HOW TO RULE

by William Aarnes



In your decrees seem as warm
and distant as the sun.

Keep moony doubts to yourself.

Corrupt the reliable bureaucrats;
let judges know they are judged.

Accept that good intelligence
surpasses wisdom:
much as you need savvy counselors,
in time you’ll have them jailed.

For maybe a decade,
count on the people’s ability
to confuse the flaunting of wealth
with the sharing of wealth.

Understand that a palace is no place
for living with a disaffected spouse,
that even a lover’s cottage becomes public.

Treat zealots as traitors.

Once they fill the squares.
you can’t control the crowds
(but, to keep the guard loyal,
acquiesce to carnage).

Keep those moony doubts to yourself.

If (when) the coup comes,
be somewhere else,
basking in the sun.


William Aarnes lives and writes in South Carolina.

LIFE AFTER DEATH

by Howie Good

Image credit: monamakela / 123RF Stock Photo

“Boon,” our two-year-old says,
standing on the driveway
and pointing up at the sky.

He means “moon.” There isn’t one.

And in case you haven’t heard,
a suicide bomber in the Mideast
or Midwest or somewhere
detonated a dynamite vest.

My heart curls in on itself –
a matter, everyone just assumes,
not of character but chemistry.

At the first decorous drops of rain,
the leaves tremble, as if raised
on a bleak diet of curses and slaps.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com. 

UNETHICAL TRADE

by David Feela





If only the African moon
was made of ivory,

and as it weighed
so heavily on the horizon

poachers could cut it
into pieces and get away

by daybreak with a truckload
of the polished night.

I would give up the moon --
all of it -- let the earth

invent its own luminosity
if only to keep the elephants.

David Feela writes a monthly column for The Four Corners Free Press and for The Durango Telegraph. A poetry chapbook, Thought Experiments, won the Southwest Poet Series. His first full length poetry book, The Home Atlas appeared in 2009. His new book of essays, How Delicate These Arches  , released through Raven's Eye Press, has been chosen as a finalist for the Colorado Book Award.