Thursday, October 31, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and FIFTEEN


Robocalls

I don’t know anyone
in Flagstaff nor
do I want to.
The same holds true
for Boston, Altoona
and Boulder.
The calls find
me nonetheless.

They wake me
from a dream state
to perpetual abuse.
Voices tell me
my computer is in
WINDOWS hell
and my credit card
has expired. I do not

wish to hear a pitch
from a company,
answer a survey
about my household
or donate money
to the firemen’s drive.

Elections cause a fuss
from dawn to dusk.
My phone lights up.
If candidates share
my concerns,
they will stop
their robocalls
once and for all.
They know someone
in Washington.

--Sarah Henry

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and FOURTEEN

THE WIDOW CONTINUES A LETTER TO HER BELOVED
JR (1951-2016)


How is it Dear One the world has come to
Impossible crossroads so onerous
Leading to a TV reality
Lampoon in which a business man unglues
Arteries of peace touchy tenuous
Rescue Dear Boyscout I need honesty
Your absence impedes my sore levity

Certainly we believe in a woman
Leader one who is clever ambitious
Intelligent knowing truth from fake news
Need I say My Love we have a madman
Tweeting like an angry bird dangerous
Out to undo everything we deem true
Nothing but bad hairdo and worse juju

--Karren Alenier

Tuesday, October 29, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and THIRTEEN

MAGA

Listen, I eat nails for breakfast

and keep mountain lions for pets

since tigers are hard to find

and a hair too prissy.


I can whip any three men in a fair fight

and five if I hit low.

My heart is as hard as coal, and blacker,

and I can't begin to remember

how many women whose love

I've cast aside.


I'm meaner than Genghis Kahn

and twice as ugly.

I can't decide if I should fuck your mother next

or your daughter

but I can tell you your wife

is a decent lay,

even if she can't suck dick for shit.

I'll be at your place later on,

just to kick your ass for fun.


You know me, brother.

Don't act like you don't.


Listen now.

Hey, where do you think you're going?

Did I say you could leave?


Okay.

All right.

I see what's going on.

Forget it.

Forget that stuff.

Dumb shit can't take a joke.


Hey, put that down.

For God's sake stop hitting me.

Sweet Jesus. Stop.


Can't we just make America great again


--Jeff Weddle

Monday, October 28, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and TWELVE


molotov party

there’s a cold hap and harry's
between my legs
5 more hung on ring
on the seat next to me

driving Nashville's safest neighborhood
in the dark, big houses
sprawl gated, ghostly backlit
the ghost of andrew jackson's leg on display

it’s nice the horse girls
and money men did well with
their hatchets, it’s nice
the crime rate is low
money buys secrecy

cameras monitor beyond walls
I wait for police lights
sure no one who makes
under twenty k is allowed
in this neighborhood after dark

crickets so loud
you won't hear the fucking guillotine
so what would stop me
from buying every six-dollar bottle
of vodka from the package shop
with a stop at kroger for a box of rags
start a bring my own molotov party

the proper arc or with good enough aim
I’ll make six bills singe inconceivable million
dollar houses to ash

roadside piss, splash a wall
tag a camera with an empty
sirens crow in the distance
three beers down
flames off in the distance
belle meade is burning
not sure it wasn’t me

let it burn, let those minie balls
sing from their column beds
all the landmarks of those that owned
still feel you can own a human
should be smashed, burned
their history rewritten revealing
this class as parasites

we were to make democracy
every generation in our image
we failed, people are not free
the time is right to start again

spark the next cocktail
it has to start, who cares where it ends
tonight it burns, tomorrow it burns
the next french revolution starts in nashville

--Jason Baldinger

Sunday, October 27, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and ELEVEN


arriving at work
to the homeless man who smells like urine

he sits on the stoop
like a sickly shroud
smelling faintly of urine

he’s huddled in black

black suitcase
black duffle bag at his side

his face ghostly and pale
his lips white with kidney failure

sometimes there is a beer bottle or two at his side

he sits there shivering
as people walk by going to work
with huge coffees and bagel sandwiches
and little rolly bags trailing them like dogs

in less than twenty minutes
i will let him inside
where he will find a chair and read or sleep

until he pisses himself anew
the good people complain
and i have to ask him to leave

arriving at work
to the homeless man who smells like urine

sometimes i think about
how glad i am that i’m not him

but sometimes i think about
how the only real choices in america
are to work like a dog until you’re half-dead
or to end up smelling like piss in the street

how everyone in this shithole nation
is just a few bad mondays
from being just like this guy

a few bad breaks
and america will throw you away
like trash

then i go inside
and i sit at my desk in the dark
with my head buried in my hands

and i wait for something better
that will never come.                                                                

--John Grochalski

Saturday, October 26, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and TEN


To the End
“Masturbating in the factory of facts….” – Adrienne Rich in The Phenomenology of Anger

We watch Congress play Whack a Mole
as whistleblowers reveal layers of criminality,
connect the dots between treasonous acts
and delivery of bribes, favors, payoffs.

Pretender in Chief green lights Kurdish genocide,
high stakes distraction to give Putin
exactly what he wants—kills two birds
with one cruel, petulant tantrum.

Mainstream media misses the truth,
spews whatever talking points
Watergate wannabes in the White House
have carelessly provided.

We salivate for justice, restoration of normalcy.
Blackmailed/brainwashed sycophants ignore
overwhelming evidence of unlawfulness,
incompetence, corruption, unfitness.

--Jennifer Lagier

Friday, October 25, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and NINE

Self-destruction

So many sat on the Titanic in luxury
inside away from the cold
their view—an ice berg sculpture
a full moon gleams across still waters
so warm, so comfortable they sit
until the accident that was never to happen
the ship that could not sink, sank

It is six am Sunday morning
I lie awake in my soft warm bed,
it is a peaceful morning in Seattle.
In Afghanistan bombs are falling
lazars are destroying brains in caves
families of suicide bombers have their homes destroyed.
I try to imagine a war outside my window—the rain is all I hear
and with the imagining I can barely do
is a sadness for what my country is doing
to a people, to a planet.

I long To Go See What Is A Non-Sight
the empty sky at the foot of all of Manhattan
I mourn this loss
I am a New Yorker I lived with this view daily
this aberrant view of two overly tall buildings
two penile erections

Children are asked to send dollars
Millions of dollars manifest from nowhere
money floods to the military,
is sent to red cross who misuse,
misallocate, and misappropriate it.
The red cross building in Afghanistan is blown up by accident.
Food is shipped, pop tarts and peanut butter.
We say we care about the Afghanistan people
I lie in my comfortable bed—they cross mine fields
to get our junk food
Every social service suffers in the aftermath of this war.

I lie with the eternal question—
what is right with this?
How are we, North America, the USA,
how are we learning? Versus reacting?
isn’t it possible this is based on history?
Like September 11th, 1973
the same day, a Tuesday
the same time, before 9 am
the same number of people dead
Santiago, Chili
Salvador Allende assassinated
ruthless tortures and murders
men thrown out of planes
Do any of us remember this? Do we care?

Some internal jokester sends white powder for kicks
a few more die
We enter a McCarthy era,
always war hyped out of proportion
a twisted way to boost the economy.

The titanic was built to last but it went down.
What in the hell are we doing?
They hate us and they have a right
and they are only getting angrier
with better reasons than they had before.
We are the Titanic boldly going forward
where we have no reason to be
reaping what we sow.


--Julene T. Weaver


Julene Tripp Weaver is a psychotherapist and writer in Seattle. She has a chapbook and two full size poetry books. Her most recent, truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and won the Bisexual Book Award (2017). Her work is widely published in journals and anthologies. Find her online at www.julenetrippweaver.com & @trippweavepoet

Thursday, October 24, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and EIGHT

Predator Politics

You cried wolf
Now you got one
Pandora’s Box
can’t be re-locked

There is no hiding
in sheep’s clothing
The little pig’s house
is coming down

Red Riding Hood
is left in the woods
The blood of decency
has been drawn

The bite is always
worse than the bark
and wolves scenting power
travel in packs

--Colleen Redman


Wednesday, October 23, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and SEVEN


SAME.

No matter how many
times you take out
the garbage there you
are a couple days later
with two big bags that
need to go to the can.


--Robert Beveridge

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and SIX

The Case Against The Case Against Socialism too

and next it’s not the poor here in the us of a who are the people of the welfare state but the rich who people the place of those who are bleeding the blessed people of the people of the us of a it’s these people of the us of a not the bleeding us dry rich who are doing the work that makes the money that should be more fairly proportionately put to their pay and not to the ripoff rich some of whom are getting nearly 300% more than their weary workers so which is better our ripoff corporate culture or a socially fair state where our poor health does not put us in debt to the rich and those same said rich take don’t away our jobs and we don’t lose our homes so we don’t have to live on the streets that our taxes have paid for and by the way those rich don’t pay any tax or at least don’t pay a proportionate percentage of the wealth they get from the blood sweat and fears of the people who should benefit from the so called welfare state yet as I said the welfare state people of the us of a are the greedy rich and as to the bullshit belief in a smaller government this will only benefit your rich republicrats who line your pockets with greens from their greedy hands true socialism is simply summarized by the word fair 

--Thomas R. Thomas

Monday, October 21, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and FIVE

 The Power That Pulls The
                      Strings

These brain dead fools, both left and right
What do they think they are doing ?
Fucking up so many people's  lives
Driving down the road to ruin

Democracy, has it had it's day ?
What did the Brexit vote achieve ?
The politicians always have their own way
No matter if you voted to stay or leave

And of course they are not the ones
That really control a single thing
It's the CEO's of the corporations
Who say what tomorrow will bring

Politicians are no more than mere puppets,
The real power pulls the strings
Nothing more than muppets
Never mind their posing and posturing

It's the shadowy figures you never see
They're the ones to really fear
They don't need or want publicity
You'd never know that they were here

But, they are the ones who decide
What happens all over the Earth
Because they stay faceless, they can hide
They'll never get what they deserve

--Ian Copestick 

Sunday, October 20, 2019

day ONE THOUSAND and FOUR

Walking into tombstones

An echo
in the
canyon
is a
bullet
in the
head
as dogs
bark at
the back
door and
kids run
down the
alley and
everyone
is looking
for rain
or a
free lunch
and today
we lost
100 soldiers
and all
our marbles
deep inside
the pockets
of the
Rich men
who run
our lives
like wind-up
toys all
walking into
tombstones
feet shuffling
in a
death march
to nowhere.

--Matt Borczon