MEN WITH NO LIPS

by Tricia Knoll

I’ve learned to be afraid of them.
Someone is going to tell a lie.
Go after the drug peddlers, ignore
drug companies pumping opiods.
Refurbish Hotel Guantanamo
with used mattresses from high-rise hotels.
Breathe deep of clean, clean coal.
Pretend the sick get health care
or that your dreams are equal
to those of people without a country.
I'm never afraid to kneel
and know its rightness.

White guys who smile by folding
their lips in, straight lines across the face
to hide  the aging of the down curves
but not to show teeth. Some public relations
gimmick to refrain from being read as wolf,
predator, out to get you. Smuggy. Smirky.
Someone is telling a lie.  I’ve known frogs
I trusted more.


Tricia Knoll is an Oregon poet who once heard of an art installation by Robbie Conal called "Men With No Lips." So here we are in the news of the State of the Union. Men without lips.

"Men With No Lips" by Robbie Conal

"Can't Even" by Robbie Conal

DANCING THE COMPROMISE WALTZ

by George Salamon

Congressional Republicans: They more or less held their ground when the government shut down after Friday's midnight deadline passed, and in the end, Democrats compromised way more than Republicans to open the government back up. —Amber Phillips, The Washington Post, January 22, 2018. Photo: Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) clink glasses in a toast Monday on Capitol Hill after senators reached an agreement to advance a bill ending government shutdown. (Andrew Harnik/AP via The Washington Post, January 22, 2018)

Since the Reagan revolution
Bulls have been running our lives.
Swearing to uphold the Constitution,
They dance to a Wall Street beat.
Other political animals are squealing,
They march right up to the bulls
Grunting discreetly under their breath:
Let's make a little compromise,
Just a tiny little compromise,
This time on immigration,
So that just a tiny bit of decency dies.
Whenever you seek to banish the
Better aspirations of this nation,
We'll stand up and fight you
Until we make just a tiny little compromise,
So that we can be sure
Just a tiny bit of freedom vanishes,
A tiny bit of equality is thwarted,
A tiny bit of hope is dashed
Until you kill the people's dream.
For which there may be no compromise.

George Salamon remembers helping voters to the polls in Massachusetts to cast their ballots for Adlai Stevenson in 1956. Were those the days?