WHAT DOES THE TRUTH MATTER?!

by The Bangkok Bards Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Whose fault is it anyway?
Pledging allegiance to whatever flag
Unfurls condemned property claims dismissed
Blame endgame pawns checkmating kings

Rockabye cradle of civilization treetops
Humanimals disappearing from soiled earth
Desert rats replaced by insects
Aphid borer bugs worms beetles

Emerald green caterpillars metamorphosis curtailed
Short-horned grasshoppers exodus flights cancelled
Nomads stripping crops infesting fields
Nymphs form bands adults swarms

Murky often contradictory mixed messages
False pretences invasion propaganda vilified
Imperial superpowers’ vacuum cause uprooted
Both sides conducting war crimes

Oily motives struggling to control
Corrupt harsh authorities brutal regimes
Military contracts favor wealthy elite
Convoluted natural resources geopolitical biases

Global financial crisis youth unemployment
Rising costs of living dangerously
Major ethnic religious faction confrontations
Plentiful share never quite enough

WHOSE WORLD IS IT ANYWAY?!

No Holds Bard Dr. Charles Frederickson and Mr. Saknarin Chinayote proudly present YouTube mini-movies @ YouTube – CharlesThai1 . 

WILL WORK FOR FOOD

by Janice D. Soderling

Madrid Homeless from The Sketchbook Blog of Louis Netter

If the 44m people who are unemployed in the mainly rich members of the OECD lived in one country, its population would be similar to Spain's– The Economist

Rain trickles down the pane
in unpredictable paths.
A flyspeck, a chance gust
can alter water's course.

In the cold glare of a department store window,
a coughing man beds down on the sidewalk,
inside a black garbage bag. Only eleven pm
and already November. I think of socialism
as a bird, or a tree; as upward motion, dignity.
It is not a coin tossed grandly in a cup.
Some define it as a moral choice,
a plan for upholding civilization.
Others simply call it fair play.


Janice D. Soderling is a previous contributor to The New Verse News. Recent work at Kin, Prose Poem Project, Origami Poem Project, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Thrice Fiction and forthcoming at American Arts Quarterly, Literary Bohemian, Boston Literary Magazine and Penduline Press. In October 2012, she was featured reader at the Rattle Reading Series (La Cañada/Greater Los Angeles), and special guest at First Wednesday Formal Reading Series (Oakland/Greater San Francisco).