STATE OF THE UNION

by David Rosier

Cartoon by David Fitzsimmons

All shapes, all shades, all sense,
This winter day, lost in fog
In our deceived, defiled land
Still stolen by a demagogue.


David Rosier is a poet and author who lives in the small arts community of Spring City, Utah.  He is also a musician.

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

THRESHOLD

by Paul Smith

Cartoon by Taylor Jones

There is a paradox
that goes like this:
a real good liar is so good
he is never caught
so he gets known as
an honest man
an honest man, though, may
become desperate and lie
once or twice
a greenhorn at deception
he gets labelled a liar
but there are limits, sir
the threshold is
five lies a day
two thousand lies in one year
once you cross that line
you are out of the vestibule
of deceit
and into the parlor, the banquet hall
then all of us are on to you
you stick out like a sore thumb
we have your number
we
the second sex
the fifth estate
the one they call
the seventh son
we all
know your sum

and it is zero


Paul Smith lives near Chicago. He writes fiction & poetry. He likes Hemingway, really likes Bukowski, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks and Slim Harpo. He can play James Jamerson's bass solo for 'Home Cookin' by Junior Walker & the Allstars.