Jennifer Lagier

APOCALYPSE NOW

Ooh war, I despise
'Cause it means destruction of innocent lives
War means tears, to thousands of mother's eyes
When their sons go off to fight and lose their lives

–lyrics to the song "War" by Edwin Starr


Morning headlines announce anti-war icon,
Country Joe McDonald has died.
We remember his name from Vietnam,
Woodstock, the Fish cheer, Veterans for Peace.
As our government mimics Nazi Germany,
pacificists mourn loss of charismatic leaders,
lament Reverand Jesse Jackson’s passing.

Targeting an Iranian girls’ school,
the U.S. annihilates students and teachers,
massacres civilians as part of a campaign
to distract from full Epstein files disclosure.
Online photos of open graves
illustrate the magnitude of our moral failures.

In the Pacific Ocean,
heavily armed military operations
burn through taxpayer dollars,
ignore due process to assassinate fishermen
they suspect to be drug runners,
deliberately slaughter frantically waving survivors.

Washington D.C. resembles a festering sewer
where the rich and powerful buy politicians,
pervert rule of law, protect their own interests.
Daily, the body count rises.
Our country’s crimes against humanity
continue to burgeon.


Jennifer's YouTube reading of "Apocalypse Now"


Jennifer confesses: "Here we go again, another senseless war based on lies, designed to distract from the corruption and malfeasance of the current administration."

JENNIFER LAGIER lives a block from the stage where Jimi Hendrix torched his guitar. She has published twenty-five books and in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines. She taught with California Poets in the Schools, edited the Homestead Review, currently edits the Monterey Poetry Review, helps publicize Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Saturday readings. Website: jlagier.net, Facebook: www.facebook.com/JenniferLagier/

F.I. Goldhaber

LUNCH

Sorry to learn that your cat disappeared.
It is always best to keep felines and
other pets safe inside. Because there are
majestic Red-tail hawks circling above
who don't distinguish between fur-covered
prey. They just snatch another tasty meal;
their nature and hunger absolving their crime.


F.I.'s YouTube reading of "Lunch"


F.I. confesses: "'Lunch' was inspired by missing pet flyers constantly posted in a neighborhood where Red-tail (as well as Cooper's and Swainson's) hawks and coyotes regularly hunt. In reality, the true criminals are pet owners who allow their furry wards to wander unsupervised and thereby put their lives at risk."

F.I. GOLDHABER's words capture people, places, and politics with a photographer's eye and a poet's soul. As a reporter, editor, and business writer, they produced news stories, feature articles, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states. Now paper, plastic, electronic, and audio magazines, books, newspapers, calendars, broadsides, and street signs display their poetry, fiction, and essays. Almost 260 of their poems appear in more than 90 publications including What Color is Your Privilege?, their political poetry collection published by Left Fork press. http://www.goldhaber.net/

Chad Parenteau

RUDY GIULIANI MUTTERS DURING HIS LAST RITES

If I could get
building-big
like I did for
that Time Man
of the Year cover,
I could finally
get a look at
Lady Liberty’s
underpants.
That’s the one
problem being
an inside man.
No more time to
grope underneath.
I’m not finished
yet. I just want
to stay around
and do one last
act, something
only I can do
to changes lives
forever. Good
bad, does that
matter anymore?
Just give me
one last clasp
to undo before
they undo unto me.


Chad's YouTube reading of "Rudy Giuliani Mutters..."


Chad confesses: "This is my newest poem about Rudy. I’ve become obsessed with his legacy, which took less than two decades to completely shatter when it seemed like 9/11 made him forever untouchable. I don't we don't have to wait another twenty years for the rest of the gold-plated calves to collapse."

CHAD PARENTEAU hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Crossroads, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The Rye Whiskey Review, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Review, and The Ugly Monster. He has also been published in anthologies such as French Connections, Sounds of Wind, Reimagine America, and The Vagabond Lunar Collection. His newest collections are All's Well Isn't You and Cant Republic: Erasures and Blackouts. He serves as Associate Editor of the online journal Oddball Magazine and co-organizer of the annual Boston Poetry Marathon. He lives and works in Boston.

Robert Cooperman

ICE SOLVES THE LINE DELAY DILEMMA AT MAJOR AIRPORTS

We examine drivers’ licenses,
passports, and faces, and listen
to them talking, or if they stink
of garlic, and if the name’s
Hispanic or Arabic, or just weird,
we hustle them to a remote site,
and quietly dispose of them.

Saves a lot of time and trouble,
and gets rid of the bullshit need
for immigration lawyers: trained
to break the law on behalf of illegals,
who, by definition, are all criminals,
sneaking into our great country
like rats gnawing into flour sacks.

Of course, this info is all hush-hush.
If it ever got out, we’d be up to our asses
in bleeding heart libbos bleating,

“Murder!” And other nonsense.

And since we’re not paid
for this patriotic and civic duty,
we get to keep the confiscated luggage.
Hell, the rollies alone go for hundreds:
perfect for transporting illicit drugs
into and out of the country.

God Bless America!


Gerald So's YouTube reading of "ICE Solves..."


Cooperman confesses: "After ICE murdered three American citizens and after seeing newspaper photos and TV footage of the lines to get through security at airports, it hit me that a Swiftian "Modest Proposal" solution for the TSA bottlenecks was in order. Hence, my suggestion for ICE to do what it does best (or worst): just kill anyone who doesn't look sufficiently American to them."

ROBERT COOPERMAN's latest collection is An Oar for Odysseus; his latest chapbook is August 24, 1957.