Monday, August 31, 2020

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

Sunday, August 30, 2020

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


Saturday, August 29, 2020

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

                                   

Friday, August 28, 2020

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




Thursday, August 27, 2020

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

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and SEVENTEEN


GEORGE FLOYD


                             Photography by John Grochalski

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

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

Monday, August 24, 2020

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and FIFTEEN

What Does This Even Mean?


                                 photography by John Grochalski

Sunday, August 23, 2020

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and FOURTEEN

"No Revolution..."


                     Photography By John Grochalski

Saturday, August 22, 2020

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

Friday, August 21, 2020

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 CitiesAssault on NatureSongs of a ClerkCivilized WaysDisplaysPerceptionsFault LinesTremorsPerturbationsRude AwakeningsThe Remission of OrderContusions and Desperate Seeker (Winter Goose Publishing. Forthcoming: Learning Curve and Ignition Point). Earth Links, Too Harsh For PastelsSeveranceRedemption Value and Fractional Disorder (Cyberwit Publishing). His novels include a series ‘Stand to Arms, Marines’: Call to ValorCrumbling 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.

Thursday, August 20, 2020

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

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

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

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

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

                                    

Monday, August 17, 2020

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

Sunday, August 16, 2020

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 CitiesAssault on NatureSongs of a ClerkCivilized WaysDisplaysPerceptionsFault LinesTremorsPerturbationsRude AwakeningsThe Remission of OrderContusions and Desperate Seeker (Winter Goose Publishing. Forthcoming: Learning Curve and Ignition Point). Earth Links, Too Harsh For PastelsSeveranceRedemption Value and Fractional Disorder (Cyberwit Publishing). His novels include a series ‘Stand to Arms, Marines’: Call to ValorCrumbling 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.

Saturday, August 15, 2020

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

Friday, August 14, 2020

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and FIVE


I WILL NOT BE SILENT

                                   Photography By Jennifer Lagier

Thursday, August 13, 2020

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED and FOUR

BLACK LIVES MATTER NO. 2


     Photography By John Grochalski

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

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

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

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 CitiesAssault on NatureSongs of a ClerkCivilized WaysDisplaysPerceptionsFault LinesTremorsPerturbationsRude AwakeningsThe Remission of OrderContusions and Desperate Seeker (Winter Goose Publishing. Forthcoming: Learning Curve and Ignition Point). Earth Links, Too Harsh For PastelsSeveranceRedemption Value and Fractional Disorder (Cyberwit Publishing). His novels include a series ‘Stand to Arms, Marines’: Call to ValorCrumbling 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.

Monday, August 10, 2020

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

Sunday, August 9, 2020

day THIRTEEN HUNDRED

TRUMP = DISEASE

                    photography by John Grochalski

Saturday, August 8, 2020

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

Friday, August 7, 2020

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

Thursday, August 6, 2020

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


Wednesday, August 5, 2020

day TWELVE HUNDRED and NINETY SIX

BLACK LIVES MATTER

          Photography by John Grochalski

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

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

Monday, August 3, 2020

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

Sunday, August 2, 2020

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