JASON HEROUX (Kingston, Ontario)

LOUDSPEAKER
 

You’re a device      always channeling      one electrical signal

over another      into a sound      loud enough      to be heard

uptown      you came to get down      jump around      get some

feeling      we’re all devices      powered by impulses      we don’t

understand      what we’re saying      or hearing      you don’t

care      what we’re thinking      say what you like      do you

know      if anyone is listening      loudspeaker      your voice

is up for grabs      play what you want      the future is under

new management      we don’t know why      new snow keeps

getting stuck in old snow       waiting for friends      to come

dig it up      with their shovels      or why a dying battery loves

its toy      even though it won’t play      or why the moon loves

channeling      its lonesomeness      through our bones      who

knows if riot dogs      are barking I LOVE YOU      at the crowd

whoever wants      to be happy      must do it now      if someone

alerts us      to leave the premises      tell them we came      to get

down      we came to get down      not to give up      jump around.

LAURA FARINA (Vancouver)

Believe Me

You can be anything you want to be –

Ogled organic farmer

Uninhibited ukelele player

Fondled forest ranger

Up-for-it upholsterer

Curvy chiropractor

Kittenish kitchen manager

Inviting inventor

Nubile neurosurgeon

Groped gas leak inspector

Docile dentist

Impregnated impressionist

Coquettish CEO

Kneeling karate instructor

Willing welder with an 

Ass that won't quit

Demure dog walker.

KEN MCKENZO (Ottawa)

Fuddle-Duddle Drumpf

 

You will not much care, of course

Our fury for your deceits, our frail

Unity rendered dumb and disunited.

 

For your gilt-rusted rage, you martialed

Untoward, unwitting brigades; and

Crowds did sway with indolence,

Knowledge mocking and afraid,

Illiterate to honesty. You grasped at

No greater good except to prod and

Grope the public sphere. You will

 

Deliver no promise but spite

Its remaining decency, hound

Civility into a sad corner, and will

Kick good with bad faith. Still,

We learn anew from anger’s focus

Are goaded by your ‘Great’ brag, you

Dare us this better rage.

VIVIAN VAVASSIS (Ottawa)

You never know when democracy will choke

out a glottal-stopped death rattle

under elliptical bows of grandeur,

fences and steel that stand monolithic

under guile, the guise of greatness.

Can you hear the semantics cast in

knee-jerk frenzy

invoking the hysteria of red states?

Neville never saw the signs

glad-handing in clueless clucks

despite the world realigning 

in desperate coordinates.

Churchill read ciphers like constellations

knowing fragility threads muscle and spirit.

We never saw it coming! Only you kind of knew he'd

ape it, an orange marshmallow man teetering over DC

dancing a bigly toppling jig.

CANNONBALL STATMAN (Brooklyn, NY)

You realize why no one voted for you in New York, right?
Or do you? You overgrown mutant
Uterus from the 2nd dimension. I watched
Fifty billion marathon runners pickling disfigured syringes
Under their arms as they stood paralyzed awaiting the
Crow of the cock at the feet of a century
Killing six baker’s dozen seagulls from a bored shadow universe
Into our distorted star system where
Nuance is no substitute for the sensation of blood,
Grits, and your
Dicksucking cabinet of homophobic hypocrites.
I am not impressed.
Could you at least not
Kill Chuck Berry, Paul McCartney, John Cale, and
Wim Wenders?
And while you’re at it, could you accomplish one redeemable, even
Decent thing in the next four years?

AMANDA EARL (Ottawa)

You wanted a celebrity president:
Okay then, losers. Very interesting.
Understand, you voted for me.

Furthermore, America is a disaster.
Unhappy? Hard to imagine.
Capitalism’s the only way. Believe me.
Killjoys will be locked up.
Immigrants? Not a problem.
No Muslims allowed.
Guns? I love them bigly.

Don’t say trickledown won’t work.
I exploit workers; they understand.
Caring didn’t make me rich. Let the poor eat
Krispy Kremes. They’re morons.
What about healthcare? Excuse me?
Absolutely not. Unless you pay bigly.
Dear white broads: thanks for the votes.

MARK GRENON (Montreal)

Braggadocioficationism

You’ve slathered the world in apoplexy,
ornery oratory, braggadocio,
ultimatums commandeering Greenbackers in a future i.o.u. snafu.
Firing the falconer won’t conceal the falcon knockoff
under the falsetto flaggers, nor will POTUS-prompted Twitter jujitsu,
Captain Carotene, curtail the Great Invisible Wall of your climacteric.
Kowtowers, bluenecks, rednecks, thinking they’re gonna get some payback,
idolize you, mirroring the spectre of your red-hatted alibi,
not knowing the trajectory of your MAGA campaign
(gimmickry, hyperbranding, xenotrolling)
deaf to the arc of its rancor, is that the electorate’s to be betrayed.
Indignant, an ism unto yourself, darksuited, anti-
cogito, constantly clickbaited, ultraphallic
Kickback King, how did you lowjack,
without a clue in hell, the body politic, disavow,
aargh, the zeitgeist of some better America
dying to be born out of this jailbird jeremiad?