Walter Holland
The truth is a form of radical resistance

Facts validating facts are a form of heady
resistance. These ward off insinuation and
the strange deflections that occur by sewing
disinformation with a thick contagion of
doubt, accusations, provocation and the whole
assault on reality. Let’s face it, honesty has been
the saintly gold-standard: Joan of Arc was burned
at the stake for allegiance to her God, and Galileo
imprisoned for obedience to Reason and
the primacy of the Sun. The actions of hearsay,
gossip, and slander, are the odious supporters
of lies. Supposed conspiracies, revisionist zealotry
from Stalin to Mao; all to propel the despotic
dictates, the rat-a-tat-tat of extermination,
genocidal purging, and human contempt. But
the wellspring of Truth runs deep, its aquifers
sate each dried and thirsting mind, transforming
the most recalcitrant into a fruitful knowing.

Walter Holland, Ph.D., is the author of three books of poetry including A Journal of the Plague Years: Poems 1979-1992 (Magic City Press, 1992), Transatlantic, (Painted Leaf Press, 2001), and Circuit (Chelsea Station Editions, 2010) as well as a novel, The March (Masquerade Books, 1996 and Chelsea Station Editions 2011). He collaborated on the book and lyrics for a musical based on Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, which was staged at the 2017 Florida Festival of New Musicals. Some of his poetry credits include: Antioch Review, Barrow Street, Poets for Life: 76 Poets Respond to AIDS, Rhino, Hazmat, The Cimarron Review, and About Place Journal. He lives in New York City. He writes reviews for Pleiades and Lambdaliterary.org. Follow him at: walterhollandwriter.com

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Leland Seese
“The ceremony of innocence…”
— W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

Decency, with forethought, fled the onslaught, frightened
hare determined to outrun the conflagration. Another summer,
half the continent on fire,
the other half, half-man, half-wild boar unleashed
to rampage for red meat throughout the grange halls,
rodeo arenas, and convention centers in a state debased
by aspirations to depravity.

Arise, a plague of hatchlings in the cycle of their spawn,
rounding years and decades, our quiet certitude, penned
in articles and declaration, preamble and amendment,
leaving us somnambulistic with success
in all the matters of our living that, in the final
judgment, mean the less — hegemony and privilege,
lingua franca of oppressors in pressed suits, Beach
Boy dreams of endless summer, fossil fueled across
the living harvests captured from the shithole countries.

Arise, O scaly beasts and beat the armored wings
of your conceit, beat the shrying women, malignant
children from the south, whom you see slithering
their infestation into schools and playgrounds, tell
the mouthy men, Go back to Univision! Indeed, The best

lack all conviction, leveraging control of women
and their own portfolios for a mess of potage. Or waiting
like the audience to the sacrifice of Kitty Genovese,
surely someone else will make the call, or slap down
the result of sedulous investigation as if it were the

Queen of Hearts.

Meanwhile, lifting from the ground like the undead
arise the hatchlings of the cursed cycle, genitalia dangling
unashamed and thrusting, whose creed
is overturning, out-maneuvering, signing with the blood
of others their Horse-Thief Covenant, as that rough beast
from which we thought we were protected slouches
toward our shore.

Leland Seese’s poems appear in The MacGuffin, Juked, The Stonecoast Review, and other journals. He and his wife live in Seattle with a revolving cast of foster, adopted, and bio children.

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Mike Nichols
Humanity was saved

by the next plague.
The gluttonous use of resources ceased.
Humans huddle dirty in their dark family
enclaves and recall meaningless bygone things:

Packed tight second lane from the right
rolling home at ten MPH to
Binge watch streaming TV.
Tonguing the clotted orange
Cheeto dust from all five fingers.
Consider buying bigger jeans.
Believing that we are the center of the universe.
Thinking God does love us.

Recall the faces of the dead.
Invite them into this dancing circle
of candlelight. Unafraid, because the dead carry
no diseases — only glad tidings.

Mike L. Nichols is a graduate of Idaho State University and a recipient of the Ford Swetnam Poetry Prize. He lives and writes in Eastern Idaho. Look for his poetry in Rogue Agent, Scryptic Magazine, Ink&Nebula, Plainsongs Magazine, and elsewhere. Find more at mikenicholsauthor.com

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Bruce Robinson
Field Notes on the American Eagle

I could tell you about eagles. Absolutely,
the national bird, whose gimlet eyes
latch on to facts on the ground

whose art veers toward the interstices
of talk and action, the parallel lines
that only meet through an echolocation

that we, that’s right, that’s us
on the ground, are privileged
to behold in wonder and amaze,

as did the Greeks, all talk
and no action, of antiquity,
as did other losers, native

liabilities, but I digress,
let me tell you, someday soon
I’ll tell you about eagles,

and you’ll be amazed.
You really will.

Recent work by Bruce Robinson appears or is forthcoming in Mobius, Dispatches from the Poetry Wars, Panoply, and Pangyrus.

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Doug Van Hooser
Politician

What he said he meant to say
when you weren’t listening.
Just an echo that would fade.
All march to the money drummer.
Fair means you have something I want.
Free means there is a hand in your pocket.
Trillion is the new billion
which once was the new million.
Twitter is a news conference.
Reporters are manikins.
The truth is never black and white,
it’s red and blue.
Gray is in solitary confinement.
Speech is clarified butter on their tongue,
the course of history a dry riverbed.
Legislation requires chess moves
so the pols play checkers.
The goal: get kinged.
Always reorganizing their bankruptcy
they never emerge from Chapter Eleven.
Simply borrow from their heirs
and park in the handicap spot
with someone else’s placard.
Their wisdom measured in bluster,
a wind that ransacks common sense’s pockets.
They mint one-sided coins that never land face down.
The past and the future have no roof, live in regret.
The algorithm never searches there.
Some define election as choice
but it is a cherry orchard
on a bright, sunlit day
in the middle of winter
when one stays inside eating summer’s preserves.

Doug Van Hooser‘s poetry has appeared in Chariton Review, Split Rock Review, Manhattanville Review, and Poetry Quarterly, among other publications. His fiction can be found in Red Earth Review, Crack the Spine, and Light and Dark. Doug is a playwright active at Three Cat Productions and Chicago Dramatists Theatre.

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Margo Davis
Keep It Light

He came as he pleased,
air parting so that light could bathe
him wherever he went,
washing out every fact before,
beyond, and near him
then poof!
he would fade and evade,
leaving a cut-out
in the atmosphere until the crowds
or reporters pushed
floodlights in that direction
to fill an enormous gap.
When he surfaced elsewhere,
he would nudge the air to make way
for throngs, accommodating
for presence then
absence, which we came to expect,
even when he stood there,
the void shifting to muted
promise, from indifference to
the soft grope inviting
nightfall.

Margo‘s more recent poems have appeared in The Fourth River, Ekphrastic Review, Misfit, and Light, and the Houston Chronicle (Fall). Recent anthology publications include Enchantment of the Ordinary (December), Of Burgers and Ballrooms, Untameable City, numerous Texas Poetry Calendars, and Echoes of the Cordillera. A Pushcart nominee awash in Republican mindsets, Margo thrives on closely observing film, photos, and natural settings. She’s known for eavesdropping.

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Michael Stalcup
The Wound

I have seen the wound of a people
Stretched wide
And the honored physicians
Shaking their heads
In disgust

That they would even be invited
To stoop down
To consider
To enter in
To believe

Offended at the mere suggestion
That the messy truth
Is worth more
Than their frail
Power

Michael Stalcup is a Thai-American missionary working with college students in Bangkok, Thailand, where he lives with his wife and three children. His poems have appeared in Inheritance Magazine, Poets Reading the News, and Faithfully Magazine. You can find him at his website michaelstalcup.blogspot.com or on Twitter @stalcupojoy.

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Kathleen Cook
Apply conservatively or liberally, as needed, to all disaffected areas,

sez the doc, to me, (credulous, attentive untutored)
Putabitoftheointment onthetipofyourmiddlefinger,
mixwiththecream (what cream?) using yourindexdab
freelymayuseyour secondandfourth.  Reschedule
insixweeksor wheneverwarrantyexpires.
Medicare, Supplemental?  Nothing?
How did you get in here?
Get lost.  Good Luck.
exits doc rapidly

dice el maestro de espanol, a mi, (credulous, attentive,
untutored) It’s a matter of mood.  If you are happy,
despondent, even fearful, and another person is involved,
he or she changes to the subjunctive.  Easy to do:  er/ir to ar
plus personal ending, don’t forget stem cells, but of course
if  you’ve gone into the past, must be-ara.
If you are alone, you can’t change
anybody.  Suerte.  Hasta luego.
maestro sale por la puerta.

sez the prez to me, (incredulous, inattentive, now-schooled)
Take a man at his word.  (A woman, too, I suppose?)
Innocent until  I say he’s guilty, disloyal, or scum.
My man is great!  I am great!
(A great silence falls on the land as televisions are muted
from sea to shining sea, Omaha to Onalaska.)
He never did any of those things!
I never did any of those things!
I run to recheck my voter registration, worn to a pale yellow tatter.

Kathleen Cook is a life-long resident of South Texas. She has enjoyed writing for all purposes since childhood. She completed advanced degrees in German language and literature and enjoyed a rewarding career as a teacher. In retirement, she has again taken up study of Spanish, and delights in gardening. The rich joys and sorrows of family and community intersect with urban and Texas-countryside settings in her writing. She has been published in Mutabilis, Dos Gatos, and Lamar University anthologies.

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Amanda Forrester
Blowback

I see your point
loaded
in my face
spring action, actionable

I see your point: how
in the old days, this is how it was done:
meet me in the street

with double barrels pointing
down, staring each other down
like “Bitch, what are you looking at?”

I see your pointedness
your sharp blindness
to change, to betterment

like there’s a three-day
waiting period—what more
do you need?

You’re so busy looking
behind you, in the rear
view mirror for that chip
on your shoulder that

you miss the blood.

Amanda Forrester’s creative work has appeared in the Sandhill Review. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Tampa and lives in Dade City, Florida.

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Mike Nichols
Cold War

Before Putin hacked our grid we’d watch
movies endlessly with our cheap electricity.

Stories kept us numb. Our lifeless eyes
displayed less intelligence than the animals

whose flesh we’d masticate against the flickering
blue light. There once was a telekinetic kid named

Sid, and in the movie time travel existed. Unlike the kid,
my anger contains no power. But if I beg, might He

at least send His thoughts and prayers.

Mike L. Nichols is a graduate of Idaho State University and a recipient of the Ford Swetnam Poetry Prize. He lives and writes in Eastern Idaho. Look for his poetry in Rogue Agent, Scryptic Magazine, Ink&Nebula, Plainsongs Magazine, and elsewhere. Find more at mikenicholsauthor.com

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