day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and TWENTY TWO

Good Mourning America

President looks
like crap

again

Sleep deprived
after long night
rage tweeting

about sponsored
by former Republicans

Lincoln Project
TV Ad

correctly asserting
that America
is poorer

and sicker
that ever

asking can
we afford four
more years of
poverty

and death?

Pushing all
the right buttons

as if he
were a small
child’s toy

that makes noise
when you touch
the right place

--Alan Catlin

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and TWENTY ONE

we bought their gun
bought their badge
and sweetened the deal
with tacit approval
do what you must
but keep it
silent
and we’ll send
thoughts
and prayers
and say hollow words
that have no teeth
to cool
a nations
boiling rage
now
who will buy
a black man
voice
when his lungs
are dead
and full of earth

--Patrick Walters

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and TWENTY

the corporate american

workplace is changing

but

not because

of computers

or ai

but a pandemic

that has killed

hundreds of thousands

now the corporate masters understand

that they

don’t need you

trudging into the office every day

sitting in traffic

growing angry and old

to do

their bidding

for a stagnant paycheck

leave that horseshit

to the laborers and grocery clerks

they got you tethered to home now

scared shitless

working flexible hours

on call

at all hours

more emails

more meetings

your living space becomes your office

until you grow

to hate home too

the trade-off

is that you can work

in your jammies

or your favorite t-shirt

and

that you’re not

…dead

the corporate american

workplace is changing

you can wear your slippers

and breathe

all of the free air you want

because the monster

now lives

inside your home

the corporate american

workplace is changing

its growing

its adapting

but at the end

of the day

one thing

will

always

remain

the same

the corporate american workplace

still

gets

to

own

your

very

soul.

--John Grochalski

                                   

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETEEN

Back to School

In the newest episode of American carnage

students as young as four greet the new

school year in bullet-proof backpacks.

In the parking lot, they will be welcomed

by a gun pointed at their foreheads to see

if these newest draftees are not feverish,

Are able to go to battle, and are willing

to put their lives on the line for

the president’s endless war on science.

This is a war on multiple fronts where

The forgotten war rages, and a group

of perceived enemies sit in chain linked cells,

A small box among a matrix of small boxes

under a converted box store, which serves as

a prison.  Here, the children dream of being

Free, but they are nothing more than fodder,

brown faced enemy combatants, POWs,

forgotten in the shadows as they wait.

Parents, unbound by country and race,

pray so they might see their children

survive to adulthood.

Presiding over the chaos, sire to children

with three different women , the president

stands with evangelicals and evangelicals

With him.  Together they raise their eyes

to the heavens and give glory their savior

Jesus Christ, whom they imagine

is blue-eyed and blonde, to give

his blessing over them and to

Win the war for their pro-life agenda.

--Tom Lagasse

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and EIGHTEEN

COVID Dissonance

“Six-foot distance and wearing masks are pagan rituals of satanic worshippers,” said parent Heidi Anderson. “My kids are Christian they are not subject to wearing masks.”


As schools debate in-person classes,
the cognitively challenged rise up,
wave signs, guns and bibles
to protest protection.

Eager to sacrifice children and teachers,
they embrace crackpot conspiracy theories,
swarm into public meetings, rave at the podium,
spew hatred and misinformation.

Whipped to a frenzy
by Fox News and the White House,
the obliviously illiterate claim first amendment rights
as they spread violence and viral infections.

--Jennifer Lagier

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and SEVENTEEN

GEORGE FLOYD

                             Photography by John Grochalski

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and SIXTEEN

based on the false premise
that mail-in voting is
rife with voter fraud
and his fear that an
honest election will
defeat him in November
the Orange Menace
is refusing to sign
a coronavirus relief package
sacrificing millions of
Americans including his
deluded supporters
that includes funds
for mail-in voting
defying the constitution
which empowers Congress
"To establish Post Offices
and Post Roads".

We Need To
VOTE the
Bastard OUT!

--Thomas R. Thomas

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and FIFTEEN

What Does This Even Mean?

                                 photography by John Grochalski

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and FOURTEEN

"No Revolution..."

                     Photography By John Grochalski

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and THIRTEEN

Plans of the Texas Death Cult

The original plan
in Great State of Texas
was to do away
with all those
useless food
consumers

meaning: the old folks

Like me

Stated further,
“You should want to die
to save the economy.”

“You first,” we reply,
“Let us know how
it works out

Maybe we’ll catch
you later”

--Alan Catlin

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and TWELVE

Immigrant

I carry the delivery bag

and no one looks at me.

They ignore the delivery boy

and I can’t tell them

I’m a man, not a boy.

I hate my boss

who talks down to me,

because I’m an immigrant.

I hate the people who tip me

as much as those who don’t.

They are all the same,

despising me.

I try not to think of the old days

when I walked with Shining Path,

carried an AK-47...

No one laughed at me then.

Now I am a delivery boy

and must eat my pride.

--Gary Beck

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his published books include 26 poetry collections, 10 novels, 3 short story collections, 1 collection of essays and 1 collection of one-act plays. Published poetry books include:  Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines, Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings, The Remission of Order, Contusions and Desperate Seeker (Winter Goose Publishing. Forthcoming: Learning Curve and Ignition Point). Earth Links, Too Harsh For Pastels, Severance, Redemption Value and Fractional Disorder (Cyberwit Publishing). His novels include a series ‘Stand to Arms, Marines’: Call to Valor, Crumbling Ramparts and Raise High the Walls (Gnome on Pig Productions) and Extreme Change (Winter Goose Publishing). Wavelength will be published by Cyberwit Publishing. His short story collections include: A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other stories (Winter Goose Publishing) and Dogs Don’t Send Flowers and other stories (Wordcatcher Publishing). The Republic of Dreams and other essays (Gnome on Pig Productions). The Big Match and other one act plays (Wordcatcher Publishing). Collected Plays of Gary Beck Volume 1 (Cyberwit Publishing. Forthcoming: Plays of Aristophanes translated, then directed by Gary Beck). Gary lives in New York City.

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and ELEVEN

The Grizzlies of Midtown South Manhattan

Secretary of Education
DeVos defends Covid 45’s,

send the kids
back to school
proclamations,

in CNN Interview
with Dana Bash
who tries to ferret
out a plan for reopening
schools from glassy
eyed secretary

but fails
because there isn’t
one

Fails because
Secretary DeVos’
idea of higher ed. is
grammar school

Seems to think
if you repeat

“They have to go back”

a hundred times
it will sound like
a plan

but it doesn’t

Rep Alayssa Pressley
says she wouldn’t trust
DeVos to, “Take care of
a house plant let alone
my child.”

remembering, no doubt,
Betsy saying we need to arm
the teachers to protect against
the grizzlies

--Alan Catlin

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and TEN

Long Ago and Far Away


I tell my younger wife
in my Jungian daze
long ago before the moon was full
before pen pals
before pencil pals
in the goose quill days
we had to go out in dark of night
for black to grind
and trek to oughter water
to make liquid ink to write
on the cut down clarinet reeds
we slowly beat to pulp
and dried for paper and envelope
hoping the snail express came that year
to take our letter
and communication was soooooo slow
it took seven years to get an answer
from one who lived just down the street
but it was two miles uphill to their house
and three miles uphill back to ours
before the TV worked
this box that just sat there
next to the dinosaur egg
doing nothing
jack squat
and we said what is that box?
why do we have it?
so we had no commercials
no reality shows
no faux-haired orange-skinned men
who tried to grab pussies
with their hands so small
they couldn't clutch logic
so lied a lot
and whined in their cheesy suits
and we were happy


--Steven B. Smith

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINE

teenagers

the teenagers

don’t care

about a global pandemic

while the rest of us are packed

on a subway car with masks

trying not to suck in

each other’s poison breath

the teenagers

aren’t wearing masks

they’re shouting

they’re running around the train

singing and dancing and having a ball

one of them

is wearing a milwaukee braves hat

oh, what would henry aaron think?

the teenagers

are eating mcdonald’s

and throwing food

spreading their aerosols

all over the train car

they laugh and giggle

under signs about wearing a mask

they graffiti

the ones telling us to social distance

the teenagers

get in each other’s face and spit

because their life

is so dumb and ignorant

that it’s almost magical

the teenagers

don’t care about a global pandemic

they are all

id and ego

bulletproof and invincible

in need of constant

entertainment and fun

the teenagers

don’t care

about a global pandemic

or even if they end up

killing us all.

--John Grochalski

                                    

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and EIGHT

Reelection Rallies

like Comic Con conventions

President Covid 45 in
baggy, tailored,
doesn’t-fit-blue- suit
and too long red tie

when asked what his
Super Power is
replies,

He doesn’t have one

or a reelection plan either
let alone a pandemic plan,
an economic plan,
and education plan

What he doesn’t have
a chore list that just
keeps on growing

--Alan Catlin

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and SEVEN

Urban Sight

The creaky, old homeless woman,

ravaged by unmet demands

pulls her cart of broken dreams

as she trudges unkind streets

that do not welcome outcasts,

concrete without compassion

for relics of once normal lives.

--Gary Beck

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as anart dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his published books include 26 poetry collections, 10 novels, 3 short story collections, 1 collection of essays and 1 collection of one-act plays. Published poetry books include:  Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines, Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings, The Remission of Order, Contusions and Desperate Seeker (Winter Goose Publishing. Forthcoming: Learning Curve and Ignition Point). Earth Links, Too Harsh For Pastels, Severance, Redemption Value and Fractional Disorder (Cyberwit Publishing). His novels include a series ‘Stand to Arms, Marines’: Call to Valor, Crumbling Ramparts and Raise High the Walls (Gnome on Pig Productions) and Extreme Change (Winter Goose Publishing). Wavelength will be published by Cyberwit Publishing. His short story collections include: A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other stories (Winter Goose Publishing) and Dogs Don’t Send Flowers and other stories (Wordcatcher Publishing). The Republic of Dreams and other essays (Gnome on Pig Productions). The Big Match and other one act plays (Wordcatcher Publishing). Collected Plays of Gary Beck Volume 1 (Cyberwit Publishing. Forthcoming: Plays of Aristophanes translated, then directed by Gary Beck). Gary lives in New York City.

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and SIX

In the Temple of the Echo

In the Temple of the Echo
in the moment of the mind
in the error of the airwaves
in the arrows of the kind
lies a hurting healing
taking pleasure from the tried
to forgotten shadows
on the ladders of the blind

Oh take me to your leader
to the maker of this slime
and at their feet I’ll wallow
worshiping the awful
waste their shallow taste
brings life’s kine
Sheep sadly settled
graze government gray
cheap and badly saddled
approved payments pay
in first born chattel
less than cattle
while TV mentals
televise mime
breaking elemental
rights of mine
mind to mind

Hey in there . . .
anybody home?

--Steven B. Smith

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and FIVE

I WILL NOT BE SILENT

                                   Photography By Jennifer Lagier

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and FOUR

BLACK LIVES MATTER NO. 2

     Photography By John Grochalski

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and THREE

Covid Killer

says, “Open All
the Schools”

When asked what
the plan is
he replies,

“The schools must
reopen”

Appears to be
the same plan
just as reopening
the economy was,
“Just do it”

Stick with what
works

Everyone knows
how well structured
that plan was

--Alan Catlin

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and TWO

Unfair

A child asked me:

“Why do some people have so much

and some so little?”

I searched for words of comfort,

but found none.

I considered explanations,

greed, capitalism,

inherited wealth,

but they wouldn’t mean anything

to a child.

The best I could manage,

“It’s always been that way,”

brought a cry of despair:

“It’s not fair!”

In an anguished voice

at the shock of inequality,

in a woeful lament

that redress of grievances

would not be answered.

--Gary Beck

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and his published books include 26 poetry collections, 10 novels, 3 short story collections, 1 collection of essays and 1 collection of one-act plays. Published poetry books include:  Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays, Perceptions, Fault Lines, Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings, The Remission of Order, Contusions and Desperate Seeker (Winter Goose Publishing. Forthcoming: Learning Curve and Ignition Point). Earth Links, Too Harsh For Pastels, Severance, Redemption Value and Fractional Disorder (Cyberwit Publishing). His novels include a series ‘Stand to Arms, Marines’: Call to Valor, Crumbling Ramparts and Raise High the Walls (Gnome on Pig Productions) and Extreme Change (Winter Goose Publishing). Wavelength will be published by Cyberwit Publishing. His short story collections include: A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other stories (Winter Goose Publishing) and Dogs Don’t Send Flowers and other stories (Wordcatcher Publishing). The Republic of Dreams and other essays (Gnome on Pig Productions). The Big Match and other one act plays (Wordcatcher Publishing). Collected Plays of Gary Beck Volume 1 (Cyberwit Publishing. Forthcoming: Plays of Aristophanes translated, then directed by Gary Beck). Gary lives in New York City.

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and ONE

I CEASE TO ASK WHAT INFORMS AMERICAN SOCIETY

“There's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first.”   Margaret Thatcher         

I cease to ask what informs American society.

Why?

Reagan and Thatcher wanted an absence

Of society,

Wanted only a collection of individuals

Seeking their own economic self-interest.

Their wishes have been realized and

What it has produced is a failed state.

It is painfully clear there is nothing

United about the United States.

It is a failed society, a failed culture,

An anti-society,

An anti-culture.

What is a failed state?

A failed state is when a government

Cannot provide basic services to its own people.

It is a failed state when it cannot provide healthcare

For everyone during a pandemic.

It is a failed state when it cannot provide jobs

During a pandemic.

It is a failed state when it cannot provide

Housing during a pandemic.

It is a failed state when it cannot provide

Debt relief during a pandemic.

It is a failed state when it cannot provide

Education during a pandemic.

It is a failed state when it cannot provide

For its working class during a pandemic.

It is a failed state

When the US Department of Labor’s

July jobless claims

Reach 47.2 million.

It is a failed state

When the Trump administration

Has known about the coronavirus

Since December 31, 2019

But did nothing until January 29,

When the White House

Announced in a memo  

Herr Trumpf’s Coronavirus Task Force.

Now six months later,

The current death toll over 160,000,

Trump’s response “It is as it is.”

Sinclair Lewis was right. It can happen here.  

--Victor Henry

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED

TRUMP = DISEASE

                    photography by John Grochalski

day TWELVE HUNDRED and NINETY NINE

I’m For Falling

Whining want weeps
Its winning way
From fool tool TV
Via too much tit
And botoxed brain
Showing shallow twits
In xeroxed pain
Damn little give
Whole lotta take
Turning from sun
To burning lake

I’m for falling
Falling down
Falling through air
Calling cloud
Free from err
Free from want
From wanting more
Free of lust
Of money whore
Free to trust
The ever more

--Steven B. Smith

day TWELVE HUNDRED and NINETY EIGHT

CLEANSING

I stand in the open doorway
waiting for the rain,
the innocent rain
as all of nature, save us.

The town is silent now
wrapped in its night clothes,
but today people flounced past barefaced
much too closely.

As in classic Greek epics
they will not let us
bury our dead.

What does the moon mean to them
do they even notice,
or Venus the star of rendezvous.

We wait for rain,
yet the old superstitions
no longer sustain.

--Ray Greenblatt

day TWELVE HUNDRED and NINETY SEVEN

spanky
mcshroomdick
wristed a tug
pornsurfing shoes
unfillable
his gonad shots
on jesus rocks
a cocktale
disenable
thirsty for mores
they’d show up
in scores
to prove
adoration
despicable

--Patrick Walters

day TWELVE HUNDRED and NINETY SIX

BLACK LIVES MATTER

          Photography by John Grochalski

day TWELVE HUNDRED and NINETY FIVE

welcome to the insurrection

take out the silver bullets boys
you’re up against a wall
it’s a wall of mothers
they’re here to put you down
time to tighten your diapers
time to pick up your guns
these women are coming
you have no place to hide

their names all are Mary
they whisper words of wisdom
your ears are muffled
you cannot hear them
in the end you cannot win
so go down in glory
wrapped in the flag
your bodies will be trampled
your lesson will remain
fascists cannot stand
against a wall of moms

--Tom Blessing

day TWELVE HUNDRED and NINETY FOUR

Just in Case

After brainstorming
my will on old union dues
and broken pension statements

I begin writing my budget
trying to crunch these numbers
for my new life insurance policy.

I bought it this morning at 32
for when I go back teaching this fall
just in case my wife of seven months
loses me for the sake of Wall Street.

I just have to put down a little less
on my student loan payments
and the interest that continues
to cripple me from buying
a house or starting a family.

I just have to put down a little less
for my medical care and hope
the generic medications I’m given
will keep my family’s history
of heart disease and deflated lungs at bay.

I just have to put down a little less
for the food in my grocery cart
so I can buy school supplies
for my students and keep my landlord
from shutting off my lights.

If I can just crunch these numbers
and put down a little less
maybe I’ll forget this price
I’ll ultimately have to pay.

--Cord Moreski


Cord Moreski is a poet from New Jersey. His work has been featured in As It Ought To Be Magazine, Alien Buddha Press, Silver Birch Press, Eunoia Review, The Rusty Truck Press, and several other publications. He is currently working on a new project for late 2020. You can follow Cord here: https://www.cordmoreski.com

day TWELVE HUNDRED and NINETY THREE

100 Days and Counting

The agent of change is wrapped

in a neat package of one hundred-

day increments like fabric softener

or college-ruled paper. 

It is the marketer’s promise,

the salesman’s ploy that a new

habit can be established as easy as

one, two, three months and change. 

While Americans wait, partially sheltered,         

partially masked, entirely grateful

each day we do not wake

with a dry cough or fever

we can return from exile, improve

ourselves with 100 days of

 3D design

Eating real food

Professional Learning

Walking 100 Miles

 Reading

Poetry

&

fonts

In the next 100 days, our wartime

president, who is losing his battle

with an out of control virus

and cowers at addressing

the Russians’ bounty on our soldiers,

will not take one step towards self-

improvement or self-awareness.  His time

overwhelmed with puke tweeting,

watching Fox News and waging war

on his own people whom he promised

to protect, but most hold to his

heart, like the American flag he claims

to covet, that more citizens have died

than in nearly all the casualties

in every   American War  —

Combined.  

He trusts his genius,

repeat after me person, man, woman

(pause as he thinks of Stormy Daniels),

camera, television. . . Person, man

woman (pause as he thinks of Stormy

Daniels), camera, television. 

His eyes get sleepy from his tired

hypnotic mantra.  Person, man, woman

(I’m afraid of AOC), camera, television. . .

Earned extra credit for circling an elephant

his lackeys ‘yes, sir’ him into fitness,

he longs to re-convince Wonder

bread white-bred America, who pine for

The black and white world of Leave It

to Beaver and Daddy Knows

Best, the world will be more

menacing, more dangerous in full color.

As a confederate general he will conscript

our youngest soldiers to the front

lines to prove everything Is ABC, 123 

And winks, “I need you to do me

A favor” go to school.

With crystal ball clairvoyance, imagine

a Labor Day truce will be declared. 

Workers will celebrate their good fortune

to stock grocery shelves, process the carcasses

of cows, pick strawberries, and clean

vacant office buildings, while wondering

which day the pandemic arrives at their doors

or lament with the other 20% labor-less people

while doling out hamburgers and fruit salad

In the far reaches of this land, Keeping

socially distant, the mask-less

president takes an 18 hole victory lap. 

Three days from the election

will not be the masked

distraction of Halloween.

Postponed until 2021, at least.

The only tricks will surely

be in an October surprise

brought to us by - Russia?

China?  Ukraine?  Any other

world actor the president has

promised a quid pro quo?

Until November 3 arrives

the fog of these years like

the tear gas in Portland

or Lafayette Square may

start to clear and our imperfect

20/20 vision cleared.  Our nation,

having witnessed white fragility

and government institutions 

apparently as delicate as fine china,

might finally be broken free

to address our unadorned in plain

sight history that has been cloaked in myth.

100 unpardonable days. 

Herbert Hoover lifts his glass.

The weight of historic failure shifts.

--Tom Lagasse