Craig Kirchner

PROCRASTINATION

I put everything off, stack it,
restack it, move it to another room.
I’m particularly put-offish,
sometimes rude, when told I need to,
have to or must do something.

Pondering emptying the dishwasher,
maybe after lunch,
thinking of the guys in the trenches
in World War 1, with a helmet, a rifle, the rats
and being told to go over the top.

I’ll just be a moment here,
y’all get started without me.
Nobody knew why they were there,
what they were dying for,
or if they would ever see home.

I might have jumped up in WWII,
an inglorious bastard wanting to kill Nazis,
knowing it needed to be done and why,
willing to roll through Europe with Patton,
thinking of myself as Vic Morrow.

But once again, I’m holding off
on the Bhagavad Gita and my reread
of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
I’m building momentum though, reminiscing
about the wars I didn’t have to be in.

Pulled a good number in the Nam lottery,
wasn’t in New York for September 11,
and was too old to be needed
looking for weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq
or Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

Fortunately, we’ve all seen enough of such things.
Take the trash up, get the mail,
can all wait until tomorrow,
and there is no possible way anyone not Russian,
would start another war in my lifetime.


Craig's YouTube reading of "Procrastination"


Craig confesses: I have missed serving in all of America’s wars but have often thought about what it would have been like. I’ve been opposed to all in my lifetime, Vietnam, etc. I would have thought after the idiocy of Iraq that no one would consider a war in the Middle East.

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.

F.I. Goldhaber

STOP

Stop identifying them as Christians.
They follow none of Jesus Christ's teachings
including his instructions to love all,
welcome strangers, feed the poor, share their wealth.

Stop confirming as conservative those
reactionary by definition.

Stop calling them phobic when it's just hate.
Gender critical is just another
form of misogyny, to vindicate
imposing their bigotry on others.

Stop accepting claims to patriotism
when they despise, undermine, and assail
any who appear, believe, speak, or love
outside their narrow range of acceptance.

They may belong to a traditional
party, but they have no interest in
governance, seeking only to extract
and steal labor, land, resources, and wealth;
fouling water, soil, air needed for life.

Stop listening to liberals excuse
ableism, trans vilification,
contributions to climate catastrophe,
genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid,
complicity. Believe votes not their words.


F,I,'s YouTube reading of "STOP"


F.I. confesses: Words have meaning. Those meanings matter because they give words power. But authoritarians pervert language to serve their own agenda. As someone who's always made my living using words, who carefully chooses words to most clearly communicate my meaning, I find the abuse of words in service to fascism offensive.

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 across the country. Now paper, plastic, electronic, and audio magazines, books, newspapers, calendars, broadsides, and street signs display their poetry, fiction, and essays. More than 265 of their poems appear in 100 publications including What Color is Your Privilege?, their political poetry collection published by Left Fork press. http://www.goldhaber.net/

Thomas Piekarski

IMPOSTOR

He slithered from a crevice amid deep Alpine ravines,
Some incalculable aberration and proprietor of death.
It’s claimed he was sent by an almighty power known
Only to those who believed in an invisible holy spirit.

Wholly immoral, this con came by many names often
Cited in scriptures. But he was always the same twit,
Uncannily able to draw a following among the duped
Population for which adulation was a virtue and habit.

Blowing things up was his primary passion, exacting
Pain and suffering among those he felt inferior, weak;
Savage and seething, spewing lies like insidious lice,
Thinking to sin is to win, his crimes well documented.

When considering one like Braveheart, great warrior
And liberator, yet was drawn and quartered, and then
To witness this foul impostor and scourge of history
Spewing his venom, makes the soul ache, skin crawl.


Thomas's YouTube reading of "Impostor"


Thomas confesses: "This poem alludes to our current president as an historical figure."

Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry has appeared in hundreds of publications, including Modern Literature, Poetry Salzburg, Creation Magazine, The Museum of Americana, South African Literary Journal, Home Planet News, and California Poets Anthology. His books of poetry are Ballad of Billy the Kid, Monterey Bay Adventures, Mercurial World, Aurora California, and Opus Borealis.

David Anson Lee

STANDARD OF CARE

The denial arrives in a language
designed to resemble grammar
without ever becoming speech.

The patient waits.

Inside the body, time keeps working
like a clerk who never leaves his desk.

The physician submits records:
scans, codes, proofs of damage
translated into acceptable doubt.

The insurer replies:
additional documentation required.

Winter requests the same of trees.
The ocean, of drowning.

Weeks accumulate without permission.

The medication sits behind a digital gate
guarded by an algorithm
that has never held fevered skin
or counted breath in a dark room.

When approval arrives, it does not arrive as mercy:
only as delay that learned to sign its name.

Too late is still a category of coverage.

The ambulance appears
after the fire has finished speaking.


Gerald So's YouTube reading of "Standard of Care"


David confesses: This poem reflects on the quiet violence of procedural medicine: how adherence to protocol can sometimes blur the boundary between care and detachment. It considers the tension between clinical language and lived vulnerability.

DAVID ANSON LEE is a retired ophthalmologist, educator, and poet born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. A former endowed chair and professor of ophthalmology, his poems explore medicine, ethics, identity, history, and the hidden costs of institutional life. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies.

Robert Donohue

BUT WAS IT...MURDER?

He came to change his beneficiary
And filling out a new insurance card
He put his girlfriend down, and not his wife.
There were no feminists back then, but when
Fran saw the card she was to notarize,
She didn’t like it, and when he was gone,
She had me keep the old insurance card.
I kept it in his file with the new.

Three weeks go by, we get a visit from
The girlfriend, and she told us he was dead.
She wanted the insurance, but both Fran
And I would tell her men say anything
And showed her the old card; it named his wife.
As for the other card, I tore it up.


Robert's YouTube reading of "But Was It...Murder?"


Robert confesses: I was inspired to write this poem when I heard my mother tell this story from when she worked in personnel. All of a sudden I was reminded of the tagline from Dateline, But Was It... Murder? The scenario certainly was suspicious, but was a crime committed, no one will ever know.

Robert Donohue's poetry has appeared in Aprosexia Lit, Theopneustos Magazine, and Ionosphere, among others. He lives on Long Island, NY and is a content reader for Still Here Magazine.

J.H. Johns

THE PEOPLE - THE UNNAMED EX-CON

He said
all the right things
which,
however,
would be hard to verify;

schools attended;
languages spoken;
degrees earned—

all "impressive"
but
hard to substantiate;

a gifted life;
a life of things achieved,
all of which happened
in places far away;

names of countries;
towns;
cities;
schools—

everything that meshed
so flawlessly—

actually,
it was so perfect
that it was imperfect—

too perfect
to be real...


Paul Churchill Mann's YouTube reading of "The People - The Unnamed Ex-Con"


J.H. confesses: This piece is one of dozens that chronicle "The People-" that I have encountered at the Cleveland Clinic Holiday Inn. Almost all of the encounters- at their core -are- content-wise- episodic. This one was not. It was out-of-synch with why this person should be at the hotel."

J.H. Johns “grew up and came of age” while living in East Tennessee and Middle Georgia. Specifically, the two places “responsible” for the writer that he has become are Knoxville, TN and Milledgeville, GA. Since then, he has moved on to Chicago for a brief stint and New York City for a significantly longer stay. Currently, he is “holed up” in a small town where, when he is not writing, he tends to his “nature preserve” and his “back forty.” His goal is to surround his house with all sorts of vegetation so as to obscure it from the gaze of the “locals.”  He is assisted in this task by his coonhound buddy and companion, Roma. J. H. Johns was a Pushcart nominee in 2018.

New Collection by Kate LaDew

Recent contributor Kate LaDew sends word Westbrae Literary Group has published her collection what it feels like to be run over.

Congratulations, Kate.

F.I. Goldhaber

A MATTER OF PRIVILEGE

A few hundred activists --
kidnaped, tormented, abused,
humiliated -- arouse
international outrage,
prosecution threats, sanctions,
investigations, banning
a handful of officials.

But for tens of thousands of
displaced, beaten, raped, tortured,
murdered Palestinians
the world stays silent: turning
deaf ears, blind eyes away from
the countless crimes committed
against natives for decades.

"Western" powers take offense
when Israeli soldiers treat
their citizens as poorly
as Indigenous owners
of the land they occupy
in violation of so-
called international law.

But, every single one of
them ignores, and most support,
ongoing ethnic cleansing
and genocide of peoples
who lived on the land, nurtured
it, built homes, raised families,
grew crops for millennia.

The most egregious offense
which the now-prohibited
politicians are guilty
of is forcing those who are
complicit to confront the
truly repugnant face of
all settlers, occupiers.


F.I.'s YouTube reading of "A Matter of Privilege"


F.I. confesses: As an anti-Zionist Jew, the hypocritical outrage shown by countries who arm Israeli slaughter of Palestinians because IOF soldiers treated their citizens poorly -- but not nearly as despicably as they treat the Indigenous people of the land they illegally occupy -- has been a disgusting display of empire and privilege.

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/

David Bond

MURDER ONE

The loneliness she felt, watching him leave,
knowing he would be with another woman,

didn't bother her. She remembered how
her body ached after he beat her the night

before. Left in their palace in the country,
she found she could pretend to be happy

while she calmly planned exactly how
and when he was going to die.

Her act was easy to understand when you
live like this. The story floated in the press—

that his death was the result of pure greed—
avoided the terror she felt. His temper could

blow out windows, with guttural sounds that
were almost inanimate in their eerie horrifics.

When the police arrived, the murder scene
had been dusted, as if the wind had found

an excuse to move the downstairs maid
through the room. She was pensive

as she watched them remove his body,
as if she thought destiny had some hope

that he would live forever. The dream felt
for her hand when they led her away.

Time was an enemy to no one that night.
Her innocence, in retrospect, fell dangling

at the side of her ruin. A sinner accused
of killing a saint, her martyrdom went

viral only when it was understood:
her triumph could never be so slight.


David's YouTube reading of "Murder One"


David confesses: I started work on "Murder One" in the 1990s. There were a lot of stories in the press involving wealthy families who had situations that were not all they seemed to be on the surface that ended up with a death and a suspected or confirmed murder. This poem wasn't inspired by a particular situation, but as is often the case with my poems, I just had this line come to me and followed it where it took me.

David Bond is a clinical social worker practicing Individual, Marital and Family Therapy in Montgomery, Alabama. He has had poems published several times in The Sun. He has also had poems published in The St. Andrews Review, Ala-Arts, and Dylan Review, among others.

Chad Parenteau

CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

Someday, maybe
in a country
that lets people
criticize other
countries openly,
there will be
a film featuring
the next Jesse
Eisenberg-type
as a wretched
tech bro with our
Social Security
numbers in a
flash drive mixing
in his pocket
full of Gold Cards
pre-paid in full
for future Trump
voters. We'll get
to witness his
Zack Snyder-style
slo-mo beating
to millions cheering.
But now, future
cheerers, disciples
ready to renounce
their lord on one
half-click of the rack,
with a lack of
irony that burns
film, they scream
Have they killed
Big Balls? Please
tell us Big Balls
is alive! What
in God’s name
happened to Big Balls?


Chad's YouTube reading of "Cutting Room Floor"


Chad confesses: This is my anti-ode for former DOGE employee Edward "Big Balls" Coristine, who was beaten for the sins of his overlords in 2025. This was very cathartic for me, if only momentarily. Save us from dudebros who may never understand the horrible ramifications of their actions.

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.

Craig Kirchner

WOUND US ALL

It’s there. It’s still there,
just under, seething, ready to explode,
to rise up, shed the ugly evil laminate
that has slimed over its soul like pond scum.
It wants to rid itself of the rot,
the spineless that represent it,
the inhumanity of the demons pulling the strings,
applying an agent ice that will traumatize for generations.

It’s there. It’s still there,
just below the surface of crassness,
waiting for the wind to blow away the ignorance of cult,
for time to heal the cancer of mindlessness of neighbors.
It will crack the veneer and surface
like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now,
rising from the Nung River covered in mud
and camouflage to get on with his mission.

It’s there, it’s still there,
hoping to win an existential fight with non-violence,
needing sanitizing, a purifying to begin soon,
the crowds to be big enough to win by overwhelming.
It will attempt to cleanse itself, and in so doing
realize you can’t wash away the leprosy of wicked,
it takes decades like chemical burns, to replace
the loss of credibility, allies, respect for one another.

It’s there. It’s still there.
It has a - wound one, you wound us all - attitude,
standing like sphinx in a sandstorm,
waiting for the killing to stop, the pharaohs to go to hell.
Millions will protest to celebrate that it is still there,
that marching, singing, voting, for a divine intervention
of cleansing that can bring us together
out of the muck and grift that is America.


Craig's YouTube reading of "Wound us all"


Craig confesses: "America was a republic with elected officials who cared about the oath they took to uphold the Constitution. That changed. We have a malignant narcissist bombing Iranian school children, a gestapo executing citizens in the streets, and a complicit Congress. America is still there; we need to find it."

Craig Kirchner lives in Florida because that is where his granddaughters are. He loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. Craig houses 500 books in his office and the same number of poems on a laptop; these words help keep him straight. He can be found at Bluesky.

Tonia Kalouria

JACK, THE HACK CARJACKER

Jack be nimble,
Jack be quick,
Jack leaped over
the gear-change stick.

Jack be bonkers,
Jack be dim:
Hotwires engine
Keys still in!

Carjacker needs money,
though should’ve rehearsed:
Shifts in a hurry —
right into REVERSE!

Carjacker be nervous;
Quite out of his gourd.
PANIC engulfs him:
A Baby On Board!

Jack flees car and babe…
Thus, in his defense:
T’was Thief —not Kidnapper!—
found fried on that fence.


Tonia's YouTube reading of "Jack, the Hack Carjacker"


Tonia confesses: "Any reminder about not leaving children or pets unattended in cars — hot weather or cold — is a Good Thing as it can get dangerously hot or cold so quickly. And then there is the added peril/crime of the car being stolen with the precious cargo within. These incidents, too, are all too common."

Tonia Kalouria is a former Spanish teacher and soap actress whose poems appear at “littleoldladycomedy.com,” “poetsforscience.org.” and “Literary Veganism,” among others. Anthologies include: A Glass of Wine With Edgar, Evermore, Quoth the Raven, Yonkers, Love, V4, Striving, Poems From the Lockdown, Purr & Yowl, Nothing Ever Happens in Fox Hollow, Cosy Romance, Tails From the Bedside, and Waywords: Habits, and Classical Poets Society, Vol. X.

JK Miller

FOREVER CHEMICALS

I suspect something in the garden
is killing me. Pulling out the dead
stalks on hands and knees. Dried
larkspur pods pour over black grains.
Poppies' big hard ovaries shake. Salt
and pepper bombs burst. Take cover.
Anoint me valley,
table, cup. Me thinks purple
as in waves of grain and deep-sleep
red—-as in fields of dorothy—
neurotoxic psoriasis.
By what authority do the finest monkey
fingers feel groin and wrist,
elbow and thigh,
aches and pains
and cause
the disjointed pearls
from lips to slip
to grounds?

Did you say let them?


JK's YouTube reading of "Forever Chemicals"


JK confesses: "I like to garden. In my garden there are larkspur and poppy flowers. When they die back, I pull them. They are so beautiful together, purple and pink, but they are both toxic to humans if mishandled. In this poem, it was fun to think about how toxicity could work."

JK Miller is a former third-grade dual language teacher. He lives on the edge of cornfields. He started submitting for publication in 2025. He is the first-place winner in the modern sonnet category of the 2025 Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest. His chapbook Bicycling Poems was published in October, 2025. A second chapbook, Rye & I was published in January, 2026. His poems have also been recently published, or will be, in shoegaze literary, Midsummer Dream House, Harrow House, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, THEMA, Rat's Ass Review, 50-Word Stories, Verse-Virtual, Paratextos, Amethyst Review, The Poetry Lighthouse, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Up North Lit, Eunoia Review, Borderless, As Surely as the Sun, ANTAE, Plato's Caves, Tap Into Poetry, 20:05, The Soliloquist, The Metaworker, Press Pause Press, and The Rush. In the summer of 2025 he rode his bicycle from his home to his son's house to see his newborn grandson. It was 1,335 miles.

Kate LaDew

A MAN DREDGED A RIVER

an 18-ton digger slicing through the water
sediment hurled away
leaving the salmon and trout
and bullhead and minnows gasping
the otters and mink scurrying
the kingfisher and sand martin's bellies empty
a man dredged a river
stripped every wildflower
and tree and bush
and blade of grass
to build a road to his home
and then he went to jail
ecological vandalism
on an industrial scale
and as he sat in the corner
and thought about what he'd done
nature creeped little by little
back to the dredged river
the wildflowers grew
and the trees grew
and the bushes grew
and the salmon and trout
and bullhead and minnows swam
and the otters and mink played
and the kingfishers flew
and the sand martins sang
and everything went back to how it was
the mile-long scar
down the middle of it all
covered over entirely by green
and buzzing things
and full-throated
gleaming life


Gerald So's YouTube reading of "a man dredged a river"


Kate confesses: "I came across an article online about a farmer who destroyed miles of land for his own purposes. While I don't agree with his actions, I didn't write the poem to shame him. I was simply amazed by how, when left alone, the world rights itself."

Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Arts. She grew up in Hammond, Louisiana and lives in Graham, NC with her cats James Cagney and Janis Joplin.

David Anson Lee

TAX EXEMPT

The chapel carries a donor’s name
carved deep enough to outlive theology.

So does the stadium,
the laboratory,
the business school where futures are priced
in credit hours and compound interest.

At orientation, freshmen are issued
lanyards, passwords, a map
that loops back to debt.

The university expands like a body
forgetting where pain begins:
roots descending from branches,
branches feeding roots,
a system that mistakes growth for virtue.

The adjunct teaches in the blue light
of a refrigerator open too long.

Somewhere, a quarterback signs autographs
beneath a screen the size of weather.

At commencement, caps rise
like startled birds released too early
into air they cannot afford.

Years later,
the birds return
as monthly statements
that never learned mercy.


Gerald So's YouTube reading of "Tax Exempt"


David confesses: "This poem emerged from observing how moral responsibility can be obscured when harm is mediated through systems that are legally protected yet ethically ambiguous. I was interested in how language of exemption can also function as a form of emotional distancing."

DAVID ANSON LEE is a retired ophthalmologist, educator, and poet born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. A former endowed chair and professor of ophthalmology, his poems explore medicine, ethics, identity, history, and the hidden costs of institutional life. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies.

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.

Peter M. Gordon

CARNY

‘Scuse me while I light up.
You want one? Ain’t a lot
of jobs that lets yiz smoke

and work. ‘Course that ain’t
the only reason this Midway’s
the best job I ever had.

When I hustled the short con,
a mark squealed and I spent
two years in the can. Here,

marks pay admission just so’s
we can take them. I’ve seen good
looking guys drop fifty just

to win their girl one of them stuffed
gorillas that cost us three bucks,
an’ when they don’t win, go get

a beer and drop another fifty.
All I gotta do is stand here
an’ hand ‘em three softballs.

We ain’t in town long enough
to get in real trouble an’ if we
got a small beef, local bulls

we pay for security just say
to leave town. Oh, this carny
life’s for me. If I gotta hit

the pie-car, say, for a snack or pack
of ciggies, another carny covers.
I got food, family, an’ a job for life.

Some say carnivals are dyin’
but I see more marks than ever
linin’ up to stuff green in our

grouch bags. I ain’t quittn’;
I’m gonna die here. Lemme light
up again. Sure you don’t want one?


Peter's YouTube reading of "Carny"


Peter confesses: "I've spent a lot of time over the years at the Central Florida Fair here in Orlando and enjoy attending county and state fairs when they're on in towns I'm visiting. I've long been fascinated by the people that work the fairs, traveling from town to town, and even though they are often suspicious of locals, some have opened up to me. The voice of this persona poem is an amalgam of several different conversations I had."

PETER M. GORDON is an award-winning poet with over 200 poems published in various journals. He's authored three collections, and is a founder and past President of Orlando Area Poets, a chapter of the Florida State Poets Association. Peter has taught workshops on writing and publishing poetry in several Florida cities. He teaches in Full Sail University's Film Production MFA program.