Friday, July 31, 2020

day TWELVE HUNDRED and NINETY ONE

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

---Thomas R. Thomas

Thursday, July 30, 2020

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

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

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

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

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




Monday, July 27, 2020

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 26th 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 9th, 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

Sunday, July 26, 2020

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

Saturday, July 25, 2020

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

Friday, July 24, 2020

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

                                              

Thursday, July 23, 2020

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


Wednesday, July 22, 2020

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHTY TWO

trumps hoard of stooges
dunce cap afflictionados
wear hats eating paste

--Patrick Walters

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

day TWELVE HUNDRED and EIGHTY ONE

BE SAFE!

                         photography by John Grochalski

Monday, July 20, 2020

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 




Sunday, July 19, 2020

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

                      

Saturday, July 18, 2020

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

Friday, July 17, 2020

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                                                          

Thursday, July 16, 2020

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

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SEVENTY FIVE




                       photography by John Grochalski

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

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

Monday, July 13, 2020

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.

Sunday, July 12, 2020

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

Saturday, July 11, 2020

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



Friday, July 10, 2020

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



Thursday, July 9, 2020

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

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

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.

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

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

Monday, July 6, 2020

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

Sunday, July 5, 2020

day TWELVE HUNDRED and SIXTY FIVE


NON ESSENTIAL CONSUMER


                                  photography by John Grochalski

Saturday, July 4, 2020

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                                

Friday, July 3, 2020

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.

Thursday, July 2, 2020

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

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

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