day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY SEVEN

Deep Dive into the Pit of Hell

the republican senators
voted to acquit tRump
hoping to convince themselves,

knowing he was guilty,
knowing he is toxic,
that tRump will learn

from the impeachment
and do the right thing
yet

the vote is the death knell
for their party and tRump
doesn’t care about them

he only cares for himself and
he doesn’t understand
that the path he’s on

is dragging the country,
the world, deep into
the pit of hell

--Thomas R. Thomas

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY SIX

POEM and COLLAGE by Oscar Varona 

“NADIE”

Dejé que aquel hombre entrara en mi cabeza por la puerta de atrás.
Dejé que se recostase, que hiciese de mi cráneo su guarida.
Permití que todo su ser abarcase el diámetro de mi cerebro vacío,
Pues no había nada en mi pensamiento excepto el aire nítido de la apariencia.
Consentí que sus palabras fueran las mías, que hablase por mi boca;
Que el odio que en su interior albergaba, se convirtiese en el mío.
Y renuncié a pensar por mí mismo, a hacer o decir lo que yo quisiera,
Porque en realidad nada quería, nada deseaba, excepto seguir respirando.
Me convertí en su títere sin yo saberlo.
Ya no podía pensar por mí mismo, sino que era él quien pensaba por mí.
Y cuando él reía, yo me reía del resto del mundo.
Nada ni nadie me volvió a importar.
El infierno eran ellos, ellos, todos aquellos que me señalaban;
Los que querían que dejase de escupir aquel rencor, que pensase en los demás;
Que respetase a las mujeres, a los negros, a los pobres… a todo el mundo.
Pero yo era incapaz de respetarme a mí mismo,
¿por qué iba entonces a considerar a todos aquellos que nunca se habían percatado de mi presencia?
Según él.
Siempre según él.
Pues él vive en mí, se ha convertido en mí,
O yo soy él.
Soy su voz, su esquirla, su trozo de vida conquistado.
Soy sus ojos enrojecidos por el rencor envenenado al vecino.
Soy sus tripas cancerígenas que inyectan rabia en mis nervios partidos.
Soy poderoso y un don nadie.
Y camino por la calle sin ser yo, pero orgulloso de ser él.
No soy nadie.


“NOBODY”


I let that man enter in my head through the back door.
I let him lie down, make my skull his lair.
I allowed his whole being to cover the diameter of my empty brain,
For there was nothing in my thought except the crisp air of appearance.
I agreed that his words were mine, that he speaks through my mouth;
That the hatred inside him, became mine.
And I gave up thinking for myself, to do or say what I wanted,
Because nothing I really wanted, nothing wanted, except to keep breathing.
I became his puppet without me knowing.
I could no longer think for myself, but it was he who thought for me.
And when he laughed, I laughed at the rest of the world.
Nothing and nobody cared again.
The hell was them, they, all those who pointed to me;
Those who wanted me to stop spitting that resentment, to think about others;
To respect women, blacks, the poor people... the whole world.
But I was unable to respect myself,
Why would I then consider all those who had never noticed my presence?
According to him.
Always according to him.
Cause he lives inside of me, he has become me,
Or I am him.
I am his voice, his splinter, his piece of life conquered.
I am his eyes reddened by the grudge poisoned the neighbor.
I am his cancer guts that inject rage into my broken nerves.
I am powerful and a John Doe.
And I walk down the street without being me, but proud to be him.
I'm nobody.

--Oscar Varona

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY FIVE

SOFTER THAN PUSSY

I hate your ugly mug
I really do
that fake tough guy scowl
would fade instantly
if they dropped you off
without an armed detail
in one of the inner cities
you love to talk shit about

but the hands
the hands tell the story
even better

and I find it hard to believe
that any man who ever
swung a hammer
or laid bricks
or drove a truck
to earn his daily bread

would not change his mind
about you being a champion
of the working class
if he shook your hand

hands that probably
never held a wrench
a screwdriver
or even a plunger

I’ll bet those things
are softer than any pussy
you ever grabbed

and by the way—
you don’t “grab” pussy....
Idiot!

--Brian Rihlmann

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY FOUR

WRITTEN ON THE EVE OF ANOTHER WAR

It’s not the powermongers in their offices,

in their churches, guards surrounding them,

sending bombs to drop in drone strikes,

exploding cars in marketplaces,

setting the snake of vengeance loose

that hisses poison through the world.

It isn’t them, it’s us,

our blind obedience in every country.

Without us not a drop of blood would fall.

We maim the children

--Bruce Hodder 

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY THREE

watching youtube videos

of baseball card breakers

as democracy fails again

the dilemma is

i could read hannah arendt

or watch faceless men with fat hands

rip open baseball card packs on youtube

the point is not to work

although i’m sure there is an incident to report

another leaking roof somewhere

in this wretched building

outside my office is the muffled din of calamity

twelve-year-old boys

playing sharpshooter games

that only show you the barrel of a gun

there is a homeless man

who has locked himself up in our bathroom

for almost an hour

showering by flushing the toilet over and over

customers and staff

keep informing me about him

as if i were his warden

and all i can think

is though i may live in a sanctuary city

there is really no sanctuary from america

i choose the baseball card breakers

over the arendt

it is an easy choice to make

as democracy fails again

there is no totalitarianism

in watching a faceless man rip packs

looking for cardboard heroes

shouting in joy

like children

it’s just some triviality to cover over the dark

a little sanctuary for me within his sanctuary

that won’t cost me my soul

as the homeless man

flushes the toilet again

and the boys playing video games

line up another shot in the crosshairs

screaming to each other

kill

kill

like some new american mantra.

--John Grochalski

                                                       

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY TWO

Retribution Tour

IMPOTUS the Third seethes,

compiles an enemies list,

conspires with rethuglicans

to replace the insufficiently loyal

with Stepford sycophants willing to validate

right-wing conspiracy theories

fueled by encroaching dementia.

Corrupt, spineless senators

who caved, supported a kangaroo court

followed by unmerited acquittal

feign outrage and surprise

at the orange moron’s

consistently oblivious,

self-serving behavior.

Continuing to enable criminality,

they naively believe karmic retribution

won’t return during blue-tsunami November

when outraged voters remember treasonous perfidy,

cast millions of ballots and, in a landslide victory,

remove them from office.

--Jennifer Lagier

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY ONE

Rant and Roll

Gimme that TV I.V.
for vain in vein insane
gimme booze, sex, gambling
highline fashion
low blows
gimme local lobotomy
drill my lobal monstrosities
gimme gone
gimme go
gimme fast cars in red glow
neon no ones run low
jazz jumped slow
gimme want and went and wan
night in sight of sun
anything to numb
this shit world dumb
to doom due profits sons
in never pure
ever slippin' strip stream whirl
gimme never when
back then
Zen
but get me gone
I don't belong
nor do
you

--Steven B. Smith

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and THIRTY

Meet Me Where We Survive

 It’s only getting warmer. Even those who

don’t want to admit it know that it’s true.

I walked up the steps to use the restroom

and I was met with a pair of polar bears.

It was alarming to me, but they seemed

undisturbed—they didn’t budge an inch.

--Scott Silsbe

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY NINE

we are all reality tv

coronavirus virus

dance craze

is sweeping the world

and like a game show

we’re wondering who has it this week?

even the speaker of the house knows

that if you tear up the state of the union address

all it does is make for good drama

better than kids still sitting in cages

no, we can’t cancel that orange bastard

with all of the buzz surrounding him

let’s give him four more years

see if he can keep

the corporate news media’s ratings up

facebook

twitter

your local bar

you can go anywhere now

to binge-watch the end of democracy

i’m outraged

i’m angry

but i got so much shit stored on netflix

that i’ll be inside for a month

with my buttered popcorn

resting on the constitution

the tattered blinds drawn

to keep out the light

from all of those cellphone selfie zombies

and the glare of gleaming

ugly american flags.

--John Grochalski 

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY EIGHT

These are dismal times.
Every morning when we wake
it's still Trump o'clock.

--Cheryl Caesar

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY SEVEN

On Reading Tomas Tranströmer in an Election Year

At first it's only my eyes I feel

dripping down the lines and pooling

somewhere west of Stockholm, a blaze

of traffic over my shoulder and still

this glassy puddle underfoot, the blades

and engines writhing again at the river

and my pen, too now angry in the dense

rending noise. The chimneys stark

and blowing hate into the February sky

like a sheet draped across a still face.

The music I hear full of nothing. Lines

of it blown on the air clear as gas, no less

than a signature of sighs. Try to make sense

of it. These words suddenly a creeping

thing. They wait in the woods for more

like you. Their faces burnt in shame, flush

cheeks daubed in the only world we knew.

- Kristofer Collins

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY SIX

Last Glance

I watch the decay

of the promised land,

frail institutions

no longer protecting the people,

as the few consume

as if there’s no tomorrow,

hastening a poor tomorrow,

and I can only wonder

if someone watched

in ancient Rome

as the barbarian tide

engulfed the empire.

--Gary Beck

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY FIVE

Lower the Lifeboats

Write down who you are.

That was what we were told to do

so that in the future we would remember.

Write down what you value

your hopes for your children

Write a list of things you would never do

Because it’s possible in this new

bleak

landscape

that you will do them.

Know who you are. Know what you believe.

know how you fight and how you run.

And now, four years later,

aging and anxious

I pace the floorboards of my small apartment

picking up memories,

holding them like moths in my cupped hands

asking them if they are okay

Are we okay? Are we still okay?

I text people that I love just to tell them I love them

over and over again

as if that will make some difference

as if the flood waters outside

brackish and black

have not been rising for years now

as if they are not lapping against the walls

as if my hands alone could hold back the waves

or stop the bleeding

that pumps with each heartbeat

as if they could save even one precious life

as if we could ferry ourselves out of this darkness

find new land

lower the lifeboats

and sail away

--Ally Malinenko

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY FOUR

Johnstown Sleeps

Johnstown sleeps

under the giant beautiful ruins

of the machines of my Grandfather’s generation.

And on day they buried my Great Aunt Elanor

they tore my Grandfather’s favorite bar down

because Johnstown sleeps

under the weight of bad trade deals

and the even worse idea

the future belongs to coal.

Johnstown sleeps

under the haze of uncritical nostalgia

and evangelical theologies

preaching personal satisfaction

isn’t the nihilism of the soul,

because god’s chosen people

always live in the country.

And for every racist comment

on every race-baiting story

on WJAC’s Facebook page,

the guy who drives around

on MLK Day, with a noose

and a tribute to James Earl Ray

in the back of his pickup

enjoys a sense of belonging denied

to every young person with an idea,

whose daily lesson is they’ve got to get out.

Johnstown sleeps

in the memories of

my two-week summer vacations

at Grandma’s house,

since burned down by an arsonist,

and the greatness of all

this town’s lost humane architecture.

Because Johnstown sleeps.

Johnstown sleeps,

and it won’t wake up

because of every grandstanding politician

with an easy answer as to how to find the real problem

in Philadelphia, in Washington DC, at the border

and the primal need to be better than somebody, anybody.

Because when Johnstown sleeps

dreaming only of the fantasy of a perfect past

never of a pragmatic future,

Johnstown lies

forever in the restless sleep

of its pastoral nightmare.

                                                                 

  —Matthew Ussia

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY THREE

[got sugar in our veins or a dagger in our hearts]

and you will be lied to by those who

claim power as their birthright,

and by those who are elected

they will not let you choose in what manner

your blood is spilled

unless you choose suicide,

and so why live in silence in this nation of one-way streets?

why bow down to

false kings or their whores?

all castles will burn in the end

--John Sweet

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY TWO

We Meet Briefly, If At All

They are digging a new grave in the cemetery

as I round the corner on my walk, the machines clank and clatter

like ghosts shaking out their bones

It is a good reminder, I think

about where it all ends

in the end

and what we can do between now

and then.

The ghosts whisper from the edges,

peeking between gravestones

daring me to look back

but I am too superstitious

and I know that if I do

and if I am seen by their empty eyes

I cannot be unseen.

The sidewalk is empty

except for one thin girl

leaning against the light post waiting on the bus

and another man coming towards us.

He is ambling, headphones in his ears, seemingly calm.

The three of us are like meteors traveling through the night sky.

The only living things in New York about to come together 

and then depart for good

and I think it works that way.

We meet briefly, if at all.

But he stops near a discarded television set instead.

He considers it for a moment before with a scream,

he kicks it.

Hard.

Harder.

Again and again, the plastic exploding under his foot

is not enough and now he picks up the stand and lifts it over his head

slamming it again and again into the screen

which bends and breaks under the assault.

I freeze

press myself against the wrought iron bars of the cemetery

and beg the ghosts to take me with them,

take me down,

take me into the sky

take me anywhere but here

Take me away from this rage.

--Ally Malinenko

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY ONE

what you fear; what you fear more

but the age of death

is all you get

the paranoid king and his

inbred children and they’re good for a laugh,

                                                 sure,

but why waste your time with pity?

we all choose our own path to joy

we ignore the swarms of flies,

the stench of corpses

each city is built to be destroyed,

is destroyed to be rebuilt,

is rebuilt only to be destroyed again,

and at what point do you walk away?

how many years do you waste

waiting for the punchline?

and it’s never as funny as you’d hoped

once it’s been spelled out in the

blood of everyone you’ve

ever loved

--John Sweet

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWENTY

Ash

From the sidelines it seems even worse.

The infighting,

the harassment

the hashtags

#LyingLiz

#MayorCheat

#BernieBro

It’s all right there, allowing us to scramble

and tear at each other desperate to pick

not only the person that can beat him

but the one that we have championed

our own savior

our personal jesus

just like the way the other side sees the President.

The swollen bloated carcass of populism.

I take a step back and then another

and it comes into sharp terrifying focus

not only the possibility of four more years

four more years of violence

and racism

for more years of suppression and fear

and murder and war

and the choking desperate death of Earth,

Not just those four more years

but the four afterwards

the four years beyond

when Ivanka Trump

becomes the first woman president

and everything I ever believed turns to ash.

 --Ally Malinenko 

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and NINETEEN

The Great Cancellation
(For Mark Fisher)

The slow cancellation of the future
gets quicker every day,
because this is the time
when we learn to breathe new air,
or else this is when we die.

To understand things so clearly
in times like these
is a form of suicide.

Our lives are tests of collective,
desperate ingenuity.
We try to build
a more humane future
without a blueprint or compass,
yet this is what we must do.

Because I still believe
I can die
the contented death
reserved for those
who know they did their part
to secure the world
for those born in future.

Friends,
believe in a time when those of us who survived
the great cancellation
will think of him,
Wouldn’t he have been surprised
of the incredible lives we were still capable of making for ourselves?

--Matthew Ussia

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and EIGHTEEN

"An Open Letter to President Donald J. Trump Upon His Acquittal"

Dear Mr. President:

You were wrongly acquitted. You cannot know that, I think, because your addled mind cannot distinguish between your own interests and those of the Republic.

But you are not truly a victor. The adulation of your following is fervent now, but it will not last forever. The world's memory is long, and the books that you eschew will nevertheless labor to make you their detailed subject.

History will remember you as a dangerous, cruel and unabashed child -- unfit for office, heedless of counsel, loathe to lead, pernicious to freedom and bereft of ability. Your mark upon it will be bleak. Generations will look back dismally at how someone so feckless could assail, from within its highest office, the world's greatest Republic.

You are not truly a victor -- not even now, in these few, vainglorious years of your imagined triumph, as you exult dumbly with your frenzied defenders, before the inevitable judgement of time and its binding verdict. The laurels that you clutch at will dry in their impermanence; the ink upon the page will dry as well.

History will remember. You are a hungry opportunist, stalking the halls of a White House where you are always an interloper, because you are ever beneath its dignity -- like a drab vulture that drops lewdly to roost upon the Parthenon's marble. It may squat at the monument's apex -- and presume in its animal mind that its crude claws are worthy of the perch. But its bone and charcoal feather are alien to the timeless stone. It can never truly be of that place.

After the passage of bird's arch shadow, those columns will rise, tall and uncluttered, and the sun will find all of their white architecture.

History will remember. Posterity will know. The Republic will recover.

Sincerely,

Eric Robert Nolan

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and SEVENTEEN

TRAITORTOT

                                      photogrpahy by John Grochalski

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and SIXTEEN

                                                   
                                                animal id, American superhero

                                               Photography by Jason Baldinger

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and FIFTEEN

Acquittal

“…a finding of not guilty…” —Dictionary.com

“McConnell and his craven Republicans established a precedent in which the president of the United States can do almost anything without being held accountable.”— Carl Bernstein

One by one, rethuglican lackeys

talk from both sides of their mouths,

admit the mango moron committed the crime

but that laws and the constitution

no longer matter.

After a kangaroo court

with no evidence, witnesses,

members of the brainwashed collective

eagerly fall into line,

lick the boots of their mob boss,

keep the senile pretender in power.

American citizens seethe.

Despise miscarriage of justice,

they vow to defeat and replace

every red troll,

deny Putin his victory,

bring regime change in November.

 --Jennifer Lagier

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and FOURTEEN

FROM ONE BOOMER
“Politics is a vexation of the spirit.” – Doug Draime

It’s not a problem for me,
this old man is on board.
I’ll gladly step aside and
let you young folks take over –
I’ve grown tired of the fighting
and you couldn’t do any worse.

Looking back I can tell you that
those of us who could see what
was happening at the time
were helplessly outnumbered
by the greed and self-centered fear
of those standing on the sidelines.
The exploited, cultivated ignorance,
of the no-longer-silent majority.
Those who rose to power with the
Reagan Revolution, out of the
ashes of Nixon’s resignation and
unforgivable pardon, who defeated
our hope for a future of peace,
for a future of consciousness,
for the future of the earth itself.

We were overwhelmed by endless
waves of insatiable consumerism,
fast food, and increasingly complex,
addictive social media all intended
to spread the illusion of choice,
to keep us all contented and docile.
Any voice of reason which dared
to speak the truth was trivialized.
We were painted as crazy hippies
babbling out of a marijuana haze,
totally out of touch with reality.
When, instead, we were trying to
alert people to the reality denied by
the rich and powerful who hold the
means of production with the vast
expanse of media at their command.
These are the men who harvest the bounty
of the earth to the point of exhaustion,
every bit of it fed to them by the
labor of those they beguile,
those who cheered them on,
who still cheer them on –
cattle to the abattoir, wincing
from electric prods, but defending
their butchers all the way to the
chopping block and the chipper.

So go right ahead Millennials,
generations X & Z, dismiss
me if you must, but make sure
you have a plan in place. Show
us how it should have been done.
We’re waiting, listening, watching -
still ready to move into action
once you’ve figured out
how to topple the massive
Moloch of capitalism, moving,
unwavering, toward its
apotheosis in fascism.
It’s up to you to discover
what needs to happen
to stop all this madness,
to get solutions rolled out.
Hope, if it remains,
abides in you.
Do not let me or my kind
hold you back.

--M.J. Arcangelini

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and THIRTEEN

Escalation

tRump gets away
with his crimes
with the help

of the
Republicans
in the Senate

this man will
commit the
crime

again
a true sign
of recidivism

when he is
elected
again

he is
sure to
escalate

when he is backed
into a corner
he will do

something
desperate and
remember—he has

his finger on the
button of the
nukes

--Thomas R. Thomas

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TWELVE

The Military Quotes
of Donald J Trump
(with comments)

By John F McMullen


“I always felt that I was in the military" (he attended a military boarding school)
(I went to military boarding school and was in the Army and there is a BIG difference)

“I know more than the generals on ISIS”
(Too bizarre to comment on)

“He was captured. Does being captured make you a hero? I don’t know. I’m not sure.” (Speaking of John McCain)
(John McCain was an American Hero; Trump is not)

“'You're a bunch of dopes and babies. I wouldn't go to war with you people. You're all losers!” (Speaking to a room full of Generals and DOD top personnel)
(Bone Spur thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room – He’s not)

The service personnel had “headaches,” but he didn’t “consider them very serious injuries”. (speaking after Iran fired missiles into US Iraq base causing 50
brain injuries among personnel)

(Medical personnel and the VFW consider them ‘very serious injuries’).


It boggles my mind that
anyone can support him
no matter his record on
the stock market, taxes,
or anything else.

This man corrupts the American soul

Copyright John F McMullen 2020


Bio -- John F. McMullen, is a member of the American Academy of Poets and Poets & Writers, and the author of over 2,500 columns and articles and 10 books, 8 of which are collections of poetry. www.johnmac13.com.

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and ELEVEN

winter rain

while

the

millionaire

politicians

mock

climate

activists

online

i stand

huddled

under

winter

rain

watching

the

people

go

by

in

spring

jackets

carrying

umbrellas

looking

like

nothing

but

half

beaten

drums.

--John Grochalski

                      

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and TEN

Believe Me

“Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.”

--Professor William T. Kelley
Wharton School of Business and Finance,
University of Pennsylvania

Trump metamorphoses into a brain surgeon.
Godlike examines the eleven American soldiers

Airlifted to Kuwait and Germany
To receive treatment for traumatic brain injuries

After an Iranian missile attack.
Announces to the public

They only have "headaches and other things.”
As if by ESP or precognition,

Or perhaps a twist of his magic wandu,
He’s inside their skulls.

A faux neurosurgeon with a shitload
Of malpractice lawsuits against him,

He determines all they need
Is an all-purpose capsule.

Trump blatantly and openly lies,
Says in a National Press Conference

“We suffered no casualties,
All our soldiers are safe,

And only minimal damage
Was sustained at our military bases.”

Like a huckster, a hawker, a quack doctor
Selling fake medicine

To his “Believe Me” unquestioning base,
His fictitious prognosis is never questioned.


--Victor Henry

day ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED and NINE

Trickle, trickle down

(To the tune of “There is a balm in Gilead”)

Trickle, trickle down from Washington

Ye Tax Cuts for the Rich;

We’ve not seen a cent of cash-in-hand

from Trump and Moscow Mitch.

--Cheryl Caesar