day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and THIRTEEN

Archaeological Bells

They’ve buried the dreams underground, I think.
We don’t seem to have them anymore, the dreams.
So I think it must be that someone disposed of them,
did away with them—maybe put them underground.

When we dig for the world that others left behind,
we find jewelry or tools—we sometimes find bells.
The bells no longer ring or make any kind of noise.
Perhaps they’ve been buried underground too long.
Like our dreams or visions. The other lives we live.

--Scott Silsbe

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and TWELVE

From a Brooklyn Window in TrumpLand

 

                          photography by John Grochalski

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and ELEVEN

"Would You Come Into My Parler?"

"Would you come into my Parler?" said The Spider to The Fly.
"There's news for real Americans -- the MAGA girls and guys!
The way into my Parler is up a winding stair.
If you have a brain or conscience, just leave them out there.”

“Oh yes, yes,” said the little Fly, “a place to bash and blame
those party-pooping liberals who fact-check all my claims!”

--Eric Robert Nolan

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and TEN

Basic urges

My calico cat cannot wait to be served. She thrusts her head under the spoon. Today she got a strand of tuna on her head. Her ear twitched, but her mouth kept eating. Vanity and greed struggled in her. As they do in Donald Trump. But cuter in the cat.

--Cheryl L. Caesar

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and NINE

The Mask Goes Over Your Nose

                       photography by John Grochalski
 

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and EIGHT

Stolen

Maybe it has finally hit home as power clenches

its fist as it attempts to deny and to crush the majority

To dust. The president does not use the term “stolen”
as a euphemism, where he was beaten by an upstart

Who captured the imagination of a people and surprised
the political world. No. This is a bully taking a bike or

Milk money during school hours and when caught he
demands the victims prove otherwise. Stolen, the way

Petty criminals roam neighborhoods late at night searching for
an easy opportunity like unlocked cars to ransack for coins

Or guns - things people are too lazy to take inside. Stolen
by breaking an oath to uphold his sworn duty, a long-

Standing agreement between the government and its people.
The broken promises of this country are stitched into our DNA

And the spilled blood absorbed into the soil. Do not be fooled
what the president wants to take has been taken before. The ghosts

Of the betrayed rise from their graves. Our common shared
ancestor is an enemy that has eaten all the low-hanging fruit,

Yet still hungers for more. Agreements drawn and re-drawn
like gerrymandered districts cut and pasted to form a wall.

The voices of a choked history tried to warn us. Their warnings
echo through the South, the Black Hills and Wallowa Valley - a roll

Call of the displaced from sea to shining sea. They've told us: to thieves
honor is for the weak, blood inconsequential, and power is their gold.

--Tom Lagasse

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and SEVEN

These days

When Monday
is a
trash can
fire and
the moon
hangs itself
before Dawn

when all
the dogs
bark at
once and
all the
clocks steal
an hour
right in
front of you

when morning
is a
pocket full
of nothing
and even
a hot
bath is
just a
place to
drown

I guess
you grab
your face
mask like
a parachute
and step
through your
front door
like the
opening of
a plane

crossing yourself
twice as
you step
out into
open sky.

--Matt Borczon

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and SIX

A Note from Kristin Naca Tucked in an Old Copy of The Branch Will Not Break


I know right where it is—in which room, on which bookcase
and on which shelf of that bookcase. And that isn’t always
how it goes. Sometimes I’ll scramble for hours in my place
looking for a book, a record, or some small scrap of paper.

It’s a first edition, ex-library, no dust jacket. And I believe
my mother got it for me at John King in Downtown Detroit.

The bookplate on the front pastedown indicates that it was
withdrawn from Marygrove College. The “Due Date” label
on to the rear flyleaf shows the last check out was in 1988.

I wonder now, in 2020, who decided to withdraw this book
from the library back in the late 80s or early 90s, decided it
to be a volume the library did not need on hand any longer.

Tucked in at “Lying in a Hammock…”—and of course at
that poem—is Naca’s short, handwritten note, scrawled in
her neat cursive on the back of a scrapped photocopy from
a book entitled Transcendental Wordplay. Her note reads:

“S.S.—The one day you’re not around! ♥ KNaca”

The note now must be over 15 years old—closing in on 20.
It’s just a little thing. A scrap of paper. A bookmark now.

But I love how it can remind me of those days years ago.
The days and nights. Those memories. Of times far gone
and away. Not to say that they were the best times ever.
Just different. Just not now. Vivid images I can conjure—
riding on the back of Naca’s motorcycle on Fifth Avenue,
or at a small party in some apartment dancing with Emily.
Or maybe at Brandon’s place with Bruce Lee looking on
as Brandon did his impression of all four guys from U2.

Time, time. Always time. The world spins its ugly spins
until it finds something beautiful again. And it carries on.

It carries on.

--Scott Silsbe

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and FIVE

DISARM HATE...if you can

 

                                       photography by John Grochalski

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and FOUR

Bye. Bye Badman

I can hardly believe
that Trump has gone.
It seems too good to
be true, like I'll wake
up to find it was all
a dream.
I have no idea what
Biden will be like, but
even as a symbolic
gesture it feels good
to get D.T. out of the
White House.
I believe what Dylan
said " Don't follow leaders. "
But if that is the best
we could get to be
the leader of the most
powerful nation on
Earth, then we really
are looking sick.
We can't rejoice yet,
no one can even get
together for a party.
But it feels like a
line has been
crossed, I hope that
it has.
That we can think of
love, instead of hate.
Sharing rather than
shunning. Unity, not
disparity.
You may say I'm a
dreamer, but I'm not
the only one.

--Ian Copestick

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and THREE

e.j.’s bar & grille is defiant
in the face of the plague

the jazz man
stands outside
in the dull yellow light

drunk before the evening falls

trying to light his smoke
from the wrong end

you can hear the stones playing
from inside

the décor is a cross
between halloween and christmas

a sure sign we’re in that lull
that marks the middle of november

the bar is packed
only on one side

men drinking in flannels
and dusty ballcaps

sit close in the muted holidays lights
the white light of the television

they are a portrait
of a time before this time

a remembrance of things past

sitting here on 5th avenue
e.j’s bar & grille is defiant
in the face of the plague

stupid, maybe
a death wish waiting to come

but ain’t no one worrying about this year
ain’t no one caring about the next

there’s no 250,000
dead bodies to count

just one beer down
another coming up

some empty stools down the other end

and one guy looking here outside
at the masked faces hustling home

waiting on the jazz man
to get his head straight

figure his whole cigarette thing out. 

--John Grochalski

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and TWO

as disappeared 

the numbers explode
60, 70, 80 thousand plus
daily, imagine this
they aren't sick
imagine they disappear

now think of supply lines
infrastructure, flow
of information, product
think of the disappeared
think how a supply line holds
as people disappear
this is not a half full
half empty scenario

trusting systems that refer
to people as flock, as herd
forgets the individual
supposedly the one thing
this twisted experiment
was founded on

the individual is mostly myth
humans turned to groups early
in the evolutionary cycle
to adapt, to, as a species, survive

this is survival with no guide
all malfunctions bare
what if the herd is another manipulation
another chance for power
to fill a vacuum, even if it can't hold
the damage is done, the damage
is far deeper than imagined

no one with power will save you
no one with power can save you
now think again of the sick
think of them again
as disappeared

--Jason Baldinger

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and ONE

"Remember, Remember the Fifth of November (2020)"

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
Americans voting a lot!
The president’s lying, corruption and treason
has not been forgot!

The Donald, The Donald, ’twas his intent
to topple elected government.
He rallied a mob of gun-toting hayseeds
to bolster his own autocracy.

But good people braved the long voting lines
and remembered to mail their ballots on time.
Most of the voters were not confused
by InfoWars, O.A.N. or Fox News.

Joe Biden’s poll numbers are closing in!
Holler boys, holler girls, let the bells ring!

--Eric Robert Nolan

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED

                                        FUCK TRUMP AGAIN

                                                  

                                     photogrpahy by John Grochalski

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETY NINE

The Reporter

George Reeves was my Clark Kent.
My man of steel. My Superman.
My truth, justice, and dare
I say ,my American way.
But black and white television
went the way of the dinosaurs
with a boy’s homespun
innocence hot on raptor tails.

Though my attention
as a young man drifted
to the newsprint on the back
pages detailing the agony
and ecstasy of New York
City sports, a journalist still
cradled the cache of reason
to comprehend my world .

While a bad apple here and there
dropped salacious ink along
with cheesy pictures to push
risqué trade, fearless news folk
from the Cronkites to the Breslins
gave the straight dope to keep
us in the know and protect us
from the evil men bred in money do.

So when those in power
lash out in cowardice against
those who champion facts,
in order to camouflage their vile
intention of stomping the throat
of those who dare address
the oppression, perhaps you will
see that my trust is not blind.

Much respect to the driven
men and women attaching
their bylines as witnesses
to the atrocities we owe
to ourselves to understand ,
for failure to do so can only
denigrate the democracy which
allows us enough light to see.

--Tony Pena 

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETY EIGHT

CHUMPS4TRUMP (Suckers and Losers?)

 

                                photography by John Grochalski

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETY SEVEN

for the life
of the US
the values
we have
fought lived
died argued for
over breakfast
have been
tearing us
apart at our
core, and
now, now
Democracy
is shattered
on the floor

--Thomas R. Thomas

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETY SIX

ALMOST NOTHING

Hey junior...

how does it feel
to have daddy's hand
up your asshole so deep
he can actually move your lips
to speak his words?
we're not buying it, pal
we can see
what's in the background
what you're trying to block
with your big fat head
and your slick black preacher's hair
we can see the vultures pecking
at yesterday's one thousand corpses
we can smell the sour milk stench
of lies and death
as your wooden teeth chatter
"Move along! Nothing to see here!"

--Brian Rihlmann

 

 

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETY FIVE

THE CHOICE IS YOURS...Or Is It?

 

                                  Photography by John Grochalski

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETY FOUR

Ghosts 

Sharp as a tack and working
mind and body to the bone
for pennies on the dollar so
his family can eat three squares
for at least another day but Jesus's
fingers ,usually so steady plying
wood despite carrying callouses,
scabs, and splinters, now not able
to keep the level straight as he keeps
hearing footsteps and whispers
and when the dawn unfurls the last
edge of the night Jesus is gone.

Maria selling fresh beefsteak
tomatoes at the market by day
and making the open mic by night
where the words etched from
her quill thread together like
the stems and petals of lilies
into a quilt of language plush
with passion and a dozen poetry
lovers in the house clap hands
but walking on clouds to her car
she's pelted by rotten fruits thrown
by rednecks until Maria is gone.

What looks like some sadistic
statistic algorithm reads like
prose to Karim whose fingers
dance upon the keyboard like
a virtuoso pianist doing
a Beethoven boogie woogie
with lines and lines of computer
coding to keep the bad guys at bay
till the bits and bytes are misread
with hysteria over a too smart
dark skinned man who knows
now only that Karim is gone.

Kiana's Kitchen was once just
a Susie bake oven churning out
chocolate chip hockey pucks
but shadowing her mother's
every move led to a love
of cooking and a culinary
career with a restaurant
in a quiet little town where
people wave and smile until
out of sight when a match
lights kerosene and the eatery
smolders until Kiana is gone .

If not for barriers braved
by the countless before us,
no one would exist among us.
A shame that the land
where it costs nothing
to dream but blood and sweat
as spilled by the spirits
buried in graveyards across
the promised land fosters
not community but fear
and hatred of those
so very much like us.

--Tony Pena 

 

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETY THREE

THE SMELL OF DEATH 

“A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”

Mao Tse-tung

As a Vietnam veteran,
A regime change mercenary,
I can still smell the smell of death
Fifty-two years later of the three to five million
Civilians the US murdered in South East Asia.
Now, the smell of death lingers in the streets each time
Another black man is murdered by the police,
Its smell getting stronger and stronger
Each time the orange-tinted fascist authoritarian white nationalist
Stirs his storm troopers into bloodlust action,
The desire for extreme violence and carnage,
To defend the “freedom” to put profits over people
As the election for the 46th president nears.
It’s the smell that permeates the divide
In the disunited states of amerika.
It’s the smell of a failed state
Collapsing upon itself like a black hole,
Sucking the energy and livelihood
From its disenfranchised and marginalized citizenry.
It’s the smell of malice and hatred
And vulgar meanness in the hearts and minds
Of tiny nonthinkers, lacking compassion
And empathy for humanity
And their fellow man.
It’s the same kind of smell
The tangerine-tinted fascist made
When he said, “I could stand
In the middle of Fifth Avenue
And shoot somebody
And I wouldn’t lose any voters.”
Gun sales are up in amerika.
I hear the sounds of weapons,
Small arms: pistols and rifles,
Locking and loading.
In all probability,
There is an orange-colored fat chance
The new civil war is about to commence.

--Victor Henry

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETY TWO

for max vanka 

in 33 with pittsburgh
in depression
smoky skies choke
eight days of clean collars
a paint brush manifesto
spilled across church walls
in a world where the rich
had always been rich
the poor were forgotten
and god was undecided

in 41 with pittsburgh
ramping up for mobilization
smoky skies choke
your mother country occupied
another eleven days
another manifesto
to a world where the rich got richer
and the poor saved their blood
for a future that god
was undecided about

in 63 with pittsburgh
ready to sink into clean skies
and the promise of renaissance
this manifesto empty in prosperity
the rich got richer
the poor struggled endlessly
god as an entity was undecided
you, you had had enough
this world, cruel as you’d seen
you walked into the sea

--Jason Baldinger

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETY ONE

Credibility Gap

In the best country in the world
in the best hospital
with the best doctors
the best, the best of everything
and you, snuffle breathing
hard pain like a knee
pinning you down
by your thick neck

in your fever dream
you kick up the dirt
path through the trees
to the mountaintop
under the creamsicle
moonlight and you
alone, alone you
crest the final crest
of your lifelong self-
pity, the always
victim of the others
blame game
your sweat rancid
orange dye running

you glance down, down
from your gilty pinnacle
to another future
spread out below
like a plaid picnic blanket
in a dandelion meadow
in a forested valley
full of raucous birdsong
such beauty
you can see now
how pretty
untouchable
a good life is
letting go
of all the lies
you've told, tell
yourself
to turn away
to the mirror of the sun
above you
reaching, clinging
to the story you've told
all your sorry life

and you wake up
cured, curing
like a side of pink ham
roaring, rasping you
burst back on stage
start up the rampage
the liar and the fury
from your gilty balcony
above it all
above the rest
of the damaged world

--Mickey Corrigan

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and NINETY

SENDING THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS TO THE WHITE HOUSE 

They don’t want to know what I’m thinking. I’d still send
my thoughts telepathically but I don’t believe in telepathy.

I don’t believe in prayer either, but I’ve been praying anyway
as though hoping it could, this once, get me what I want.

People with more power and money than I seem to think
thoughts and prayers a sufficient response to anything.

They offer them to victims of natural disasters, diseases,
and violence. I apply them to poor political decisions.

They never define their thoughts nor reveal their prayers.
I suppose, like a birthday candle wish, to do so would jinx it.

I try to be discrete hoping that will at least keep me out of the
hands of the secret service, homeland security, and the DOJ.

With the West Wing now a hothouse of viral contagion, it makes
me wonder if my thoughts and prayers may have worked after all.

--M.J. Arcangelini

day FOURTEEN HUNDRED and NINETEEN

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and EIGHTY NINE

Keeping the Answers to Myself 

Man, I rather stay
on the shelf than
pout to the dilated
elite.

Sing my song of
sacred plenty—alone.

Not understood or pampered,
skim “their” answers featured
on bumper stickers and yard signs.

Keep to myself,
than walk away
with my integrity
intact…

than become belligerent…
while worshiping hidden

fat.

--Dan Provost

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and EIGHTY EIGHT

Evicted


like an angry meth dealer
pissed that he was
evicted, pissed

that he was
kicked out of his
rental house for turning

the garage into a meth lab
tRump will trash the
White House

ripping out
the carpet, throw
feces all over the walls

bust up all the toilets
shoot out each
window

with his
sons air rifle
and throw a huge

drunken rager with
all of his unholy
friends…

well, he will
at least sit on the
Lincoln bed and cry

in his MacDonald’s
Big Mac and plot
his revenge

--Thomas R. Thomas

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and EIGHTY SEVEN

found poem in a bathroom stall 

on the bathroom stall
someone placed the sticker
I voted

now defaced
or if you choose
amended
it says instead
I farted

--Jason Baldinger

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and EIGHTY SIX

2021 VIBES

                                     photograhpy by John Grochalski

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and EIGHTY FIVE

                          --Photography by Jennifer Lagier

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and EIGHTY FOUR

the premise meme
of playing chess with a
pidgeon headed
ever-trumper
amuses my dark side
to no end
i dont get to
evil laugh often
until they give up
easy pickins
to shame
them each
of every thought
and i evil laugh them
each for each
one by one
and to a one
still
they chose
willful ignorance
for themselves
without quarter
or time
or useful words
at the adult table
let alone
the kiddies either
where i practice
my evil laugh
and insults flow
pshhh
some sage advice
dont dare bring
bullshit here
where stupidity
begs my graffiti abuse
on a solid brick wall
i will not
lament
your failed effort
to live
without the
protection of the rock
you crawled out
from under
but i will
let darwin know
that you are ready
for all
considerations

--Patrick Walters