Tag: Trump

Trashy

By M.R. Mandell

Artist’s Statement: I am interested in what surrounds me when I step out of my box and into the streets. What I see while taking a walk, sitting in a café, waiting at a corner. The moments of city life that make us stop, reflect, think, dream, cry. That pull us into the present yet teach us about the past.

M.R. Mandell is a poet and photographer whose work can be found in Hayden’s Ferry Review, SWWIM, The McNeese Review, Door Is A Jar, Writers Resist, HAD, and others. She is the author of two chapbooks, Don’t Worry About Me, (Bottlecap Press) and The Last Girl (Finishing Line Press). She lives in West Hollywood with her husband and two Golden Retrievers.

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Divertissement

By Candice M. Kelsey

                        I run the country and the world. –Donald Trump

Not only able to make guards bend
to her will, she also brings Creon slow madness
with one swoop of her wand. A seduction
at the end of Act IV from Charpentier’s opera,
triumphant scene from Eurpides’ Medea
where royal henchmen fall to a woman, powerful
and no longer pleading. Creon’s loyal guards
transformed into female dancers seizing the king, Médée
premiered in Paris as trials for witchcraft
raged across the Atlantic. On stage, the actress
makes a costume change, slips off her gown and stands
in Sorceress black, hair and make-up primed
for vengeance. More enchantment than distraction.
A banished woman never loses everything,
but dark waters of the Styx always betray a king.

Candice M. Kelsey (she/her) is a poet and educator living in both L.A. and Georgia. She’s developed a taste for life’s absurd glow, long skirts, and juicy opera podcasts. She roasts vegetables like it’s a sacred ritual and wears mostly black because her late father-in-law said it’s not her color. Somehow her work has received Pushcart and Best-of-the-Net nominations, and she woke up one day as the author of eight books. Please acknowledge her existence @Feed_Me_Poetry or www.candicemkelseypoet.com.

Photo by Chema via a Creative Commons license.

A note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist on our Give a Sawbuck page.

Grass

By Cheryl Caesar

“I don’t know—I don’t care. Somehow you will fail
Something will defeat you. Life will defeat you.’’
– Winston Smith, 1984

“I am the grass.
Let me work.”
– Carl Sandburg

And there he sits,
or tilts like an officious grasshopper
over the wooden podium.

Face sprayed orange to fake the sun.
Hair shellacked to cheat the wind.

Railing against Marxists and the Green New Deal.
And all the while his mutinous lungs,
refusing to hoard their molecular billions,

are taking in oxygen according to their needs,
and returning carbon dioxide to the best
of their ability, to every blade of grass:
golf course and garbage heap, indifferently.

Cheryl Caesar is a writer, teacher of writing, and a visual artist living in Lansing. She is an associate professor at Michigan State University, and does research and advocacy for culturally-responsive pedagogy. Her chapbook of protest poetry Flatman (Thurston Howl Publications) is available from Amazon. Her collage memoir Snakes and Stones is nearing completion and is looking for a publisher. Cheryl serves as president of the Michigan College English Association and secretary of the Lansing Poetry Club.

Photo by Bradley Feller on Unsplash.

A note from Writers Resist
Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

that name

By William Palmer

 

tide in—

imagine
waves scraping away

that name
and the lies upon lies

that feed off it,
dissolving them in foam

imagine
the mugshot gone

the blue suits gone
the long red ties

around our country’s neck
gone

 

William Palmer’s poetry has appeared recently in JAMA, J Journal, One Art, On the Seawall, Talking River Review, and The Westchester Review. He lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

Image credit: Sean P on Unsplash.

A note from Writers Resist

Thank you for reading! If you appreciate creative resistance and would like to support it, you can make a small, medium or large donation to Writers Resist from our Give a Sawbuck page.

 

Responsibility

By James Scruton

 

If they don’t treat me right, then I don’t call.
Maybe Pence or someone else will do it.
I don’t take responsibility at all.

These governors want me to take the fall.
But I show them who’s boss, tweet after tweet.
If they won’t treat me right, I just won’t call.

We have a billion tests. They’re beautiful,
Like me. But I don’t know what’s in each kit.
I don’t take responsibility at all.

Who says the virus would’ve leaped my Wall?
That’s just Fake News, Obama, and the Deep State
Talking. They don’t treat me right. They don’t. I call

Them any names I want. Because the ball
Is in my court. A powerful ball. Very tremendous court.
But I don’t take responsibility at all.

Over the governors, my Constitutional
Authority is perfect. It’s absolute.
But will they treat me right? Not my call.
They know I’m not responsible at all.

 

James Scruton’s most recent collection is The Rules (Green Linden Press, 2019).

Photo credit: Harry S. Truman’s desk sign from the Truman Library.

Presidential Seal

By Jennifer Shneiderman

 

Slipping into Cadillac One
Gliding on lies and half-truths
Trump greets supporters
waving off warnings
and all that is humane.
He is the clear and present danger.

The SUV
a mobile panic room
used for political theatre
could be the Secret Service
Presidential seal of death.

The truth is a ghost
a shadow
an inconvenience
an artifact
dismissed out of hand.
Turn around and
White House portraits have been replaced
with funhouse mirrors.

Secret Service
doing their duty
following orders.
Only an enemy
would define them as expendable.
The devil is in their detail.

Before the fate is sealed
the future insular, fanatical
overrun by white supremacy
ruled by the stunningly irrational—
Vote like Jim Jones is standing over you
with a syringe.

 

Jennifer Shneiderman is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker living in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Indolent Book’s HIV Here and Now, The Rubbertop Review, Writers Resist, the Poetry in the Time of COVID-19, Vol 2, anthology, Variant Literature, Bright Flash Literary Review, Wingless Dreamer, Trouvaille Review, Montana Mouthful, the Daily Drunk, Sybil Journal, Unique Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic, Terror House, Thirteen Myna Birds, Potato Soup Journal, Awakened Voices, GreenPrints, and The Perch. She was the recipient of an Honorable Mention in the 2020 Laura Riding Jackson poetry competition.

Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash.