day EIGHT HUNDRED and NINETY TWO

Great, Again

Gray regime breakfast

blunt and slow: rain pours

intermittent, sideways.

As the television drones

of political sports,

the dry eggs assault me

with unknown ingredients.

Finally, the big game:

the crowd watches, aghast.

They huddle in blankets

as the action unfolds

on the fields below. How

can one man inspire

such fear? The monster terrifies,

but he is visible. Much worse

are the ones I can't see.

Sleep in fits and starts

the night before, dream

of clever escape. Forced

into wooded exile,

my daughter and I

manage to stay miles

ahead of attackers, but she

forgets her sleeping bag.

“Take mine,” I tell her,

without hesitation.

I walk across the beach

as birds argue about

leftover garbage, and

waves continue their

indifferent pounding.

The manufactured greatness

of humans is so

much less than this,

but the carnage compels

and I can't stop looking.

--Leah Mueller

Leah Mueller is an indie writer and spoken word performer from Tacoma, Washington. She is the author of two chapbooks and four books. Her next two books, "Death and Heartbreak" and "Misguided Behavior" will be published in Autumn, 2019 by Weasel Press and Czykmate Press. Leah’s work appears in Blunderbuss, The Spectacle, Outlook Springs, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, and other publications. She was a featured poet at the 2015 New York Poetry Festival, and a runner-up in the 2012 Wergle Flomp humor poetry contest.

day EIGHT HUNDRED and NINETY ONE

CORPSES

A young girl and boy

found a body

washed up on the riverbank.

They were just sixteen,

romantic amateurs out for a stroll

at dusk

when they almost tripped over

that poor woman’s purple legs.

The girl screamed.

The boy felt sick,

clutched at his stomach.

I’ve never come across a body

and I’ve walked many an isolated trail

at the oddest of times.

I’ve done that hand-holding,

look-at-me-I-have-a-girlfriend-routine,

more than once

but the usual thing I discovered

was that the two of us

weren’t much suited.

I suppose that’s a corpse in its way

but not one that stinks

from too much time in the water.

Nor do maggots get at it.

Only thoughts.

Tiny white crawling thoughts sometimes.

--John Grey

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in
Midwest Quarterly, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work
upcoming in South Florida Poetry Journal, Hawaii Review and the Dunes
Review.

day EIGHT HUNDRED and NINETY

Despack the fight

 

“Despack the fight,” said Sarah Huckasands.

She said it twice, and you know what?

I think we should listen.

 

Our fight has been spackled over

with layers of lies and conspiracies.

Sedimented like an abandoned statue

in layers of pigeon droppings.

 

“Spackle is messy,” says Mason Howard,

“whether you're applying a small patch

or covering a large surface.

It gets on tools and on the floor.

Because spackle dries hard quickly,

it's important to clean it up

right away. Cleaning up dried spackle

requires a bit more work.”

 

Layers of spackle have dried on our fight

For more than two years. Despacking

will require work. And so to arms!

Bring your putty knives, your bristle brushes,

your wood oil, window cleaner and vinegar,

your carpet spot remover,

your towels and sponges.

And finally floods of water to wash it all away,

and let us see what we really are.

 

Despack the filth, the lies, the hatred.

Make American Clean Again.

-- Cheryl Caesar

 

Ryan Bort, “Even Sarah Huckabee Sanders Is Struggling to Defend Trump’s Rhetoric,” Rolling Stone, 29 October 2018

 

Mason Howard, “How to Clean Spackle,” Hunker.

 

day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY NINE

Feast

mastication takes hold long after dusk
when politics and biometrics no longer
matter, when the dogs have taken to
the fields and run from the walking bones
that stagger after, knives and claws working
in the ash-grey hollows of their eyes

dogs run wild through forests and wait
for the encampments to fall silent,
for bodies in tents and truck beds
to stop shifting, for the meat to pucker
against bone, and maybe then, when
the dogs that run wild grow hungry
enough, they might return to masticate
before returning to the wasteland,
the purest form of aberration

through field and town, burning city after
burning city, Satan walking the ashen road,
looking at what we’ve done to ourselves
reading signs painted by finger, by blood,
clarity made complete through human
chaos and blundering—the meal has begun
and we are devouring ourselves to the
bone with every passing pettiness

the cruel truth is this:
no one stops eating once they begin,
not until there’s nothing left
and the wind carries the sound of dogs
hungry for their share
across the purple mountain majesties
where true freedom unspoken
now reigns in charred peace and silence

--James H Duncan

James H Duncan is the editor of Hobo Camp Review and the author of Feral Kingdom, Nights Without Rain, and We Are All Terminal But This Exit Is Mine. For more, visit www.jameshduncan.com.

day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY EIGHT

CENSORSHIP

                     By J.I. Kleinberg

day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY SEVEN

Indictment

The administration

with the approval of the President

is separating children from parents

at the Mexican border,

another assault on human decency

one of many sneak attacks

intended to distract the public

from high crimes and misdemeanors

doing irreparable harm

to the fabric of America,

fraying in so many places

from more and more assaults

that erode the future

of our struggling nation,

as our President presents

overwhelming evidence

that he is an enemy of the people.

--Gary Beck

day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY SIX

Michigan, Warmed

Islands of garbage

float across the ocean

They fester and reek

No ice in the world anymore

The only ice is in the dirty martini

I drink in the backyard

of my tropical Michigan paradise

My son is coming later to plant some more

palm trees

No corn anymore

no soybeans

Granddad would have been surprised to

see my sugar cane crop

the sweet smelling tassles

flowing in the breeze

I told him I’d never live here

I was pissed off, feeling confined by family farming

I wanted something bigger

greater

more life

No streets out here in the country

dirt roads

dirt and gravel

I’m done with drugs, Grandad

I know I broke your heart

but that’s what hearts are for

If you’d come from a city

you would have known that

Islands of garbage float across the ocean

They fester, reek

and the salmon and trout in Lake Michigan

have given way to

evil little fish that stowed away on river freighters

and came up from Chicago

riff raff with the blues

Doesn’t matter to me

I sold my boat long ago

I lay out in the backyard working on my tan

and watch the

palm fronds sway in the breeze

Fruit rats in the sapodilla trees jump from

branch to branch

If only Grandad could see them!

He’d laugh

The old, mean wasps are still here

Sometimes one stings me in the face

but that hardly disturbs me

drinking my dirty martinis

in my tropical Michigan paradise 

--Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois

Work by Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois appears in magazines worldwide. Nominated for numerous prizes, he was awarded the 2017 Booranga Centre (Australia) Fiction Prize. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and as a print edition. His poetry collection, THE ARREST OF MR. KISSY FACE, published in March 2019 by Pski’s Porch Publications, is available here. Visit his website to read more of his poetry and flash fiction.

day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY FIVE

THE PRESIDENT DOESN’T READ BOOKS

That must be why the library

looks so much like a mausoleum.

So many corpses of various sizes

are coffined in its dark rooms.

It’s all language and pictures anyhow.

And isn’t that what phones are for?

Your second best friend has more to say

than Emerson or Hawthorne.

And, besides, her face is grinning

up at you from the parking lot at Walmart.

There’s cars and shoppers in the background.

But not a literary lion in sight.

You’re in a coffee shop texting fiercely.

A TV screen on a back wall is

showing a subtitled Fox and Friends.

If it doesn’t popup or roll across a screen,

then there’s just no reading it.

There was a time when the café was a way of life,

a continuing education of writers, musicians,

philosophers and artists.

The conversation was combative or communal

and sometimes even both.

No laws. No limits. No exclusions.

And there were always those on the periphery,

half-listening, half with their heads in a novel.

But every word, every point of view,

was birthed somewhere. sometime

in the pages of a book.

And, moments alone, sent the cognoscenti

reaching for a volume, not an IPod.

“Reduced hours” says the sign on the library door.

“Budget cuts” is the typical explanation.

Anyone in America can still grow up to be president.

But a librarian is a different story.

--John Grey

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in
Midwest Quarterly, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work
upcoming in South Florida Poetry Journal, Hawaii Review and the Dunes
Review.

day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY FOUR

MUST I POINT OUT THE IRONY?

I read about what
those poor migrants
in the caravan are fleeing,
the gangs and bloodshed,
and an urge swept me
to go down to the library
and the bookstore,
and burn all the self help books,
all the ones that coddle
those of us with full bellies,
houses, jobs, two cars...

Who don't live with the daily fear
of rape and murder,
the ones that assuage
our soft existential concerns
about midlife crisis,
and the meaning
of our shallow lives.

We who will sit down
fat at thanksgiving tables
bitching about an invasion
of foreigners,
drunk on the juice of grapes
picked by their fingers,
and stuffing ourselves
with a turkey
they raised, caught,
beheaded and plucked.

Our hatred fanned
to a white hot flame
by masters of propaganda
whose books should also
be burned at the stake,
like the self righteous
and hypocritical trash
they are.

--Brian Rihlmann

day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY THREE

                                               TRUMP PENCE CLOSED

                                               Photography by Jason Baldinger

day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY TWO

America, America

I will protect you to the death

of a million Mexicans

bones bleaching in the desert.

Of 5 million Syrians

begging to be allowed to

live.

Of hundreds of Jews

packed in the hull of a stinking little boat

fleeing Germany.

America, America

the wretched refuse

washing up like garbage

on our shiny, inviolate shores.

I will build a wall to protect you,

another brick in our long history.

I guess you could call that love.

--Ethan Goffman

Ethan Goffman’s poems have appeared in BlazeVox, Mad Swirl, Madness Muse, Ramingo’s Blog, Under the Bleachers and Setu.as well as the anthologies The Music of the Aztecs, Epiphanies and Late Realizations of Love, and Narwhal’s Lament. He is co-founder of It Takes a Community, a Montgomery College initiative that brings poetry to both students and local residents. In addition, Ethan is founder and producer of the Poetry & Planet podcast on EarthTalk.org.

day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY ONE

Just a reminder before today's wonderful poem that July begins WineDrunk's FLAG PROJECT, in which I'll be posting submitted pictures of the American flag/American flag-ish images that people send.  If you're looking for an idea as to the scope of this and how creative and out the box you can get with your submissions, I offer this humble example:

Looks kinda like a flag, right?  Honestly, I'm just curious about the various incarnations of the flag (and there are a ton) that we can come up with.  The hope is to see the usual contributors, new ones, and even those of you out there who read this protest blog but feel you've been unable to contribute....your neighbor painted their car RED WHITE and BLUE....take a photo of it and send it my way.

SUBMIT2RESIST: winedrunksidewalk AT gmail DOT com

For those of you sending/already sent poems to me, I will begin with the poems again come August 1st.

Also to keep in mind....because we never properly acknowledge labor in this country but instead pollute our Labor Day with Labor Day sales/Bullshit Barbecues, in September i'm going to post any poems that people send me about work...your work...the work of others...anything that keeps this Capitalist system afloat even under 800+ days of an idiot racist game show host....so keep that in mind as well.

thank you all for contributing and reading/viewing the great work I've had the honor of putting on here for EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY ONE days.

now...on with the show....

Political Apnea

There is nothing
sexy about politics.

It drags on forever, while
I stare at the ceiling.

Just when I think politics
can't continue much longer,
it finishes abruptly,
rolls over on the mattress,

and goes to sleep, then grunts
and snores with tortured gasps.
I try desperately to rest,

while I lie with my ass
in the puddle.

One day I will leave
politics for good,

but for now, I am beholden
and need the security.
I roll on the sagging mattress,
twist my pillow against my ears,

clench my jaw
until the noise subsides.

I have no other place to go:
just this uncomfortable bed
with no promise of improvement,

and the morning is years away.

--Leah Mueller


Leah Mueller is an indie writer and spoken word performer from Tacoma, Washington. She is the author of two chapbooks and four books. Her next two books, "Death and Heartbreak" and "Misguided Behavior" will be published in Autumn, 2019 by Weasel Press and Czykmate Press. Leah’s work appears in Blunderbuss, The Spectacle, Outlook Springs, Atticus Review, Your Impossible Voice, and other publications. She was a featured poet at the 2015 New York Poetry Festival, and a runner-up in the 2012 Wergle Flomp humor poetry contest.

day EIGHT HUNDRED and EIGHTY

Thoughts and Prayers

Tell me, my people,
how will you prepare the children’s bodies?

Will they be wearing suits?
That is proper, for a funeral.

Or, will they be wearing their school clothes,
holey and streaked with blood?
That is proper, for a protest.

When they are lowered down,
or scattered to the wind,
what words will you give to comfort

and demand?

--Josh Medsker


Josh Medsker's writing has appeared in many publications, including: Contemporary American Voices, The Brooklyn Rail, The Review Review, Haiku Journal, and Red Savina Review. For a complete list of Mr. Medsker's publications, please visit his website. (www.joshmedsker.com)

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SEVENTY NINE

Michael Cohen testifies before Congress, 2.27.19

(to the tune of “Mein Herr” from Cabaret)

You’re a racist and a con man and a cheat, Don Trump.

To avoid you I would run across the street, Don Trump.

You claim, “We don’t need more Haitians,”

And you sneer at “shithole" nations,

David Duke rejoices every time you tweet, Don Trump.

You’re a braggart and a blowhard and a fake, Don Trump.

And you lie about the money that you make, Don Trump.

Tell the IRS it’s lower,

Tell the folks at Forbes it’s more,

How much bullshit do you think that we can take, Don Trump?

It’s not only tax returns that make you freeze, Don Trump.

You’re afraid to show your grades and SATs, Don Trump.

Though you say Maxine’s “low IQ,”

When you see she doesn’t like you,

You can barely read beyond your ABCs, Don Trump.

I regret the day that I said yes to you, Don Trump.

I’m ashamed of every shady thing you do, Don Trump.

In this hearing I reject you,

I will never more protect you,

And Republicans are shmucks to do it too, Don Trump.

--Cheryl Caesar 

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SEVENTY EIGHT

But We're British

Walking through the housing
Estate and ones nearby, I
Notice the amount of Union
Jacks that people have flying in
Their gardens, on huge flagpoles
Higher than their houses. I don't know
What they are trying to say. A protest
Against immigration ? Or pro-Brexit ?
I think that it makes them look like
Fucking fools. Americans can get
Away with flying Old Glory all they
Want to. But we're British and there's
Something about us that is intrinsically
Different from the folks from the U.S.A.
I am proud of my country. I'm proud
Of the Welfare State and the N.H.S.
To me these are the things that make
Us Great Britain. That we care about
Our people and we will not let anyone
Die from starvation or illness, if we
Can help it. But there's no way I would
Ever fly the flag in my garden. It
Makes you look like a racist, if you
Are one or not. I know this is wrong
And I fully believe in reclaiming the
Flag from the far right scum that
Have stolen it for their pathetic, evil
Ends. But in times like this, it's just
Too provocative, inflammatory.
And it makes you look like a dick.

--Ian Copestick

Ian Lewis Copestick is a 46 year old writer from Stoke on Trent. He has had over 140 poems published in nearly 20 e-zines including Punk Noir Magazine, Academy Of The Heart And Mind, Winedrunk Sidewalk, Outlaw Poetry, The Rye Whiskey Review and many more.

His debut collection of poetry " Detritus Of The Drunken Night " was recently published by Cajun Mutt Press and is available through Amazon.

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SEVENTY SEVEN

The Degenerate

This bar. Peppers N’at.

Holy shit.

Tom is 73, he says,
over and over.

He can’t hear. Says he has

a bank of televisions
and a VIP account at
Mountaineer Racetrack

and he’s the guy

(no one else)

who knows horse betting!

and it’s charming
until right after

he calls
my wife a SuperHero

because she teaches
little black kids

and says
those fucking monkeys

--Bob Pajich

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SEVENTY SIX

102-million-dollar golf vacation

--I love golf, but if I were in the white house

I don’t think I’d ever see a Turnberry again.

I don’t think I’d see Doral again. I don’t think

I’d see anything. I just want to stay in the White House

And work my ass off (Donald J. Trump, February 2016)

on

the tax payers dime

fat-ass trump

has spent

hundreds of days

waddling off to florida

to the swamps of jersey

a little side trip to los angeles

and a round

at his shithole course in scotland

the 102-million-dollar golf vacation

paid for by you and me

as the bridges crack

as the roads get worse

as the water in flint is still tainted

as puerto rico gets forgotten

as people go hungry

and homeless

as the nation bleeds division

fat-ass trump

swings his

epic calloway in his baby hands

his dumpy cheeseburger

ass in the breeze

shit-stained khakis

and a white polo shirt

that nazi red hat

on his orange head

to keep that wig

from blowing away

so he can fly back to d.c. on mondays

and shove it

further up the ass

of this cartoon republic.

--John Grochalski

                                   

                                            

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SEVENTY FIVE

Trump is autographing Bibles, 3.8.19
(To the tune of "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles")

Trump is autographing Bibles
Where the deadly twister blew:
With that same hand that paid Stormy Dan,
Locked kids in cages, signed Muslim ban.
Pitching snake oil to the yokels,
That's his favorite thing to do.
Trump is autographing Bibles;
Soon he'll claim he wrote them too.


--Cheryl Caesar

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SEVENTY FOUR

Where are we going, Walt Whitman?
The doors close in an hour.
Which way does your beard point tonight?

-Ginsberg


A Big-Box Store in California (A Conversation)


What does it cost you to live your life?
I'll tell you what it costs me.
Your shirt cost me twenty days, America.
Your shoes, fifty.
That cell phone is three months of toil.
Your latte is my day's pay, comprende?
What price bananas? Corporate terrorism.
Are you my angel? Or my jefe?
America, will you ever be satisfied? When?
Where are we going, Walt Whitman?

The coyotes are howling
The sun is setting
The desert is coming alive
As I jostle among the avocados.
As I cross into the promised land.
America, what is the root of your power?
Don't ask me, I just work here.
The bloom has come off your flower.
The doors close in an hour.

Please wash me on cold.
Remove my tags before wearing me.
Please spin the dirt off my leaves.
Pat me dry.
I don't believe in disposable fashion.
I believe fabric should put up a fight.
I believed your promises, America.
I believed Lady Liberty was my light.
Walt Whitman,
which way does your beard point tonight?

--Josh Medsker


Josh Medsker's writing has appeared in many publications, including: Contemporary American Voices, The Brooklyn Rail, The Review Review, Haiku Journal, and Red Savina Review. For a complete list of Mr. Medsker's publications, please visit his website. (www.joshmedsker.com)

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SEVENTY THREE

You’re a genius, Mr. Trump!

(to the tune of the Grinch song)

You’re a genius, Mr. Trump!

Your intellect is keen!

Your uncle taught at MIT, and you picked up the gene,

Mr. Tru – ump!

You think a Lockheed Martin – actually can’t be seen!

You’re an adept, Mr. Trump!

You just follow what you feel!

If it snows in Minnesota, global warming can’t be real,

Mr. Tru – ump!

You tell us man invented walls – after the wheel!

You’re an Einstein, Mr. Trump!

And science is a breeze!

You think windmills must be turning when we turn on our TVs,

Mr. Tru – ump!

You’re seventy- two and -- you’ve never heard of batteries!

You’re a savant, Mr. Trump!

With a special kind of brain!

You can’t close up an umbrella, so you drop it by the plane,

Mr. Tru – ump!

Your only problem is – the rest of the world’s insane!

 --Cheryl Caesar 

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SEVENTY TWO

A PRIMER ON PRO-LIFE POLITICS

Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself. - Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (1928-2016)

the pro-life politician preaches:
the scantiest hint of life in the womb,
a scintilla, a quibble, a single split cell,
is sacred and must be protected at all costs -

but woe be to those who make it
out of the womb alive

because pro-life politics promotes the death penalty
because pro-life politics promotes a profit-driven prison system
because pro-life politics promotes poverty and hunger
because pro-life politics promotes dying for lack of medical care
because pro-life politics promotes the extinction of species
because pro-life politics promotes the rape of the environment
because pro-life politics promotes war and destruction

either life is sacred or it is not,
timing is not the issue,

let a man answer for his crimes, but
is the spark of life still burning within
the rapist, the molester, the murderer,
or this season’s designated enemy,

any less sacred than that within
the fetus they once were?

if the sacred is dependent on economic
inequality, on selective deviousness and luck,
on religion-defined circumstance greased
through the gears of political expedience
for the benefit of capital gains,

where does sanctity reside?
and can it ever survive the
self-righteousness of the
self-appointed guardians
who profess to protect it?

the pro-life politicians.

--M.J. Arcangelini