Ed Madden
At the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Columbia, SC, October 31, 2020

Across the parking lot, a man with a mic
is calling out drop, pop, and roll, and two
women just in front of us in line dance
along. It’s getting a little festive, a little
restless as we get closer to the door,
where they let in six or seven at a time.
One woman shuffles the heel-toe in fluffy
pink house shoes. They name the moves,
call out a few they don’t think quite right.

A golf cart bumps by with boxes of popcorn.
A church offers bottled waters at a table
where the line curls along the back fence.
It’s been a two-hour wait. We got here early
enough, but the line was already around
the building. Everyone is wearing masks except
a middle-aged white couple in black and
sunglasses, taking occasional deep pulls
on their electric cigarettes. Most of us look

at our cellphones as we wait, another
kind of social distance. The line wraps
around the building then coils around
an adjacent parking lot. An old woman
leaves crying because the county isn’t
providing provisional ballots for early voting
sites. I don’t know why. Once inside
we line up on the thick strips of gray
tape that mark off the floor. A poll worker

behind a plastic shield stares at my license
a bit—I can’t tell if she’s comparing
signatures or if it’s just the COVID hair. Finally,
she hands me a slip of paper, a cotton swab,
points me toward the wall of voting machines.
I use the cotton swab to touch the screen.
I get an “I Voted” sticker when I leave.

—Submitted on 11/02/2020

Ed Madden is the author of Ark (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2016), Nest (Salmon Poetry, 2014), Prodigal: Variations (Lethe Press, 2011), and Signals (University of South Carolina Press, 2008). His poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, Los Angeles Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Forward Book of Poetry 2021 (Faber & Faber, 2020), among other journals and anthologies. 

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Chad Parenteau
Patient Nero

Lick flames
fan flickers.

Why fiddle with self
when others can join.

Mother whore not complex.
There’s a line for both.

World’s best actor
needs supporting cast.

None who jump in
dare call it pit.

How can one burn
if all play along?

—Submitted on 11/01/2020

Chad Parenteau is the author of The Collapsed Bookshelf (Tell-Tale Chapbooks, 2020) and Patron Emeritus (FootHills Publishing, 2013). His poems have appeared in Résonancee, Queen Mob’s Tea-House, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, and other journals. Parenteau is a regular contributor to Headline Poetry & Press as well as associate editor of Oddball Magazine. Online at chadparenteaupoetforhire.com.

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Cheryl Caesar
Envoi on Election Day (whenever that is for you)

Blessings on you, all my friends,
as you go out to vote today.

May no pillow malfunction, no mis-set alarm
delay you. May your coffee perk
and your toast pop up unburnt.

May no deer or bottleneck
block your journey. May the lines
be short, your ID and registration ready.

May you find the real drop box,
and no Republican fake.

May the levers pull smoothly,
and the rectangles fill with black.
May your reward sticker stay stuck
to your lapel all day.

Because you deserve it.

You love animals; you may hate hunting.
But this was a rogue elephant, insane
in musth, crushing cars and villagers.
It had to be killed.

We will not take trophies,
no ivory keepsakes, no foot-on-head selfies.
We will burn it decently and with regret
for the noble animal it once was.
And then we will start to rebuild.

—Submitted on 10/16/2020

Cheryl Caesar is the author of Flatman: Poems of Protest in the Trump Era (Thurston Howl Publications, 2020). Her poems have appeared in Prachya Review, Panoply, Light, Origami Poems Project, Ponder Savant, and other journals, as well as in the anthology Nationalism: (Mis)Understanding Donald Trump’s Capitalism, Racism, Global Politics, International Trade and Media Wars (Mwanaka Media and Publishing, 2019), edited by Tendai Rinos Mwanaka. Caesar holds a PhD in comparative literature from the Sorbonne. She teaches writing at Michigan State University.

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Steven Cordova
Doom Scrolling

↓ Doom scrolling 
  Doom scrolling
 
  I’m scrolling   
  scrolling 

  scrolling along 

↓ Doom scrolling  
  Doom scrolling 

  I’m polling  
  polling 

  The polling 

↓ Doom scrolling  
  Doom scrolling 

  Trump is trolling 
  He’s trolling

  trolling along 

↓ Doom scrolling 
  Doom scrolling 

  All the day long

  For so long

  I’m doom scrolling
  Doom scrolling along ↑

—Submitted on 10/15/2020

Steven Cordova is the author of Long Distance (Bilingual Review Press, 2010). His poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Callaloo, The Journal, Notre Dame Review, and the Los Angeles Review, among other journals. He reviews fiction and nonfiction for Lambda Literary. From San Antonio, he lives in Brooklyn. 

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Barbara Quick
Blood Pressure

I have a tiny ovoid blood-pressure pill,
light blue, that I cut in half
with a plastic machine, a little guillotine,
the pharmacist at Kaiser gave me
when I said I wanted a lower dosage.
Try as I might, my cuts are always
imprecise, and the halves are always uneven.

I have a small round metal box
that must have come from Germany,
that belonged to one of my husband’s
ex-wives. Its prettiness is a nice disguise
for my distress that I need to take
a pill every day, no matter how diminutive
its size.

Every morning, on waking, I prise the box open
and contemplate the tiny blue, uneven
halves, like a school of minnows in a golden sea,
and I ask myself what kind of day is this likely
to be?

My husband’s sleeping face gives none of his secrets
away. I never needed medication
before aligning my life with his. As the level
of his anger lessened along with his drinking,
and we worked on our communication,
I was able to tell my doctor,
I think I’m almost done with these pills.

But life is harder now and much more stressful
with my husband home full time.
Is it a day for a larger half, or even two
of the smaller fragments,
placed side by side on my tongue
and swallowed?

He seems to possess the belief that my purpose in life
is to absorb his pain: to always forgive, always be
giving and kind, no matter how he speaks to me.
He sees my grief as a sign of my cruelty,
as a testament of blame heaped upon
his self-recrimination and feelings of shame.

Isn’t my purpose in life to heal myself?
To comfort the traumatized girl I was,
growing up in a place that was so violent and unsafe,
with a father I loved, whose psychic pain
scarred all of us, whose anguish and psychotic rage
permeated the air I breathed and probably,
like any pollution, damaged my young heart
in some insidious way?

What hubris to think I can heal
the sensitive and tortured man I’ve skillfully chosen
to stand in for the first man I ever loved, who’s dead now.
Who can’t ever be made whole.

How can I protect all those places inside
where my husband’s knives, razor-sharp,
have found their mark?
How can I protect myself and also
be kind, remembering how much I want to heal
whatever wounds reveal themselves,
both his and mine?

Last night was hell and yet we slept.
Today I choose the largest little minnow
I can find.

—Submitted on 10/11/2020

Barbara Quick is the author of The Bus to Apollonia, co-winner of the Blue Light Press Poetry Prize, forthcoming in 2021. She is also the author of three novels, with another forthcoming in 2022. Her poems have appeared in San Francisco Chronicle, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Panoply, Mezzo Cammin, and Monterey Poetry Review, among other journals, as well as in anthologies including Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California (Scarlet Tanager Books, 2018). She lives in Sonoma County, Calif. Online at BarbaraQuick.com.

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John Johnson
Presidential Election Sestina

Jimmy Carter is the underwater incumbent running for re-election.
Double digit inflation and the Iran hostage crisis places the country at a crossroads.
Ronald Reagan’s quip “There You Go Again” wins him the debate.
“Are you better off than you were four years ago?” the resonant ad.
A landslide victory across 44 states elects a new president.
Optimism and a new political coalition the outcome of the campaign.
 
Character issues dog Bill Clinton during a 1992 campaign.
But a millionaire third party candidate paves the way for a Democratic win in the election.
The Southern governor who “feels your pain” trumps the out-of-touch incumbent president.
Economic struggle and a war in the Persian Gulf puts the country at the crossroads.
“Read My Lips, No New Taxes” a broken promise turned into a scathing ad.
Pocket book issues and a Dana Carvey inspiring performance loses the debate.
 
George W. Bush, the every-man, is more likeable than the know-it-all Al Gore in the first debate.
Compassionate conservatism challenges the status quo of a vibrant economic campaign.
But vice-presidential “guilt-by-association” with presidential scandal fatigue creates a damaging ad.
Nonetheless, on voting day, a disputed popular vote in the election.
“Florida! Florida! Florida!” puts our nation at the crossroads.
We wait several months for the Supreme Court to declare our next president.
 
Barack Obama historically elected the first black president!
And we mistakenly think the country has moved past post-racial debate.
Greatest economic crisis in a century places the nation at the crossroads.
John McCain, a maverick war hero, can’t effectively campaign.
Youth turnout and wave of African American support seals the election
“Hope and Change” a rallying cry in the lasting election ad.
 
A reality TV show for over a decade is the ultimate campaign ad.
No one really takes this clown seriously—He can never be president.
Yet the rude awakening on the morning after the election.
Circus stunts with Clinton accusers and Access Hollywood mar the debate.
The hopes of breaking the last glass ceiling for women smashed by the campaign.
Who realized “Making America Great Again” would put the country at the crossroads?
 
2020 places the country yet again at the crossroads.
Coronavirus, economic despair, and endless chaos are the real-life ad.
The side show circus of mismanagement and Twitter insanity are the campaign.
Biden harkening back to a time of civility and orderliness in a president.
An aggressive Trump who will not change angry and infected at the debate.
And yet liberals terrified that a man 16 points down can still win the election.
 
History always has us at the crossroads as we elect a new president.
Yet the current situation seems incapable of being captured in a single ad or debate.
A campaign for safety, sanity, and democracy is on the ballot in this election.

—Submitted on 10/11/2020

AuthorsName

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Adam Coday
Wars

My toy soldiers are stiff and plastic,
but yours can run and jump. How impressive.

You call them Jack and they holler back, though,
and they sometimes wince, while mine shine

unwavered, same as the day they came, their bows
and ribbons strewn about the room, like shrapnel.

When my men break, I can paste them
or replace them, but yours are a special kind—

they take nine months to make.

When they’re done, you waste them
as though it only took a day, and you trade them

as though their flesh were legal tender
and your face had been stamped upon them, boastful.

You measure power in piss, and how you wreak
from the stench of it, that steady flow of ambrosia

pouring through your fists: your God-like hands
performing miracles, making water as you whine.

There’s not a man alive who hasn’t felt divine
a time or two. We all have our good days.

But as sure as my eye blinks, you’re naked
and you’ll serve mushrooms that sear the skies, white

and hot on my dinner plate; cruel and abrupt, the annihilation.

It’s only a matter of time before I lie
in piles, grey and pyroclastic, being scattered.

I hear you’ll take it upon yourself to let me die
unlike your demons: foreign to you, like language.

Now, the dawn breaks over hills and brick churches.
Our planes have chimneys, spilling smoke and blood that stains.

—Submitted on 10/08/2020

Adam Coday‘s poems have appeared in Lucky Jefferson, From Whispers to Roars, and The Silent World in Her Vase. He can be followed on Instagram @hunterandgrove.

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Chelsea Balzer
Compost

I’m trying to remember
when I first realized
the eroticism
of compost.

just this morning I
left the kitchen for
moments and
came back to find that
the flies had fucked out
a new army, birthed in the
festering berries.

a domestic emergency I,
still in my underwear,
carried the basket at once
to the shit heap where
the best mushrooms grow.

it bloomed beneath
my hands and I
felt the singe of recognizing
a thing is more
alive than you.

maybe the real question is
when did I learn that
arousal is less about
the touching of genitals

and more about
coming upon something
and with your whole body sensing
            its power?

—Submitted on 10/08/2020

Chelsea Balzer‘s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Yes Poetry, Plainsongs, Okay Donkey, Cigar City, Elephant Journal, and other journals. Thought Catalog, Omaha Magazine, and more. Her book A Pity Party Is Still a Party is forthcoming from Harper Wave. A therapist, Balzer is founder of Big Feels Lab, an organization empowering people to heal together. Follow her on instagram @theconnectionartist.

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Herbert T. Abelson
Sing America (a choked voice after Whitman)

I cannot sing America—
where would I begin?
in the East, West
North, South—
in the red States or blue States,
on the coasts, mountains,
in cities, towns or burgs?

I must breathe deep to sing
to plead for life
in America the Beautiful
even in the midst of this pandemic 

I want to sing America
with reverence and respect
I want to sing loud and long
to America’s heart,
to all the American People, but
I cannot find them—where are they?
—the good people on both sides,
the people who demand
equality, opportunity, fairness, justice?

Where are the people
anxious to address melting ice, forest fires,
hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, famine,
the worsening warming disaster, 
the decline in quality of the air we try to breathe?

There is a rich song,
and a poor dirge,
is there no key for middle ground?


I desperately want to sing America, 
to join the birdsong, the crickets, the tree frogs,
all of God’s children, who sing to honor the promise,
the striving, the pain, the struggle, the love,
the tears, the toil, the last full measure
that all men are created equal,

but my voice is mute,
my limbs immobile, 
my thoughts blank.

My dear country, now a stranger,
ripped asunder, foreign, frightening.
I don’t feel safe—sounds are dissonant, harsh,
voices ugly, where is the beauty of my country ‘tis of thee?
Where is the sweet land of liberty?

I want to sing renewal, hope, inclusion, respect,
sweet visions of promise for future opportunity and freedom.
Singing to the choir is out of tune as frustration grows—so much
greed, division, derision, coursing through our Country; our future a howling
dissonance, divided, ruled by fabrication, confabulation; the fiat of fools.

Conspiracies reign bound with half-truths and outright lies to
tie my vocal cords.

I can’t sing.

I can barely breathe.

—Submitted on 10/07/2020

Herbert T. Abelson is a retired academic physician, husband, father, and grandfather who writes prose and poetry about a grand career and life.

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Amanda White
Pharmacopoeia

Mental pandemonium in a prescribed capsule,
a bittersweet pill of house, offspring and occasionally
Father comprising the isolated wide world.
Mandated holding cell with the hot
breath of a Southern summer.

Crowds dispersed by fumigation,
like insects inhabiting a suburban lawn.
Poison seeps from woodland flora,
enforcing a lockdown also on the isolated copse.
Cocktails of Appalachian aloe and distilled ethanol.

Humidity creates adhesive facial coverings
worn religiously during essential excursions.
Townspeople with present-day pitchforks
prod at the faithless mask that
second amendment prayers will not remedy.

Conversations become conversion campaigns.
Friends who were once family have now transfigured,
forcing interventions of fewer than six feet.
Evangelizing that the concealing of nose and mouth must equal
Liberal doses of relapsing.

Pray to party dictates or cover yourself.
The pharmaceuticals of a country United,
overdosing on Liberty.

—Submitted on 10/07/2020

Amanda White is a reader, writer, and traveler currently living in Nashville, Tenn., with her husband and three rogue boys. She has a master’s in literature focusing on poetry and folklore.

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