Friday, May 31, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SIXTY TWO


Don’t Give Up on Us, Baby: A Letter to Europe


"Don't give up on us, baby.
Lord knows we've come this far."
Think of it, almost 250 years.
Ever since dandy Lafayette
came to us, and dowdy Ben Franklin went to you.
Remember, my French students,
when you showed me Chandler in a box,
learning what friendship means?
We're in the box. Two years of this calamity.
Don’t nail the coffin on our amity.

"Don't give up on us, baby.
We're still worth one more try."
Remember when we watched George Bailey deciding
between his trip round the world
and saving the family business and the town?
And you murmured, “Ah, oui, le dilemme cornĂ©lien”?
We took the wrong fork in the Cornelian dilemma,
sacrificing others and losing ourselves.
We’re in the slum of Potterville now.
Pray for us, like George’s neighbors, family, wife,
so we can awake to our real, our wonderful life.

Listen to this silly song by Soul,
an Anglo-American one-hit wonder.
Watch Stephen Colbert joining forces
with John Oliver, Trevor Noah and Samantha Bee.
Remember the time we watched Gene Kelly
singing in the rain, and you said,
“This song tells us that love is waterproof”?
Stand by us, your soggy American cousins. Be true.
"Don't give up on us, I know
we can still come through."


--Cheryl Caesar

Thursday, May 30, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SIXTY ONE


IMPEACH THE MOTHER FUCKER


                                           Photo by John Grochalski

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and SIXTY


Making Feminism Great Again

Today a man spit in my face.
Then, while he held my head in place
Until my throat relaxed around his cock,
And moved me into a position
Where he could force a toy up my ass,
I thought about how he had voted for Trump.
I wondered if I was a disgrace to feminism.

And then I came.

--India LaPlace

This poem was taken from the current (and TERRIFIC) anthology
of poetry HORROR SLEAZE TRASH POEMS which you can
find to purchase right HERE 

Also, I've been lucky enough over the years to have some poems
published in Horror Sleaze Trash, for years by editor, Ben John Smith,
and for the last few by the wonderful team of Arthur Graham & India LaPlace.

for more of an inkling into what they do, you can check more HST action
out right HERE (note for the fainthearted: there's some NSFW content here)

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY NINE

**Got this one in the ol' WineDrunk inbox and found it pretty interesting
I'll let the creator explain***

This past Fall I co-curated an exhibition in Lisbon, Portugal, Tributaries, that opened on Sept. 30th and ran for ten weeks, under the auspices of the international artist's cooperative, Urban Dialogues. While in Lisbon, I went into the oldest continuous bookstore in the world, Chiado Bertrand Bookstore, that was founded in 1732 (the year of George Washington's birth). I found this Portuguese published book about Donald Trump that I immediately bought because a redacted title of the book jumped out at me, O Me Too.

When I got home I was able to also redact A Trump Pee Poem an as I progressed down the book cover, I was also able to redact I Go More Anal and then I placed DJ-45 in front of a golden wall.





--Mark Blickley


Mark Blickley is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN American Center. He is the author of Sacred Misfits (Red Hen Press), Weathered Reports: Trump Surrogate Quotes from the Underground (Moira Books) and the forthcoming text based art book, Dream Streams (Clare Songbirds Publishing House). His video, Widow's Peek, was selected to the 2018 International Experimental Film and Video Festival in Bilbao, Spain. He is a 2018 Audie Award Finalist for his contribution to the original audio book, Nevertheless We Persisted.

Monday, May 27, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY EIGHT

The Color Only Found in Caves

for Phil Geist

It isn’t something I’m sure I can properly articulate.
A sort of struggle between my mouth and my mind.
Either it’s getting better or I’m just growing used to
the pain. Baldinger says that we are all getting old
and weird and we were already weird to begin with.
Look at us with our brand new medical conditions.

People regularly disappoint me. Even those closest
to me. Maybe especially those who’re closest to me.
I disappoint myself too—but I forgive myself easily.

I’m too in love with certain things of this world—
and I know that. That young student who snorted
when she laughed. Or the boathouse on the river
that my old teacher Petey pointed out to me while
we were out on his Boston Whaler. Or else the box
of letters I have sitting on a shelf, waiting for me.

And stories—I love a story with a surprise ending.

Phil told us the story of how once, when he was
a child, he was climbing a tree and his grandfather
saw him, but instead of yelling at him for doing it,
which Phil thought he was going to, he yelled up
at him, “Keep on going—you’re almost at the top!”

--Scott Silsbe

Sunday, May 26, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY SEVEN


Man of Mar-a-Lago

You do not have to be good
to have a quest. Evil dreams
can be impossible too.

When you tilted at the windmills
of our government, you were unhorsed
and bruised, but so were we.

Your Aldonza remains Aldonza, because
you never believed in “Dulcinea” anyway.
You were just the head muleteer,
who crossed her palm with silver.

Your Sancho was already the governor
(if a bad one) of an island.
And no, he doesn’t really like you.

Your only dream was to be knighted
with universal adulation:
Don the Stable Genius. And even this
would never be enough, never equal
the flash of approval in old Fred’s eyes,
the nod of acceptance that never came.

And now Fox and your last Friends,
are circling you, turning their mirrored shields,
and you fall, blinded by the glare
of reality. But still, forever chanting:
I am the best.
I am the greatest.
I alone can fix it.

--Cheryl Caesar 

Saturday, May 25, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY SIX

The Island of Misfit Toys

when the shit hits the fan
he’s got a go bag packed
all he has needs is to grab
his .22, his 30-06
and a twelve gauge
speed down to the Allegheny National
climb a tree
wait out the end of would
wait till he doesn’t see smoke
then he’s gonna come down
the first man
alone in the ashes of his great society
and he’s gonna get his ass up
to what used to be Cleveland
there was a Ferrari dealer
back in the good old days
when times were bad
once he gets to the lot
he’s gonna drive every
damn car there
drive every fucking one
till they’re out of gas
leave them wherever

he’s gonna be the only living
survivalist in an island
of misfit toys

--Jason Baldinger
 

Friday, May 24, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY FIVE

Can he be as dumb as he

seems on TV?

Or is he merely

the psychotic dog

in a dog and pony show

holding our horrified

attention while behind

the scenes the gray men

in the halls of Congress

change rights we thought

immutable? Is his

smarmy smile trying

to hide the Howdy

Doody strings pulled by

Putin from his faraway

palace that Fascism built?

What do his followers

see in him? Were they

so frightened by Obama’s

complexion they wanted

someone, anyone, who would

tell them being white still

meant being the best?

It doesn’t matter their jobs

pay minimum wage,

and they barely finished

high school, but their kids

didn’t. But they are white,

and they can hear the

“code words” he speaks

telling them what they

need to hear that white

is right and white folks still rule.


Or is it the Edsel Effect?

People who bought them

vigorously defended them,

when they knew they

were junk because they

had invested too much

money and ego in them.

Or are his supporters

like abused women,

who forgive and forgive

his many moral lapses,

his “Grab them by the

pussy” attitude and

many mistresses,

his repeated lies given

with such a cavalier

attitude, his neglect

of their welfare

because, despite all the

evidence to the contrary,

they still believe he loves

them?

Or are they afraid

of the cost of being

a Trump traitor?

The shaming, the shunning,

the loss of community?

Would they miss the

heady rallies bordering

on worship, cheering

every word, no matter

how untrue, because they

are being told over and

over, they are the elect,

the saviors of America

if they just follow him

and believe only him.



if they shut their eyes,

and ears to the Fake News

who is anyone that

disagrees with him?

He is their only savior

in a world bounded by

his words which have

built his real wall -

a wall between his

followers and reality.

I really want to know,

what has created this

phenomenon because I,

too, love America,

But it’s an America Trump

doesn’t know and never will.

--Janet Stotts

Thursday, May 23, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY FOUR


Here in America

tRumpism triumphs.
Democracy is in crisis—
unemployment low,
the economy booming.

Those in power willingly trade
catastrophic species extinction,
befouled water, poisoned air,
for immediate profit.

Neo-fascist, dystopic America
drains the public treasury,
encourages violent intolerance,
control over women’s bodies.

It’s stupid Watergate, the end of days.
More of us feel disenfranchised, ignored.
Drug use and suicides multiply.
Rule of law has been declared obsolete.


--Jennifer Lagier

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY THREE


“The smiler: On Jared Kushner”


(Following Laurence Tribe’s tweet on 3.9.19,
and thinking of Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale”)

Here we see plain the dark imagining
Of felony, and all the lobbying;
No cruel ire, but cool and slimy greed;
The pickpocket; the smarmy smirking weed;
The smiler with the knife under the cloak;
The White House burning in the dirty smoke;
The treason, murder in the Consulate;
Benedict Arnold selling out the State;
Not head of government: a hidden part
Of this corruption: evil’s beating heart.

--Cheryl Caesar 

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY TWO

REMINDER: WineDrunk SideWalk is doing an American Flag photo project in July. No political agenda, just spending the month posting people's pictures/art of flags (or a poem if you have). Think of this as a small examination of that most ubiquitous of American Symbols. So please send me photos (mostly) or any kind of art you think would fit the project. I'm setting no deadlines, and if i get more subs than the month allows we'll have multiple people on multiple days. 

SUBMIT2RESIST: winedrunksidewalk AT gmail DOT com



American Meme

Paris Hilton
doesn’t know where we go
when we die
and neither do I
and neither do you
but today
I don’t feel so special
to be afraid

I guess
the documentarian
wants me to feel sad
that these kids
who got what they wanted
are now hooked,
that modeled themselves after
sex tape sluts
and underage drunks
are 30
and feel alone
that watch their friends
living a life
that follows a traditional course
and they think
they’re having fun

no one is having fun
anymore than they let themselves
3 kids is a worry
maintaining love is a worry
just like having a brand
just like pedaling vodka
on instagram

--Luke Kuzmish

Monday, May 20, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY ONE

TO BE HEARD

The rich man may speak softly,
politely, sound benevolent,
and still be heard
as he passes the cash
beneath the table -

The poor man must shout
and bang at the table
to be heard
not once
but over and over again
until the table shatters
and the machinations
of the rich are exposed,
the corruption made clear
the greed in their hearts
loosed at last to speak
louder
than their quiet, hollow
words would ever allow -

then will we be heard -

--M.J. Arcangelini 

Sunday, May 19, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FIFTY


Knapsack, on his back
Like his black
Shirt, and he walks
To school
Never sure who
Might shoot.
And he’s afraid
Because a boy his
Age
Might make Fox News
And all of you
Wearing red, white, and
Blue
Will sit back
And watch
While the crooked
Cops
Take another
Life,
But they are all
Disposable
To you.
So, you’ll never
Say a word.
I bet you have
A blue stripe
Sticker too.

--Hannah M. Tyree

Saturday, May 18, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY NINE

BROKEN AXLE, FOREVER QUEST

No more broken axles,
abandoned wagons,
failed settlers returning
from colonies that could not
take root in hostile soils,
acres defensive of their own life.
Now, just digital failures.
Credit report stigma.
Unrenewed domain names
in lieu of unestablished
domains of green pasture.
Our hungry entrepreneurs
connect us again with pilgrims.

--David Pring-Mil

Friday, May 17, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY EIGHT

ALABAMA RAPTURE

Can someone please bring on the Rapture now,
for Christ's sake, at least in Alabama,
and give the poor sods there a break?
Get the far-right state politicians gone?
If that is the only way, I’ll take it.
When the Rapture comes, so the story goes,
the good souls all fly up to Heaven.
The rest of us, I have been warned for years,
are going South to live in warmer climes
for any action that the good God squad,
in their wisdom, judge to be a sin.
But salvation won't be that clear-cut,
I reckon, if there is a Hell, or Heaven,
and both aren't just Earth.
I think they’re both just Earth.
If there's anything except the ground beneath us,
though, the Rapture will be quite a shock
to the rabble-rousing evangelists,
and the Repubs and other righteous bastards,
who spend their hate-filled hours at work
passing laws that steal a woman's rights away.
They might find Donald Trump’s their neighbour
in marbled buildings under clear blue sky.
They might say, ‘Jesus, we made it boys,’
and open up the bubbly to celebrate.
But the president’s a giant ball of ear wax.
Will they think twice when he begins to melt?
Who’ll be the first to work out where they’ve landed?
Will they smell the smoke before they see the fire?
Who’ll make a chain for splashing water buckets
when the flames engulf them and they flail and scream?
No one. There won’t be a single person,
because that’s how karma takes its satisfaction.
We’ll all be loafing in the higher place,
watching Hell on giant television screens
with our feet up, forking in potato chips.

--Bruce Hodder


Thursday, May 16, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY SEVEN

                                    Good Morning Iran

Good morning Iran

it’s Friday, eleven pm
my streets are quiet yet vibrant
the weekend is blooming over Manhattan
its lights are a halo across the Hudson

it’s morning in Shiraz
the weak winter sun
paints the Persian Gulf golden
I watch you from
seven thousand miles away
you’re another foreign target
to be crossed out
like Iraq
like Libya
like Afghanistan
you don't want to play with atoms
do you know what it feels like
to vaporize seventy thousand lives?
Do you know what it feels like
to play God?

Good morning Iran

I see your militias outside of Aleppo
trying to push the rebels to sea
have you seen mine?
Have you seen Uncle Sam’s artillery
firing shells from the rubble of Homs?
Have you seen the black issued combat boots?

I will turn your mosques into shopping malls
and build Disney Lands in Tehran
I will paint you as another villain in history
I will take your lands and scar your children
I will bring you liberation

Good Morning Iran

you don’t think I’ve forgotten
about those hostages do you?
You rejected my banks
what do you mean sovereignty?
You will know freedom

I am morality in a copper casing
I am the thunder of a thousand bombs
I am the desert tempest
I am bullet shock
I am the machinery of consumption
I am the bloody talons
I am empire

Good morning Iran

I don’t hate you
but I need you to build bombs
I need to sell helicopters
I need to turn the cogs
I need to keep these wheels moving
or my people will start looking around
there must always be another enemy

Good morning Iran

the eagle spreads its wings at dawn

--Damian Rucci


Wednesday, May 15, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY SIX

it’s just a gun
cold steel
oiled clean
a marvelous machine

it’s the finger and
the cold steel mind
that scares me

--Thomas R. Thomas

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY FIVE

white house reviews
military plans against iran
in echoes of iraq war

those drumbeats of war
are always drumming in america

like car bass
when you’re trying
to get a good night’s sleep

and when republicans go to the beach
it’s always with their dicks in the sand

missiles like dildos
shoved up their self-righteous asses

with the democrats
running right along
to keep slopping up the mess

still 120,000 troops
ain’t no slouch

iran you expensive mistress!

and 461,000 iraqi civilians isn’t either
just in case anyone needs a reminder
of what western-style freedom is worth

still the cost must be outrageous

you can count it
on the number of kids who won’t eat today

you can see it
on the big grins and big dicks
over at lockheed martin and boeing

but god bless the THAAD system
and god bless the air craft carrier
for dragging all of those EA-18G growlers
half-way across the world

to prove that america
is once again the great i am

to show the world
that this kind of violence and aggression

is all we’ve got left.

--John Grochalski 

                                             





Monday, May 13, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY FOUR


The Politics of Living: Which Side Are You Gonna Take?

While you listen to rap with closed windows
There is a man being shot in the streets
Blood stained skin and red and blue lights flicker like stardust in the background

You tell me I am lovely and ask if I speak English
While the children are being lit up with toxic fumes for loving their native tongue

You do not offer me a place at the table
But instead, ask to wipe your mouth on my sleeve
And I will let you, with a smile
Because that’s the American way

--Hannah M. Tyree

Sunday, May 12, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY THREE

AUTHOR NOTE: This is a paraphrasing of “Song of Myself” condensed into tweet form (less than 280 characters).

@Tweet Of Myself.

I tweet of myself
and contain multitudes
of assumptions.
You hardly know
who I am or what I mean.
Do I contradict myself?
Probably.
But hey, look at me!
Your thoughts are nothing.
I absorb all to myself
even though
I have nothing much to say.
Blah Blah Blah.
What is common and cheap is me.
Follow my barbaric yawp at #.Walt

-- Stew Jorgenson & Walt Whitman

Saturday, May 11, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY TWO


SHADOW JACK

 
                                                   By Steven B. Smith

Friday, May 10, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY ONE

                                  Dimebag Poem #2

he asks for an eighth
declares my sainthood
upon delivery

says wait
what’s your stigmata?

I answer
being poor
in late stage
capitalist
america


--Jason Baldinger

Thursday, May 9, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and FORTY


fear and loathing at the hibachi restaurant

the suburban goth girl
with the blue hair
and purple eyeshadow
didn’t know you could refuse the side salad
so it sits there coagulating
under the hot lights
as the blonde at the table next to us
drunkenly shouts across the room to her pals
something about ruining her new shoes
from dropping some of her third drink on them
something about her husband’s birthday
and the president being close to god
she’s had three sexy ladies tonight
and if she doesn’t vomit
she says there might be room for a fourth
and
wink
wink
a special surprise for hubby when they get home
as everyone around her
laughs and laughs
doing the puritan end-of-the-work-week rag
and i wonder what a goth girl
with blue hair and purple eyeshadow
is doing in a hibachi restaurant
on a friday night
other than tilting the perfect picture
making things a tad askew
contributing another food waste in wasteful america
but this big, dumb colossus of stolen land
is full of surprises
and growing up in small cities
breeds a kind of useless rebellion
and plastic discontent
that can only be found at the mall
you can make mountains out of molehills
in the knowing light the chain store’s come-hither stare
i wonder what i’m doing here
hundreds of miles from home
anchoring the dead weight of citizenry
unnecessarily sober at a hibachi restaurant
stuck inside of buffalo, new york
with the brooklyn blues again
coming off a panic attack on the i-81
where i couldn’t breathe
and had to pull the car over to the side of the road
as idiot patriots with bumper sticker prophesies
zipped by me
going 90 in a 65
but across from me the hibachi chef
he knows my fate
he’s squirting sake into the mouths of babes
red faced business men
with their necks too fat for their oxfords
frat boys with their hats on backwards
greasing up their dates
for their own patriarchal surprise later
a sea of jaws undulating, filling up with all of that booze
spilling out of their mouths onto the table
because people can never get enough
of the free stuff
the chef asks me if i want a taste
i want to tell him that i think anxiety is just another word for america
i want to tell him that i’m thinking art is dead
how i’m ready to capitulate
move to the burbs
buy a car and complain about the traffic
hoist that fucking flag every morning
learn to live for the weekend
and how to love parades
each a hibachi dinner with my wife and good pals
each and every single friday night
buy the boss a christmas gift
and learn how to change a flat tire
burn all of my books
and walt whitman in effigy
at a neighborhood weenie roast
but i say no
and go back to my flat beer
keeping my flat opinions to myself
as he squirts some oil on the grill
and sets our world ablaze
with a flame that reaches almost to the roof
red and yellow and orange
tickling our fancy
we ooh and awe like cavemen in discovery’s first light
catching broccoli in our mouths
from an expert flip
huffing and huffing
at its heat
filming it all on our cell phones
as dead meat fries and sizzles
as sexy lady number four is presented to the table
to claps and chants
and soft debauchery
as the blonde woman screams and screams and screams
her useless constitution
and hubby knows
that
wink
wink
will just be her passing out again
as he circle jerks the witching hour
toggling between espn and fox news and internet porn
while back here on hibachi mother earth
a mountain of crystal white onion on the grill
burns like a tire fire
from a fizzled-out riot
in an abandoned strip mall
parking lot
of the mind

and to be perfectly honest with you
…i didn’t eat my goddamned side salad either.

--John Grochalski 

                                                          

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and THIRTY NINE

A PLEA TO YOUR LIGHT, FROM YOUR FUTURE NOTHINGNESS

Dear sir, allow me if you will
to make a plea to your light,
from your future nothingness.
Your Senate seat
was meant to encourage you
to take a stand,
not sit down!
And yes, I concede —
It is a very confusing chair.
You have mitigated risk
with business acumen
and strategy,
forgetting the legacy and impact
that comes only when you are
both reckless and right,
responsible to your heart
but irresponsible by common standards.

The real reason egos scream so loudly
is because they know their own futility.
If you heed these howls,
which you will kindly notice
are always in your mind
and never in your heart,
you will assure yourself the finest seat
in nothingness.

Oh darkness, how long have you felt wounded by the sun?
You want the creatures of the light to come to you
not only in death but also in life.

Oh flailing soul,
will your energies be pronounced
and propelled onwards,
or will they succumb
to vacuum?

I still recall when I was a child
hiking alongside a bubbling creek
with a little girl and she asked me
if I was an ocean spirit
or a space spirit.
She said she thought
she was a space spirit,
one who would skip across the galaxies
and shimmer in the chemical swirls,
while I saw myself
most at home as a droplet
in the violent waves of the sea.

Which are you?

--David Pring-Mil

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and THIRTY EIGHT

Looking for Richard Brautigan in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2018

The stone hits hard against the pavement—
it could be there is no luck to be had anymore.

I just now started to worry about solar storms,
not knowing what they are. Something about
the heliosphere, a disturbance in space weather.

But I also just started to surrender myself
to whatever it is this world has to shell out.

Icy moons spewing water plumes—I surrender.

Bungee-jumping neo-Nazis—I surrender.

Japanese hot tub monkeys—I surrender.

I surrender myself to the radio galaxies,
the blazars I can’t comprehend, and all of
the artificial satellites in retrograde orbits.
I can’t make sense of all the things I don’t understand.

If you happen to see Richard around town,
point him in my direction, wouldn’t you?

--Scott Silsbe

Monday, May 6, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and THIRTY SEVEN

Full of Trash

"It's like Barr summarized the 'Twilight' novels as 'a girl in Florida goes to third base with a wookie’.” – John Oliver



We’re living in the upside down universe.
It’s what you get when you cross corrupt with stupid,
add a soupcon of self-righteous smugness,
enlist the aid of Christian fundamentalist trolls.

A two year, multi-million dollar investigation reveals
criminals saved from prosecution by incompetence
assisted by disobedience, disorganization.
Malfeasance gleefully French kisses cancerous evil.

Cheeto-in-chief’s fluffer issues a four page fake summary,
visits various talking head “news” shows
to perform mandatory ass-kissing
in an attempt to distract rumbling voters.

Power-hungry repugs take a victory lap,
celebrate democracy’s dismantlement
as brain-washed sycophants chorus
“No collusion. Total exoneration.”

--Jennifer Lagier

Sunday, May 5, 2019

day EIGHT HUNDRED and THIRTY SIX


this gun
does not fit
in my hand

it burns my
fingers with
the heat of hate

a cold cruel
crime to my soul

you

will have to
steal my life

I will not
waste yours

--Thomas R. Thomas