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/

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/

Jennifer Lagier

KARMA

“I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.” —Charlie Kirk


It’s a bitch when karma takes you at your word,
manifests your beliefs,
gives you a taste of your rabid philosophy,
points the barrel at you, turns you into the victim.

All it takes is one more angry white man,
an easily obtained rifle,
plenty of ammunition,
a home-grown terrorist perched on a rooftop.

Uncritical non-thinkers poisoned by conspiracy theories
find scapegoats upon which to shower hate.
Corrosive social media memes demonize and enrage,
pour gasoline on the fire.

A mascot of misogyny and racism
becomes MAGA’s twisted messiah.
Careless vitriol cast over a ravening mob
catalyzes retribution by bullet.


Jennifer's YouTube reading of "Karma"


Jennifer confesses: "After reading a number of deifying headlines following the death of Charlie Kirk, I was compelled to write this poem."

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/

Jennifer Lagier

SHADOW GOVERNMENT

Purchased by an unelected oligarch
as part of a hostile takeover,
democracy teeters, then starts to fall,
hollowed out by mass firings,
dismantling agencies and departments,
infiltration of government databases
by teenage incels.

Old white men mistake The Handmaid’s Tale
as an instructional manual,
introduce legislation to prevent women
from exercising the right to vote
or control their own bodies.

Daily, I doom scroll headlines,
ponder each unfolding outrage,
wonder how to prevent ongoing assaults
against established rule of law,
separation of powers.

I resist and speak out,
refuse to concede
or bend the knee
to corrupt egomaniacs
who are stealing my country.


Jennifer's YouTube reading of "Shadow Government"


Jennifer confesses: "Every day since January 20, 2025, has brought a flurry of unconstitutional, repressive executive orders. An unelected oligarch has seized control of our government while spineless legislators ignore their constitution, country and needs of their constituents. We are witnessing the death of democracy, murdered by greed and ignorance."

JENNIFER LAGIER lives a block from the stage where Jimi Hendrix torched his guitar during the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. She is a retired college instructor/librarian who taught with California Poets in the Schools, edits Monterey Review, helps publicize Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium reading series. Jennifer has published twenty-three books.

Jennifer Lagier

THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS

“'Really angry' gunman who killed 3 at Gilroy Garlic Festival cut fence, shot randomly for less than a minute.” –USA Today

While I attend a Monterey poetry reading where
two Latino poets promote love and unity,
one more furious white man cuts through a fence,
with his automatic rifle, shoots down
fifteen festival attendees, killing three,
including a six-year-old boy,
thirteen-year old girl.

When will we, as a nation,
discontinue spewing useless aphorisms,
no longer facilitate poison
seeping into hearts and minds,
bind wounds, staunch hatred,
reject division, halt wanton bleeding?

When do we quit mouthing platitudes,
lance festering resentments,
drain away sickness, cauterize anger,
make America safe and sane again,
put rational adults
in charge of our healing?

Please, no more thoughts and prayers.
We need moral leadership, action.


Jennifer's YouTube video reading of "Thoughts and Prayers"


Jennifer confesses: "My cousin’s family had left the Gilroy festival thirty minutes before the shooting began. The escalating gun violence in our communities never seems to abate while our legislators offer bankrupt platitudes rather than realistic solutions."

JENNIFER LAGIER lives a block from the stage where Jimi Hendrix torched his guitar during the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. She serves two rescue dogs, dabbles in photography, taught with California Poets in the Schools, edits the Monterey Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium readings. Website: jlagier.net

Jennifer Lagier

HATE CRIME

...mountains of men, oceans of bone, an engine whose teeth shred all that is not our name. — Tracy K. Smith

In Tennessee, white nationalists
brandish guns, threaten to murder
an eleven-year-old trans girl
whose traumatized parents contact the FBI,
hire a private investigator and security team.
When she boards the school bus,
friends shield her from jeers,
mob faces twisted with hate.

At an ultra-conservative conference
speakers call for eradication
of LBGT individuals.
In MAGA land, new regressive laws
play well with fascists in training,
have emboldened the crazies.

Red-hatted rabble
call themselves Christians,
cheer escalating cruelty,
embrace annihilation of anyone
unlike themselves.


Jennifer's YouTube video reading of "Hate Crime":



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Jennifer confesses: "This poem captures the experience of family members who live in Tennessee and are raising a trans child. Tennessee has passed some of the most virulent legislation designed to oppress and threaten the trans community."

JENNIFER LAGIER lives a block from the Monterey stage where Janis Joplin performed and Jimi Hendrix torched his guitar. She has published nineteen books, in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines, edits the Monterey Poetry Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Website: jlagier.net, Facebook: www.facebook.com/JenniferLagier/

Jennifer Lagier

A FEW SMALL NIPS

Inspired by Frida Kahlo’s painting of the same title

Passion guides the blade in a man’s hand as
he slashes his lover’s nude body.
The dead woman’s face is turned,
hair matted with gore, eyes tightly closed.

A black shoe remains on one foot.
The other has vanished.
Red spatters soak white sheet,
his shirt, dull yellow floor.

“A few small nips” reads the banner
towed across the crime scene
by blackbird and dove.
Bloody fingerprints disfigure picture frame,
break the fourth wall.

She is the passive victim of butchery,
robbed of dignity, reduced to cautionary tale.
Those familiar with betrayal
understand how cumulative infidelities
bleed heart and soul dry.


Jennifer's YouTube video reading of "A Few Small Nips":



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Jennifer confesses: "The abuse of women persists through various cultures and times. Frida Kahlo portrayed her struggles as a woman and artist through a series of vivid, visceral self-portraits."

JENNIFER LAGIER lives a block from the Monterey stage where Janis Joplin performed and Jimi Hendrix torched his guitar. She has published nineteen books, in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines, edits the Monterey Poetry Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Website: jlagier.net, Facebook: www.facebook.com/JenniferLagier/

Jennifer Lagier

ROE V. WADE FALLS

“In June, the Supreme Court decimated nearly 50 years of established abortion law and handed abortion rights over to the states, unleashing legal chaos. Thanks to “trigger” laws springing into effect, Civil War era bans being resurrected and an overall legal uncertainty that combined with high criminal penalties, many clinics ceased abortion services or closed entirely.” — The Hill


An Antonin Scalia handmaid,
joined by spiteful male Supremes,
two accused of sexual misconduct,
gleefully usurp a woman’s right
to control her own body.
Misogyny informs their decision,
a bully’s need to press jackboots
upon the neck of sisters, daughters and mothers.

Outraged Americans spill into the streets,
protest draconian overturn of fifty-year-old law.
One justice vows to ban contraception,
roll back LGBTQ rights, recriminalize miscegenation,
resegregate schools, encourage persecution, repression.

Who knew in my lifetime
the dark ages would stage a comeback,
democracy corrupted, deformed
into a cruel, intolerant Gilead theocracy
funded by Federalists and the NRA,
a nightmare more horrific than fiction?


Jennifer's YouTube video reading of "Roe v. Wade Falls":



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Jennifer confesses: "I am outraged by the continuing war on women in this country, depressed at the erosion of rights many of us fought hard to obtain."

JENNIFER LAGIER has published nineteen books, in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines, edits the Monterey Poetry Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Recent books: Meditations on Seascapes and Cypress (Blue Light Press) and COVID Dissonance (CyberWit), Camille Chronicles (FutureCycle Press). Website: jlagier.net, Facebook: www.facebook.com/JenniferLagier/

Jennifer Lagier

NOTHING IS NORMAL HERE

“Over the next two-and-a-half traumatic weeks, the Uvalde community will say goodbye to the 19 children and two teachers killed in a mass shooting.” –Huffington Post

In grammar school,
we practiced duck and cover,
huddled under clunky desks,
laughable attempts to survive
being vaporized by nuclear missiles.
Might as well kiss our asses goodbye,
bigger kids used to joke.
Now ten-year-olds wear backpacks
that double as bullet proof vests,
rehearse active shooter drills.

One young girl describes smearing
her wounded body with a murdered friend’s blood,
plays dead to avoid additional bullets,
watches classmates, teachers slaughtered
during the hour they were trapped in a room
with a teen wielding an AR-15
while police waited outside.

Politicians who receive
the largest NRA contributions
deliver limp platitudes,
empty hopes, stale prayers.

Nothing changes.
More lives are lost.


Jennifer's YouTube video reading of "Nothing is Normal Here":



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Jennifer confesses: "After reading that headline in the Huffington Post, my frustration at the lack of action on the part of our lawmakers despite the escalating number of shootings in this country, many involving children, boiled over. I had to write this poem and hope enough of us are willing to protest, write, pressure, vote, or whatever it takes to get our NRA-bought-off politicians out of office and sane gun control legislation passed."

JENNIFER LAGIER has published nineteen books, in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines, edits the Monterey Poetry Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Recent books: Meditations on Seascapes and Cypress (Blue Light Press) and COVID Dissonance (CyberWit), Camille Chronicles (FutureCycle Press). Website: https://jlagier.net, Facebook: www.facebook.com/JenniferLagier/

Jennifer Lagier

Abelard was a 40-year-old controversial intellectual. Heloise was his 17-year-old student. When their passionate love for each other was discovered by Heloise's uncle, the two were secretly married. To salvage his reputation, Abelard sent Heloise to the Convent of Saint Mary at Argenteuil. Because her uncle believed Abelard was casting off his niece, he took revenge by having Abelard castrated. The pair's subsequent correspondence attests that, through adversities and tragedy, their devotion to each other never faltered. They are now united in side-by-side graves in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.


HELOISE'S EPISTLE

Beloved, heal the wounds
you have inflicted. Remember,
I was the one who refused to lie,
rejected wedlock for freedom.

Destroyed myself at your command,
changed open doors for sealed convent
simply to prove you the sole possessor
of my heart, soul, and will.

You who lavish time
on proud disbelievers,
consider your growing debt
to the neglected faithful.

My broken spirit is a weak plantation
sown with tender, ailing plants
that require nourishing sun,
your careful attention.

Treachery robbed me of myself
in robbing me of you.
I fear nothing more than barren silence,
this claustrophobic sentence I am now serving.

Only letters provide a lingering hint
of your long-absent presence,
vague words that can still caress,
despite the malice of others.


Jennifer's YouTube video reading of "Heloise's Epistle":



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JENNIFER LAGIER has published nineteen books, in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines, taught with California Poets in the Schools, edits the Monterey Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Her recent books include: Meditations on Seascapes and Cypress (Blue Light Press) and COVID Dissonance (CyberWit).

Jennifer Lagier

NEVER SEE MORNING

The sirens begin
around 2 a.m.,
notify neighbors
another home invasion
or gang-related shooting
has just gone down.

Yellow crime tape
cordons off
signs of forced entry.
Dark stains disfigure concrete.
Bullet-riddled cars
parked along the curb
bleed broken glass.

Victims in body bags
will never see morning.
Cops cuff, haul away
tattooed, teenage perps.


Jennifer reads "Never See Morning":



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Jennifer confesses: "The growing homicide rate in Monterey County, mostly fueled by gang-related murders and home invasions, were the inspiration for this poem. Recently a man was shot to death in a parking garage along Cannery Row in Monterey, a gang-hit. The perpetrator was apprehended and arrested. He is part of a gang based in my own little home town of Marina."

JENNIFER LAGIER has published thirteen books and in literary magazines, taught with California Poets in the Schools, co-edits the Homestead Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Newest books: Scene of the Crime (Evening Street Press), Harbingers (Blue Light Press), Camille Abroad (FutureCycle Press). Visit her website.

Jennifer Lagier

REEK: SOBERANES FIRE, DAY 13, 25% CONTAINMENT

Ashy reek erases hillsides and sun.
Air quality degenerates.
Employees in Big Sur
and Carmel Valley
are warned to leave,
work somewhere else.

In Marina, dogs sniff smoky atmosphere,
refuse to go out.
Clothes, carpets, drapes smell
like the smoldering, illegal campfire
that started this blaze.
Shrubs and outdoor tables disappear
beneath a constant bombardment
of powdery dust.


Jennifer reads "Reek...":



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Jennifer confesses: "This poem is part of a longer, still evolving series about the 2016 Soberanes Fire started by an illegal, unattended campfire. It is still consuming acreage in Big Sur, Carmel Valley, Soberanes Canyon, Garrapata, is projected to destroy almost 200,000 acres before being contained."

JENNIFER LAGIER has published twelve books and in literary magazines, taught with California Poets in the Schools, co-edits the Homestead Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Newest books: Scene of the Crime (Evening Street Press), Harbingers (Blue Light Press). Forthcoming chapbook: Camille Abroad (FutureCycle). Website: http://jlagier.net

Jennifer Lagier

DR. NAZI'S POETRY WORKSHOP

You know the type:
white, middle-aged, male.
Flaunts his MFA.
Hasn’t been laid
by a woman with a brain
for at least twenty years.
Runs his workshop
like a poetry pogrom.
Complains your work is
too realistic, hard-edged.
Lavishes attention
on the rhyming blonde
with enormous breasts.
Knocks back beers
alongside a slam poet
wearing tight leather pants.
His red pencil
tortures your lines,
removes the teeth
from a story.
Turns your voice into
an imitation of his.
Suggests asphyxiation
by adjectives
as a final solution.


Jennifer reads "Dr. Nazi's Poetry Workshop":



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Jennifer confesses: "The character in this poem is a compilation of the various slimeballs I've encountered at writing workshops who use their position to pick up women or parade their egos."


JENNIFER LAGIER has published ten poetry books and in literary magazines. She taught with California Poets in the Schools and is now a retired college librarian/instructor, member of the Italian American Writers Association, co-edits the Homestead Review, helps coordinate monthly Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Website: http://jlagier.net/

Jennifer Lagier

ANOTHER DEATH

Carlos became homicide victim
number 22 this year.
He was 16, varsity football star,
in the wrong place when the latest
turf-war slaying went down.

After scrimmage,
as he sat in a friend's pickup,
the gangbanger wearing a
black hooded sweatshirt
shoved a gun into the window,
shot multiple times,
left him bleeding.

"Those bullets were
not for him," a classmate mourns.
"He didn’t deserve it."

"I'll be his voice, stare that murderer
in the eyes at every court date,"
his bereaved brother vows.

The neighborhood simmers.
Witnesses are encouraged
to speak up, anonymously call
the gang task force tip line.


Jennifer reads "Another Death":



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Jennifer confesses: "'Another Death' was inspired by a local newspaper article about the latest gang-initiated murder in Salinas. For some time now, gang activity has escalated, resulting in murder and injuries to innocent victims, frequently children or teens, who just got in the way of gunfire."

JENNIFER LAGIER has published ten books of poetry and internationally in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies. Her latest book, Where We Grew Up, was just issued by FutureCycle Press. She taught with California Poets in the Schools, co-edits the Homestead Review, maintains web sites for Homestead Review, Monterey Poetry Review, Ping Pong Literary Journal, misfitmagazine and helps coordinate monthly Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Visit http://jlagier.net/

Jennifer Lagier

ICE CREAM PEOPLE

They were the safe ones,
bland, blonde, blue-eyed,
good boys, the only kind
your mother allowed you to date.
Honor students who worked part-time
after school at an office or bank.
Sexless and soft, they opened doors,
chastely kissed without using tongues,
never tried feeling you up.

Your first husband was a vanilla
icecream person until he returned
from a tour of duty in Vietnam.
Cambodian shore bombings,
mercenaries, ship suicides
sent him home psychologically maimed.
A paler version of Victor Charlie,
loaded gun in the closet,
machete under the bed.
Night terrors, physical violence.
Your home a hot zone.

During his final melt-down,
you ran away, hid for months.
Cut off contact with family, friends.
Spent ten years rebuilding a broken life,
barely escaped.


Jennifer reads "Ice Cream People":



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Jennifer confesses: "'Ice Cream People' was inspired by a line from a Charles Bukowski poem. I used the phrase as a title, spinning off the story of an ex who started off as a gentle boy-next-door and ended up emotionally and psychologically damaged by the Vietnam War."

JENNIFER LAGIER has published nine books of poetry as well as in a variety of literary magazines. Her latest book, Camille Vérité, was published by FutureCycle Press. She taught with California Poets in the Schools, co-edits the Homestead Review, maintains web sites for Homestead Review, Monterey Poetry Review, Ping Pong Literary Journal and misfitmagazine. She also helps coordinate monthly Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings.

Jennifer Lagier

STAY WITHIN YOUR WALLS

Guinevere paces
her convent cell,
fumes at fate,
perfidious men,
the injustice
of involuntary confinement.
Knows Arthur
brought alienation
of affection
upon himself,
parking her
inside empty stone walls
while he caroused
day and night
with boisterous homies.
Launcelot was no better—
big promises then
hasty exit when caught
with his pants down.
Left in the company
of virgins who
don't know what
they're missing,
she is bitter, repents
romantic love,
infatuation that comes,
quickly disappears.
Passion—a fleeting phase
that empties your bank account,
compromises credit,
leaves your heart broken.


Jennifer reads "Stay Within Your Walls":



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Jennifer confesses: "'Stay Within Your Walls' was inspired by perfect storm—the conjunction of a line from a Charles Bukowski poem, which I used for the title, with a wry, contemporary take on Arthurian legend from Guinevere's point of view."

JENNIFER LAGIER has published nine poetry books and in multiple literary magazines. She taught with California Poets in the Schools and is now a retired college librarian and instructor. She is a member of the Italian American Writers Association, co-edits the Homestead Review, and helps coordinate monthly Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Website: http://jlagier.net