day TWELVE HUNDRED and NINETY ONE

Erase the name
let the bridge be John Lewis
from now on

---Thomas R. Thomas

day TWELVE HUNDRED and NINETY

in the name of god
they’ll take it all
for their enjoyment
your rights
your blood
your peace of mind
them bastard GOPers
wearing nazi boots
and slavery’s colors
they bring bazooka
to the daisy show
to prove
a collective lack of penis
don’t take what’s mine
but ill have what’s yours
in singleminded ignorance
they cherry pick
them parchment words
but cannot spell
allegiance
don’t be selfish
just like them
give’m both
your left and right
middle finger

--Patrick Walters

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHTY NINE

Too Much and Never Enough

Covid 45’s family
lore reveals

young Donald
acting up
at dinner table

earning a
mashed potato
bowl dousing
from older
brother Fred
a person perceived
as inferior by
young Donald

To be made the object
of derision
still a sore point
66 years later

Still reacts to
criticism with
defensive posture:

hunched shoulders,
crossed, clenched arms,
hurt child scowl,

All too familiar to us
who have seen
way too much of
his face

--Alan Catlin

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHTY EIGHT

THE STREETS OF PORTLAND

Secret federal agents strike out

From the shadowed edges of

Portland’s streets and people are

Hustled into unmarked vans

When the DOJ and DHS take

Over the cities of Amerika.

Nixon drooling from the grave

As protesters are disappeared

Like it used to be in Chile

Like it was in Argentina

Like it is in Russia and China

So efficient without witnesses.

But now everyone is a witness,

Everyone films everything

And sends it out to the world.

So we see those who would

Prefer to remain unseen, the

Deeds gas masks try to hide.

Each night more people in the

Streets, linked-arm lines of mothers

And fathers with leaf blowers to

Scatter teargas into nights held

Hostage by the inadequacies of

One man thousands of miles away.

One man possessed with hate and

Fear, who feels his fragile empire

Collapsing beneath him but who

Wants to be Putin, Kim Jong-un,

A whole military junta by himself.

Even Nixon knew when to quit.

--M.J. Arcangelini

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHT SEVEN

THE SENATE KILLS A BIPARTISAN BILL TO END THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

“Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace”

          American historian Charles A. Beard

Following the NY Times’s recent June 26^th article

About Russians paying the Taliban bounties

To kill American soldiers in Afghanistan,

A cloaked propaganda hit piece aimed at Comrade Trump

For wanting to bring the troops home by election day,

Citing no sources and no evidence,

The House and the Senate

With bipartisan support,

Without a whisper of public debate,

Kills legislation to end the war

In Afghanistan,

Extending the 19-year war

Into a never-ending war.  

Congressional Senate members,

Sensory neurons misfiring in their primate brains,

Suffering memory loss,

Their bicameral chambers cleaned and erased,

Forget as if they had ever remembered

Reading the Washington Post’s December 9^th, 2019 edition,

The Afghanistan Papers: The Secret History of the War,

Claiming the war unwinnable with no exit strategy.  

The Senate, immersed in power,

Their eyes on the prize,

Recognizes a deal

They can exploit,

Gifts the corporate defense industry,

Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing,

With access to more tax-free profits,

Keeping the Imperial weapons machine humming.

Why pull out of Afghanistan now

And bring the troops home,

Saving the American taxpayer

Trillions of dollars

That can be spent

On our crumbling infrastructure

And federal safety net programs

For the middle class and poor

When Afghanistan, rich in resources

Like lithium, copper, cobalt, and gold,

Has never been fully exploited

Because of decades of discord and violent chaos?

Senate legislators, patriotic collaborators,

Funnel profits into the coffers of big corporations,

Persuading American consumers

To buy the next smart phone or laptop.

Now in its new role in the forever war

The US military, paid mercenaries,

Stand guard for the corporate elite,

Promote a hard sell

It is their right to strip the ground

And mine three trillion dollars

Worth of minerals.

--Victor Henry

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHTY SIX

Doubled down

Trump voters

will vote

for him, again


four years of

nightmare

I’d like to

wake

up, please

--Sarah Worrel

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHTY FIVE

ON THE PHONE

We talk on the phone.

Email is only the written word.

We want to hear our friend’s

intonation, emphases, stutterings,

uncertainties, passion . . .

We discuss going crazy in

our regal isolation,

how we fill the time grown ageless,

if any friends have become ill . . .

When will we actually touch!

Yet, after a while

we realize that

a voice on the phone

words in an email

even Zoom

could all arrive after death.

--Ray Greenblatt

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHTY FOUR

you don’t

you don’t wear a mask

just over your mouth

or resting on your chin

you don’t wear a mask

in the palm of your hand

or dangling on your diseased fingers

you wear a mask

over your nose

over your mouth

out in public

and in stores

so stop being an asshole

wear your mask

wash your hands

and you stay six feet the fuck

away from me.

--John Grochalski

                                              

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHTY THREE

Island of Lost Souls

Rule sez publish or perish
but rubbish more fairish
considering the shift we're in

We done stepped in it
and steeped in fact
the toxins are costin'
our am and our ain't

Poison in air
and water and earth
from our continuous body squirt
and it's too late to change
cuz we're swishin' down life's drain

Most of us anyway
but as flesh dies the adept adapt

Like cockroaches
we learn to live in dark
run the cracks
eat the crumbs
swim in pus of us

I am mutant

and in these cockroach times
I will survive

Hear me hiss

--Steven B. Smith

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHTY TWO

trumps hoard of stooges
dunce cap afflictionados
wear hats eating paste

--Patrick Walters

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHTY ONE

BE SAFE!

                         photography by John Grochalski

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHTY

ANTICIPATING THE SEASON

Enjoy open windows

filled with warm air,

aromas of flowers and cooking

a giggle or even boisterous belch,

sunshine softly highlighting

the world around you—

the simplest things,

for soon we all

will be put again into our cubicles

to be tested

to be squeezed

to tremble that fate

will touch us with a last blanched finger.

--Rat Greenblatt 

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY NINE

mister america during covid-19

mister america

sits on his porch

basking in the burning sun

playing his hate radio

and coughing out the virus

calling it all a government hoax

as people walk by him

up and down the street

in masks

paying with their lives

for his ignorance

and freedom.

--John Grochalski

                      

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY EIGHT

Grim and Bear It

You never know
when your words are done
do you

Over there they're everywhere
here they're never near
and often unclear

All is... simply isn't
and isn't isn't enough to know
the highs and lows

Seems we're riding a rust pus bucket
through decayed industrial park
in increasing dark

Wail and weep of tears
sweat fear
sweep years

You wanna play now
plot later?
That train ain't got no station

--Steven B. Smith

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY SEVEN

the great american pandemic poem

sitting here

trying to write

about the great american pandemic poem

but where to start?

government apathey and maleficence

the gop death cult

or simply death itself?

138 thousand of us gone

at the time of this writing

the most in the world

and i think i finally understand

what american exceptionalism is all about

truth be told

i don’t want to be writing

the great american pandemic poem

i want to be at a ballgame or a bar

or pissing away my free time

in a bookstore or at a movie

you know…the shit we all used to do

i want to be in paris or berlin

watching deer roam on the island of miyajima

this poem isn’t even that great

all i’ve done in it

is throw out some statistics and bitch

name drop some places scattered all over the world

and all i’m going to do

for the rest of this poem

is feel bad for myself

write about how dumb and selfish

americans are

what a worthless piece of shit donald trump is

while i call him a bunch of names

then let the poem peter out

like most of my other poems

have a tendency to do

because ending a poem is hard

i’d rather be writing about

some lunatic at my job

that dog that won’t stop barking

or that car alarm that won’t shut off

that woman who smokes

in front of my living room window

instead of anywhere else

in the entire universe

but all i notice

is that the dog owner and the smoker

aren’t wearing their masks

and i don’t really

miss my job at all

i miss the triviality in a line, though

i hate contemplating my mortality

the complex and profound

i’m true red, white and blue in that way

and i hate this pandemic

i hate its stupid name

and number

i hate that there are 138 thousand of us gone

that our ignorant

rapist, racist misogynistic

kremlin owned

baby-dicked president

only cares about the stock market

and his own inflated vanity

while dead bodies sit in cooling vans

i hate that americans

are too selfish or pig ignorant

to put on a mask

or consider somebody else

if only for a moment, a few days,

or a few weeks

i hate that getting your haircut

seeing some super hero movie

and going to disney

are all more important

than whether or not your neighbor dies

or spends the rest of their life

with a fucked-up lung

i’ve grown to hate a lot of things these days

like trying

to write

a poem

about a pandemic

the great american pandemic

the greatest, most beautiful american pandemic

that pandemicing has ever seen

the kind of pandemic

that we should drape in the american flag

finally claim it

call it

our own.           

--John Grochalski                                                          

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY SIX

Most Days

at 8 am
I take off my work boots,
lay on my bed and stare
at the smoke stains
left by my grandfather’s
cigarettes on the ceiling.

I take a deep breath.

The shift always ends,
how beautiful that
the sun will set too
and I alongside it
will be no more

--Damian Rucci

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY FIVE

                       photography by John Grochalski

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY FOUR

Super Spreader: in a Time of Coronavirus 

Holds indoor rallies
no one wants to attend
except the loyalists
whose idea of world
affairs is shaped
by Reality TV or
the young, the foolish
and the impressionable
who fear nothing
especially not the obvious
or the inevitable.
Believe hype and lies
they hear and see
from the man who
plays president on TV.
Who is, in fact,
a super spreader,
The Covid Don,
worse than Typhoid
Mary and ten times
as dangerous.
Who only hears the melody
to Talking Heads remake
of old song revised as
Covid Killer.
Who ignores the rude
and nasty words he doesn’t
like. Thinks Super,
when applied to him, 

is a compliment.
Applauds his own
ignorance, his nomask
face frozen in half-assed,
cocky grin. Thinks Blue
Oyster Cult is a new group
of loyal New Yorkers
singing his praise.
Asks not for whom
the bells toll.

--Alan Catlin

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY THREE

Covid Glimpses

Plagued by virus fears
Driven by scarce resources
Workers never stop

Construction cranes turn
Skyscrapers adding stories
Rising with the dawn

She sews masks and gowns
To aid nurses and doctors
Helpers in peril

Home meal delivery
For vulnerable elders
Contactless giving

Driving at midnight
Speeding down rainy highways
Longing to go home

Ambulance siren
Outshouted by house parties
Whistling past graveyards

No graveside meetings
Follow online funerals
Virtual candles

Arriving at last
Patient needs intubation
But waits for a room

No time to delay
As more rescue calls come in
E M Ts must go

Another shift ends
Some patients have been rescued
Some didn’t make it

Searching for a cure
Years ahead, needed in hours
Distant horizon

--Maria DePaul

Maria DePaul is a Washington, DC-based writer, whose poetry has been featured in many publications, most recently Haiku Journal, Illumen, Plum Tree Tavern, Scifaikuest, and Wax Poetry and Art.

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY TWO

Tempus Fuckit

Bit of a dust-up
what with the brownshirts
browning their noses
and the goosesteppers stepping on

So I do my do
be my be
you fool you
I fake me

It's the bone woe
the flesh fear
the liquid pain weep of tear
from yessir gaze ago

Hard rain falling
clock ticking time

--Steven B. Smith

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY ONE

THESE DAYS

I should be hooked up to a Xanex IV
with a thought eraser to rub out
all that feeds the escalating fear.
I need selective input to filter out
the unstoppable flood of fascism
sweeping through the capitol, through
what feels like the entire country.

The Post Office is collapsing and
I should have a telemetry unit to
constantly monitor my vital signs.
Allergies mimic symptoms with
anxiety filling in any gaps while
I talk myself into and back out of
having the virus a dozen times a day.

--M.J. Arcangelini

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY

Listening to Ravel’s Bolero While Reading The New York Times Article “Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says”:

Propaganda for What Passes as Trustworthy Journalism

American intelligence officials have concluded

According to officials briefed on the matter

The United States concluded months ago

Islamist militants, or criminal elements…are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said.

Officials developed a menu of potential options

American and Afghan officials have said

Spokespeople at the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the State Department and the C.I.A. declined to comment

The officials familiar with the intelligence did not explain

The intelligence assessment is said to be based at least in part on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity

The officials did not describe the mechanics of the Russian operation

It is not clear whether Russian operatives had deployed inside Afghanistan or met with their Taliban counterparts elsewhere

Although officials collected the intelligence earlier in the year

Both American and Afghan officials have previously accused Russia

While officials were said to be confident about the intelligence

Some officials have theorized

The officials briefed on the matter said

Western intelligence officials say

American intelligence officials say

American officials say

…officials briefed on its operations say

Taliban officials have traveled to Moscow for peace talks

This disclosure comes at a time when

--Victor Henry

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SIXTY NINE

Mass Delusion

Instead of wearing a mask

practicing social distancing,

Mango Mussolini insists

on conducting Nuremberg Rallies.

Red-hatted acolytes crowd together,

scoff at science, statistical evidence,

spread viral infection,

fuel ongoing pandemic.

Sceptics quote discredited physicians,

frame caution as cowardice,

refer to those who follow CDC guidelines

as simpleton sheeple.

They pack the beaches,

converge on tourist towns,

return to bars, tattoo parlors,

gather in churches.

Infection rates skyrocket.

Body counts burgeon.

If this is a cosmic IQ test,

our country is failing.

--Jennifer Lagier

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SIXTY EIGHT

President Dunning-Kruger

When he pardons the guilty
air-kisses the despots
circles Southern states in black
spells wiretap with two p's
slings insults instead of solutions
and treads hard across a tender ground—
don't worry, it's nothing,
just the Dunning-Kruger effect.

When he tells his generals
he knows more about war
when he tells his cabinet
he knows more about the world
when he tells the boiling globe
the sick and dying, the ventilated
the crowds without masks
he knows more about everything
than anyone else alive
hey, no worries—
it's the Dunning-Kruger effect.

When the incompetent
cannot recognize
their own incompetence,
and inflate their intelligence
ignorant of their ignorance

when the skills to identify
what's lacking

are lacking

remember, it's okay—

it's just the end
of the democracy
the rest of us
understand.

--Mickey Corrigan

NOTE: The Dunning-Kruger effect occurs in those with substantial deficits in knowledge or expertise who also lack the ability to recognize these deficits. Thus, despite potentially making error after error, these individuals think they are performing competently when they are so obviously not.

BIO:

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Novels include Project XX about a school shooting (Salt Publishing, UK, 2017) and What I Did for Love, a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, 2019). Kelsay Books recently published the poetry chapbook the disappearing self. Poems have appeared in many literary journals, online and in print.

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SIXTY SEVEN

SURREALISM

These days we live in a jungle

where natives dance in the sand

the band not missing a beat,

strings of light sway in

a deceptively warm breeze,

unmasked faces grinning

cluster round the Tiki bar,

as a cobra is

about to plunge from

a viny canopy—

in the kitchen of our life

you’ll be telling me

Hitler was just misunderstood.

--Ray Greenblatt

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SIXTY SIX

“America is so fucked right now” grandson posts on Facebook

Chicago Spring 1968

news headline: “Martin Luther King has been shot”

rolled police cars, smashed buildings, shattered glass, smoke

rage-filled youths stone police

police batons swing through the crowd batter heads, legs, backs

white clouds of tear gas mingle with black smoke from burning store fronts

TV news

“what did you expect dad? he was a great man”

red faced father, eyes bulging, cheeks flaring

kicks open the bathroom door

pain explodes, red blood spurts on white tiled wall

shakes, slaps, kicks, furious pounding

mother views the slaughter: “stop it! stop it! stop it!”


too late…too late Mum...


she suffered the consequences …as did I

of South Side

white working-class

Catholic upbringing

anger, shame, humiliation

fear of other…

impoverished black people…

the fucking dysfunctional dissonance

of post war America


yes

it would not be for the first time my grandson....


--Peter Bauman

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SIXTY FIVE

NON ESSENTIAL CONSUMER

                                  photography by John Grochalski

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SIXTY FOUR

130K

one hundred

and thirty thousand

dead

and the babydick-tator

is worried

about statues

and monuments

to rapists

to slave owners

to misogynistic warlords

to small men

with big egos

like his

he’s a walking

virus himself

an american cancer

with blood

on his hands

etched into

the mt. rushmore of villainy

a kleptocratic cartoon

a good dog

a good dog

nothing but a traitorous mutt

holding the kremlin’s jock strap

in his mouth

while the infected

and the damned

stagger off to the hospital

and the suffering

starts to rise.   

--John Grochalski                                

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SIXTY THREE

My Pledge of Loyalty

I love you in spite of your bloodied hands.
I love you in spite of your bloat and pomp.
I love you when you come back to haunt me.

I love your lying mouth.
I love your sharp fingers
that poke through the bars
of the cage you keep me in.

I love you when your whip is long.
I love you when your whip is short.
I love you when the whip has razors in it.

I love you when you brutalize
them, not me.
If this means what I think it means
I love it.

I love the way you equal opportunity hate.
I even love you when you hate on me,
it feels so much
like love.

I want you
to keep loving me
without your mask,
just your emotionless face
staring, uncaring
the way all good despots
love their people.


--Mickey Corrigan

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Novels include Project XX about a school shooting (Salt Publishing, UK, 2017) and What I Did for Love, a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, 2019). Kelsay Books recently published the poetry chapbook the disappearing self. Poems have appeared in many literary journals, online and in print.

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SIXTY TWO

if black or brown
or native skinned
your only right
is to remain silent
but lucky enough
to be white
and ignorant
and wear a red cap
while your sheets and hoods
are cleaned and pressed
you’ll go far
in your pick-up trucks
to fine public places
for fine public people
perhaps even
the capitol
where others
like you
gather
in agitated circles
to semi-automatically
masturbate

--Patrick Walters

dayTWELVE HUNDRED and SIXTY ONE

Walled In

He assembled his bogeyman made

from the bones of huddled masses

yearning to be free from violence

and poverty. 

The heart was molded from Muslims

longing to see their families.  He caged

the human spirit and promised carnage

on the streets for those who disobey.

The fearful, aggrieved crowd cheered the taming

of this brown monster of their own making as he

fed them red meat like jailing his enemies

and conjuring conspiracies to explain what

Lay in plain sight. When we needed to

wall ourselves in to save our own and our citizens’

health, he encouraged the nation to remain open,

to flow freely like blood spilled on the sidewalks

He sought with his version of law

and order.  Contrary to science, contrary

to expertise, he chose to be blind to what

the rest of the world could see.  The virus

Spread like a red-hot summer heatwave.

The underlying epidemic, which has been

circulating in the United States for

four hundred years also spiked. 

Our president lacks the strength to bend

the curve as though he were confused

these rising numbers represent our stock

market and not how sick we are.

Once the door to the free world of liberal

democracies swung both open and shut.

Now it is locked on both sides.  We are

Stuck in our living rooms alone

And forced to look at our hideousness

borne from the pathogen, like so many

that killed that indigenous of this country

when the first colonizers arrived.  

Until we regain some modicum of health,

until we practice social distancing from

our plantation mindset and until

we stamp one exit visa in November

will a vaccine be possible.

--Tom Lagasse