TEN SPEED NEWS CYCLE

by Frederick L. Shiels

Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

Obama’s second term is doomed they say
Six months in, Press coroners pronounce it dead
The IRS chastised for chasing Tea
drinkers, Hillary’s inattention slaughters our
ambassador in Benghazi then
her crew make up stories,

Associated Press, Boston left unprotected so it goes
The best offense Defense, GOP says
This Right-serves the ‘libral’ pack for Watergate
And oh harassment of those do-good folk,
J Edgar’s files on King Seegar Baez, other threats,

The endless gottcha nothing new we say
Why knaves betraying knaves is how it works
Honored tradition, remember Lancaster and York?
The Romanovs and Bolsheviks parade
Their antics and Rasputin laughs

And so they think Obama cries
All tied in knots, he sighs
Thoreau said read the papers once a month
You’ll ‘not a thing miss’, he implied
It’s May, such flowers! adopt an earthworm better still
Turn off newschatter, go embrace the Countryside.


Frederick L. Shiels professored at Mercy College in history and politics starting in the Jimmy Carter years, 1977 and after. He has published poems in The New Verse News, The Hudson River Anthology (Vassar) and Wicker’s Creek (Mercy College), the latter two no longer publishing, and elsewhere. He has written on the bombing of civilians and, now, the future of progressivism in America.

LOOKING FOR THOREAU

by William Cullen, Jr.

“Thoreau with iPhone” by Gretchen Stephenson, The New Yorker, February 1, 2011

Here at Walden Pond
pilgrims outnumber the trees
with their cell phone tones
mimicking every woodland song
the mocking bird is heard no more.


William Cullen, Jr., is a veteran and works at a non-profit in Brooklyn, NY. His poetry has appeared in Camroc Press Review, Gulf Stream, Pirene's Fountain, Right Hand Pointing, Spillway, Willows Wept Review, Word Riot and Written River.

GLOBAL WARMING

by Howie Good

   
               

“Everything
I leave
behind,”

a dying
Thoreau
instructed,

“is to be
 burned.”

Birds ignite
in mid-air.


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.