The Chaos Section Poetry Project
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How to Dodge Bombs
Patricia J McLean I think it could be a night like that night in Augustjust before Utopia got a new wall to replace the brokenfalling down, rotten wood wall Or before the night like that night, or another sort of night altogetherwhen the broccoli dies of neglect, tomatoes are so heavy vines breakthe garden is Continue reading
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script eighty-five
Liz Mariani are you are the screenwriterresting in a field of garlic? are you are the bankersinking into another suburban fold? are you are the loverat the door on the floor at the door? are you the border guard?this is a field of garlic spin the clearcut field of snowchew the wind this is the Continue reading
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The American Dream 2.0
Shannon Frost Greenstein Part One In America, we quantize our bodiesand the complexities of our brains –assigning each part a separate dollar value –because health insurance companies don’t deal in health;because health insurance companies deal in profit. In America, we employ thousandsin the manufacture of bulletproof backpacks;entire factories pumping out Kevlarlike this band-aid is the Continue reading
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Thoughts from the other side of the Mid Atlantic Rift
Sue McBean Only an ocean away.On the “scatter my ashes’ island.Across the Atlantic. Rathlin.Eider ducks coo, tide ebbs and flows,and oyster catchers scream alarm. The soft eiders,huddle close for safety in numbers.They seem to fly under water.Menacing gulls circle overhead.There are no chicks yetfor airborne rats to play tyrant over. They’llcross the Sound to scavenge Continue reading
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clean
Liz Mariani better get clean before the taxmancomes to tax you for living i got raped and all i got was this lousy t-shirt can’t teach in america when everywhere isa classroom ripe for a mass shootingcan’t walk/wake/weep in americawhen everywhere is a hospital rotten aerosol mustard i got raped and all i got was Continue reading
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Born Naked, the Choice After is Ours
Merril D. Smith 1. The rot from within festers,the room reeks, the lies bloom like corpse flowers,the stench overwhelming–it’s the new perfume. Three men in that oval chamber,only one is a leader, and I am ashamed. 2. But— in the darkness, we openour eyes, whisperpoetry, till we becomeferocious– motherswill defend their young,their young will growl Continue reading
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she writes me down
Melissa Lemay a number on the marginsturns me over and backi exist in silentclaim numbers she clack-clack-clackshits send to askagain what year‘the incident’ occurred i tell her i don’t remembermost of my life i list out dates all estimatesin language she probablydoes (not) understand, i understand only incidentsthat happened in pennsylvaniaqualify me for the aid Continue reading
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misstra know-it-all
after Stevie Wonder Matthew E. Henry he’s everything the racists hoped a Black president would be.a sexual predator, jackal-slinking from one vulgarityto the next—tiny hands always in someone else’s pocket.a bastard with multiple baby mommas, married—for the moment—to an off-White woman his supporters used to slut shame, citingsomething about “family values.” with a bachelor’s in shucking,a Continue reading
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Stocked
Chad Parenteau Our abusersmourned first,foremost. Deathbedswarmerthan ever. Gun barrelsloaded,suckled. Chad Parenteau hosts Boston’s long-running Stone Soup Poetry series. His work has appeared in journals such as Résonancee, Molecule, Ibbetson Street, Pocket Lint, Cape Cod Poetry Review, Tell-Tale Inklings, Off The Coast, The Crossroads, The Skinny Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, dadakuku, Nixes Mate Review, Continue reading
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April 18th
Rachel Armes-McLaughlin The whole world holds its breath. Who’s next to be grabbed off the streetby those in plain clothes with masked identities? Sent to a prison, a camp, a painful death. In the 1930s, by train.But now sent out by air, held aloft by hate. Sent by air, like the virus they’ve tried to Continue reading
The Chaos Section Poetry Project 