sits there coagulating

under the hot lights

as the blonde at the table next to us

drunkenly shouts across the room to her pals

something about ruining her new shoes

from dropping some of her third drink on them

something about her husband’s birthday

and the president being close to god

she’s had three sexy ladies tonight

and if she doesn’t vomit

she says there might be room for a fourth

and

wink

wink

a special surprise for hubby when they get home

as everyone around her

laughs and laughs

doing the puritan end-of-the-work-week rag

and i wonder what a goth girl

with blue hair and purple eyeshadow

is doing in a hibachi restaurant

on a friday night

other than tilting the perfect picture

making things a tad askew

contributing another food waste in wasteful america

but this big, dumb colossus of stolen land

is full of surprises

and growing up in small cities

breeds a kind of useless rebellion

and plastic discontent

that can only be found at the mall

you can make mountains out of molehills

in the knowing light the chain store’s come-hither stare

i wonder what i’m doing here

hundreds of miles from home

anchoring the dead weight of citizenry

unnecessarily sober at a hibachi restaurant

stuck inside of buffalo, new york

with the brooklyn blues again

coming off a panic attack on the i-81

where i couldn’t breathe

and had to pull the car over to the side of the road

as idiot patriots with bumper sticker prophesies

zipped by me

going 90 in a 65

but across from me the hibachi chef

he knows my fate

he’s squirting sake into the mouths of babes

red faced business men

with their necks too fat for their oxfords

frat boys with their hats on backwards

greasing up their dates

for their own patriarchal surprise later

a sea of jaws undulating, filling up with all of that booze

spilling out of their mouths onto the table

because people can never get enough

of the free stuff

the chef asks me if i want a taste

i want to tell him that i think anxiety is just another word for america

i want to tell him that i’m thinking art is dead

how i’m ready to capitulate

move to the burbs

buy a car and complain about the traffic

hoist that fucking flag every morning

learn to live for the weekend

and how to love parades

each a hibachi dinner with my wife and good pals

each and every single friday night

buy the boss a christmas gift

and learn how to change a flat tire

burn all of my books

and walt whitman in effigy

at a neighborhood weenie roast

but i say no

and go back to my flat beer

keeping my flat opinions to myself

as he squirts some oil on the grill

and sets our world ablaze

with a flame that reaches almost to the roof

red and yellow and orange

tickling our fancy

we ooh and awe like cavemen in discovery’s first light

catching broccoli in our mouths

from an expert flip

huffing and huffing

at its heat

filming it all on our cell phones

as dead meat fries and sizzles

as sexy lady number four is presented to the table

to claps and chants

and soft debauchery

as the blonde woman screams and screams and screams

her useless constitution

and hubby knows

that

wink

wink

will just be her passing out again

as he circle jerks the witching hour

toggling between espn and fox news and internet porn

while back here on hibachi mother earth

a mountain of crystal white onion on the grill

burns like a tire fire

from a fizzled-out riot

in an abandoned strip mall

parking lot

of the mind

and to be perfectly honest with you

…i didn’t eat my goddamned side salad either.

--John Grochalski 

                                                          

day EIGHT HUNDRED and THIRTY NINE

A PLEA TO YOUR LIGHT, FROM YOUR FUTURE NOTHINGNESS

Dear sir, allow me if you will
to make a plea to your light,
from your future nothingness.
Your Senate seat
was meant to encourage you
to take a stand,
not sit down!
And yes, I concede —
It is a very confusing chair.
You have mitigated risk
with business acumen
and strategy,
forgetting the legacy and impact
that comes only when you are
both reckless and right,
responsible to your heart
but irresponsible by common standards.

The real reason egos scream so loudly
is because they know their own futility.
If you heed these howls,
which you will kindly notice
are always in your mind
and never in your heart,
you will assure yourself the finest seat
in nothingness.

Oh darkness, how long have you felt wounded by the sun?
You want the creatures of the light to come to you
not only in death but also in life.

Oh flailing soul,
will your energies be pronounced
and propelled onwards,
or will they succumb
to vacuum?

I still recall when I was a child
hiking alongside a bubbling creek
with a little girl and she asked me
if I was an ocean spirit
or a space spirit.
She said she thought
she was a space spirit,
one who would skip across the galaxies
and shimmer in the chemical swirls,
while I saw myself
most at home as a droplet
in the violent waves of the sea.

Which are you?

--David Pring-Mil

day EIGHT HUNDRED and THIRTY EIGHT

Looking for Richard Brautigan in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2018

The stone hits hard against the pavement—
it could be there is no luck to be had anymore.

I just now started to worry about solar storms,
not knowing what they are. Something about
the heliosphere, a disturbance in space weather.

But I also just started to surrender myself
to whatever it is this world has to shell out.

Icy moons spewing water plumes—I surrender.

Bungee-jumping neo-Nazis—I surrender.

Japanese hot tub monkeys—I surrender.

I surrender myself to the radio galaxies,
the blazars I can’t comprehend, and all of
the artificial satellites in retrograde orbits.
I can’t make sense of all the things I don’t understand.

If you happen to see Richard around town,
point him in my direction, wouldn’t you?

--Scott Silsbe

day EIGHT HUNDRED and THIRTY SEVEN

Full of Trash

"It's like Barr summarized the 'Twilight' novels as 'a girl in Florida goes to third base with a wookie’.” – John Oliver


We’re living in the upside down universe.
It’s what you get when you cross corrupt with stupid,
add a soupcon of self-righteous smugness,
enlist the aid of Christian fundamentalist trolls.

A two year, multi-million dollar investigation reveals
criminals saved from prosecution by incompetence
assisted by disobedience, disorganization.
Malfeasance gleefully French kisses cancerous evil.

Cheeto-in-chief’s fluffer issues a four page fake summary,
visits various talking head “news” shows
to perform mandatory ass-kissing
in an attempt to distract rumbling voters.

Power-hungry repugs take a victory lap,
celebrate democracy’s dismantlement
as brain-washed sycophants chorus
“No collusion. Total exoneration.”

--Jennifer Lagier

day EIGHT HUNDRED and THIRTY SIX

this gun

does not fit

in my hand

it burns my

fingers with

the heat of hate

a cold cruel

crime to my soul

you

will have to

steal my life

I will not

waste yours

--Thomas R. Thomas