Lonely Christopher
San Francisco

I used to think that I could draw
and drove a car across the eclipsed
face of the thespian deserts
in a star system so far away from home
that our burning manticores fled
from the harm of a thousand space rats
and worlds died and suns were born
in a way that destroyed human concepts
of time, in a way that recalled the portal
that I once sucked ooze through
when I was first learning how to travel
and fuck for my life.

Lonely Christopher, Brooklyn-based poet and filmmaker, is the author of several movies and the books The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse, Death & Disaster Series, and the novel THERE (forthcoming 2017).

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Kyle Coma-Thompson
Tacitus Jr.

His whole
autobiography 
	was one
	long howl 
of wounded head. So

he deserves some credit
for not writing it. 

	
	*

Instead he surveyed the
power brokering of

the cannibal 
elite, recorded them for

the sake of honesty and 
moral veto. They lived

well regardless, and 
passed their laws.

All so the helpless 
might adhere to them. 


	*

He once read somewhere
students in Australia (or
	was it

	        South
		   Africa) studied
for springtime exams 

under jacaranda trees in bloom,
for good        luck.

One day he would have to write
the history of the 

working classes under one. 



	*

They held to one
another and fought

   and cursed and kissed
   and sang their endearing 

        fight songs, tumbling
        a long fall all the

way. Like blossoms. This book,

for what purpose did he write it,

but to open it one day, and catch them? 

Closing it, he keeps them, safe, hidden, preserved,

indistinguishable from any other book on the table. 


	*

The barbarians were his people, 

though they looked on him as a Roman.

Every day he conquered himself.

And so, both victor and loser, was one.

Kyle Coma-Thompson is the author of the short story collections The Lucky Body (Dock Street Press, 2014) and Night in the Sun (Dock Street Press , 2016). The title story for his first book was included by Ben Marcus in the anthology New American Stories (Vintage, 2015).

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Cornelius Eady
Bad Dream

It’s like waking up, but not waking up
The things of this world
A film in your mouth,
Milk in the fridge a bit
Too long, you know
That flavor,

You’re walking in a thrift shop
—how did you get there?
And the thought occurs
As you check the price tags
That everything you see

Once had a glory
Before the rust sat in,
Was once connected
To something bigger
Whose story

Is now gone. Forever.

Then you wake up
But you don’t wake up
And you walk to a coffee shop

What happened?
Everyone there shivers and sips
Sips and shivers.

How did you all land in a coffee shop?
How come this coffee doesn’t work?

The bad taste in the cup.

Cornelius Eady, poet and cofounder of Cave Canem, has published more than half a dozen volumes of poetry, among them Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1985), winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets; The Gathering of My Name (1991), nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; and Brutal Imagination (2001), a National Book Award finalist. Hardheaded Weather: New and Selected Poems appeared in 2008.

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Charles Bernstein
Were You There When They Crucified Our Lord?

I was. Let me tell you about it. It was mean ugly,
disgusting. Shattering if you really want to know.
And the worst thing is it didn’t stop, went on for days,
For years if truth be told. It never stopped.

Charles Bernstein is a venture poet and operative specializing in founding and developing innovative new media platforms and non-media portals through his Panacea Holdings. He is CFO of Poets Ludicrously Aimless Yearning (PLAY) and Director of Dysraphic Studies at the Institute for Avant-Garde Comedy and Stand-up Poetry. His books include My Side of the Street Is Not on Your Map, Buddy; Elusive Allusions: Selected Koans; and the national best seller Stupid Men, Smart Choices.

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Suzanne Sigafoos
Thanksgiving 2016, a Monochord

Gathered in despair, we praised.

Suzanne Sigafoos is the author of Held In The Weave (Finishing Line, 2011) Her work has appeared in The Oregonian, VoiceCatcher, Bellingham Review, and Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place, and in the anthology The Knotted Bond: Oregon Poets Speak of their Sisters. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

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Denise Duhamel
LETHALLY ORANGE

“Nothing more than a Clueless redux without the edgy, knowing wit.”
—The Washington Post

Lethally Orange

Donald Trump (played brilliantly by Donald Trump) has it all—hotels, golf courses, beauty pageant franchises, a reality show, a trophy wife, as well five kids from three different marriages. But Donald wants nothing more than to be Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States. There is one person (Hillary Clinton) trying to stop him—She is experienced. He is crass. She knows policy. He knows publicity. Spunky Donald Trump rallies all of his resources. Will he make it into the White House?

The locations for Lethally Orange are not, as you might have assumed, simply Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio. Although much of the film is set in such swing stages, Donald Trump (played by Donald Trump) jets to Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to dazzle the crowds who await him.

Lethally Orange 2: Red, White & Dumb

Donald Trump (played by Donald Trump) returns in this sequel to gloat. As he spins in his chair in the oval office, brassy Donald is all about rights for billionaires around the world. In fact, he puts his own luxurious vacation plans on hold as he heads to Washington, D.C., to get even more money into his pocket and the pockets of his friends. Can he also simultaneously curtail the rights of women, immigrants, minorities, and the poor? Destroy the environment? A cast of eccentrics led by Mike Pence (played by Mike Pence) quickly shows him the ways and workings, especially the loopholes, of our nation’s capital.

Even though the story is set in Washington, D.C., most of the film is shot in the offices at Trump Tower in New York City or various Trump properties around the globe. The supposed “aerial views” of Washington buildings were scale models built by the crew.

Lethally Orange: The Musical

Lethally Orange is a musical with music and lyrics by Mick Mulvaney and Betsy DeVos and book by Tom Price. The story is based on the 2016 film of the same name. It tells the story of Donald Trump, a real estate mogul who decides, on a lark, to run for President of the United States. He discovers how his knowledge of the law and business can destroy others. He successfully defends antiquated, harmful views about women and minorities. In one of the most upbeat numbers, “Supporting Small Businesses,” a campaigning Donald visits a small town diner and orders an LGBTQ, which he surmises is a BLT with BBQ sauce. Throughout the show, the majority of the American people have little faith in Donald Trump, complaining he is not “presidential.” He continues to crush their spirits when he ignores even the most basic of civilities, his hateful tweets sung by a chorus of dancing “Trumpettes.”

Denise Duhamel‘s most recent book of poems is Scald (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017). Blowout (Pittsburgh, 2013) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other books include Ka-Ching! (Pittsburgh, 2009), Two and Two (Pittsburgh, 2005), Mille et un Sentiments (Firewheel, 2005) and Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems (Pittsburgh, 2001). A recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, she was the guest editor is for The Best American Poetry 2013.

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Irene Cooper
No-vember

Gas station guy eyes me dead, juts me his peach fuzzed chin before back-handing my card.

Wet and dark, panhandler out Safeway says thanks, you’re the first. Wears a nice Columbia fleece and good boots, easy scavenged in a ski town. I worry he looks too good, but it’s poor that pisses people off.

Old showgirl leaks memory like a cracked pitcher, mourns minstrel shows with father, Young Republicans, the boiled blood of an Irish Dem mother.

Madmen and women froth with victory or grief. I‘d like to excuse myself, but this is my house.

Irene Cooper lives and writes in Oregon.

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Peter E. Murphy
The Free Market

The Egg Lady gave birth to an egg.
The Chicken Lady gave birth to a chicken.
Although they worked in different parts
of the same industry, neither recalled

knowing the other. And, in case you’re
wondering, it doesn’t matter which came first.
What matters is that the young egg
and the young chicken became friends.

The egg wasn’t good at getting around,
so the chicken carried it within her.
The chicken wasn’t good at staying still,
so she sat on the egg and was calmed.

When the Shop Man gave birth to a shop,
he invited the chicken and the egg to move in.
Believe me, he said, You can trust me.
Believe me, he said, It’s going to be great.

The Shop Man gave them space on a shelf
where the customers could see them.
Soon the chicken and the egg disappeared,
replaced by another chicken and another egg.

And on. And on.

Some people didn’t notice.
Some people noticed and didn’t mind.
Some people noticed and protested.

I don’t know what the big deal is, said the shop
owner. I am running a business. I am a for-profit
business. I am not hiding from that.

And that was that.

Peter E. Murphy is the author of Stubborn Child, a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize, Challenges for the Delusional, a book of writing prompts, and four poetry chapbooks. His recent essays and poems appear in The Common, Diode, Guernica, Hawaii Pacific Review, The New Welsh Reader, Rattle, Word Riot and elsewhere. He is the founder of Murphy Writing of Stockton University. www.peteremurphy.com

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Laura Winberry
#nastywoman: the anatomy of our crowns

is the smell of burning
sugar-sugar oil & sweat

we are tender
rockets burning clover
& hyssop through our abdomens

feral princesses wild & nasty
with love

all the women (in all the world)
are all the rape victims
of my dreams (in my dreams)
they sit
on the other side (of a table trying)
to explain
themselves
to a nodding
(& faceless)
man

our vaginas are not damsels in distress
they mouth the word souf with an f
& sing the triumphant blues

nasty women
licking our pre-wounds before they ooze

pinning up our heart-centers
to push our shoulders back

singing the aria
of dreambabydream

& holding all the damaged
light

Laura Winberry. Graduate of the OSU-Cascades Low-Res MFA Program. Professional cyclocross racer. Booty shaker. Snow eater. Drawer of things.

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Vivian Wagner
Post-Election Advice from Four Poets

Emily Dickinson whispered something
oddly capitalized and fragmented
about death and loss, before asking
if I really wanted to risk my browsing privacy by
downloading a Chrome extension that turns
Donald Trump into kittens.

Walt Whitman shouted loudly
about raindrops and universes,
waving an electronic petition
from Change.org in my face,
telling me to sign it or find myself lost.

Theodore Roethke danced drunkenly
in the corner, his beard growing out,
muttering rhetorical questions about the
existential crisis of hacking,
calling Vladimir Putin one smart motherfucker.

Mary Oliver pointed to the sunrise
with its winter pink and orange,
and then said nothing,
waiting for me to speak.

Vivian Wagner is an associate professor of English at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Creative Nonfiction, The Atlantic, The Ilanot Review, Silk Road Review, Zone 3, and other publications. She’s also the author of a memoir, Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music (Citadel-Kensington), and a poetry chapbook, The Village (forthcoming from Aldrich Press). Visit her website at www.vivianwagner.net.