Caleb Merritt

ALLOW ME

Let me introduce you to Allergens. Let me open the door to invisible vibrancy. Was my name only that? I don’t care for it, that much, after all. It was, I suppose, useful. But did it mean anything? I don’t know. I only visibly support the American people. Their doughnuts. Their donuts. Their Sundays. Their Washington Monuments. A pyramid with a floating eye. The humor of something that Nate Piekos might write. I was delighted, after all, with that short drive, with the community-against-the-war, with the things we bring as parental composites of ourselves. Let me get the door for you.


Caleb's YouTube reading of "Allow Me"


Caleb confesses: "Broadly, I imagine I was curious in a meandering-about way on what privilege makes of allowing, allowances, and what we attempt to change. I wonder in what ways I unconsciously and unfortunately support the American people. And, as the poem notes, 'But did it mean anything? I don’t know.'"

CALEB MERRITT an artist living and working in the Treasure Valley.

Craig Kirchner

SATURDAY AT THE BEACH

I’m driving to the protest at the beach
thinking I’ve become that old man that
so many times I drove by and thought –
I never want to be like that.

I’m not on a walker or carrying a cane
but I hobble now instead of stride
and hunch over instead of strut -
and I realize I don’t have a sign.

I arrive early. A guy with ragged clothes
and scraggly beard has six signs on the ground
and without me asking says, Yeah, take one.
I choose – WE FIGHT FASCISM.

I ask him if he had been protesting long.
Since the sixties, he told me his age,
same as mine, and walked away when
I noticed his left leg was a prosthetic.

It stopped me – me driving here feeling
sorry for myself in my Banana Republic
button down, because I get shots in my knees,
and had out of pocket for cataracts.

After an hour of making friends, waving my sign,
I drag my sore knees back to the car,
turn on the radio to hear ICE killed an ICU nurse,
trying to help a woman avoid pepper spray.

Alex Pretti will not get to bitch about being
an old man, about his gel shots. His life stolen
by a cruelty normal in Nazi Germany,
but until recently not by an American agency.

I’ve become an old man, old enough
to be sure, to have the privilege, to die
as you are supposed to, maybe in your sleep,
hopefully surrounded by family.

I shuffled my bad knees out of the car, threw up
on the parking lot, cried, not much. I haven’t cried
since my father died 30 years ago, got the sign
out of the trunk and went back to the protest.


Craig's YouTube reading of "Saturday at the beach"


Craig confesses: "Minneapolis under siege, innocent citizens being killed by the Federal government with our tax dollars is the main thing motivating most Americans for the past month. Of course, there are also the Epstein victims and files the siege is probably supposed to make us forget. Make America America Again."

CRAIG KIRCHNER loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels, and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart. He has been published in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, and dozens of others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop; these words help keep him straight. Craig has an interview up at Spillword and can be found on Bluesky.

Jennifer Lagier

SAY HER NAME
For Renée Nicole Good

While stormtroopers terrorize our neighborhoods,
assault senior citizens, peaceful protestors,
a black-clad, masked man points his revolver
through Renee’s open window.

Armed with only her voice, conscience, and a whistle,
she attempts to leave the scene as instructed
in a family SUV filled with
children’s stuffed animals.

The soundtrack from witnesses’ videos
reveal her calmly telling the aggressive ICE agent
she isn’t mad at him.
He responds by pumping three shots
into her face, murdering a wife and mother.

Afterwards, he walks away,
snarls, “Fuck You, Bitch,”
the vicious philosophy
of his evil overlord’s
cruel administration.


Jennufer's YouTube reading of "Say Her Name"


Jennifer confesses: "Moral outrage compels me to speak out about this heinous murder of a woman by an armed assassin."

JENNIFER LAGIER has published twenty-five books. Her work appears 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

BREAK THE CYCLE
A Fibonacci poem

He
failed.
Again.
Make this the
last time. Replace him
immediately with someone who:
isn't a quisling, has a spine, is a capable
leader, fights fascism and Zionism, and is not doddering toward dementia.


F.I.'s YouTube reading of "Break the Cycle"


F.I. confesses nothing

F.I. GOLDHABER's words capture people, places, and politics with a photographer's eye and a poet's soul. As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, 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. More than 240 of their poems appear in almost 90 publications including What Color is Your Privilege?, their political poetry collection published by Left Fork press. http://www.goldhaber.net/