con body politik

old analog Zenith

they killed analog years back

this set can’t catch a thing

nothing wrong with it

just out of date

snow clear around the dial

except ch. 76

came in like a window

bulbs swinging over a dirt field

a calliope that sounded right

until you listened

a banner

EVERYBODY WINS

COME JOIN US

and a coyote in a straw hat

looking straight out of the glass at me

first one’s free

a machine all levers and knobs

and under its glass

the Constitution

every word in place

not a comma touched

an elected official moved the knob

ENFORCE on one end

IGNORE on the other

and the needle swung

wherever the coyote nodded

a kid reached for the big lever

the coyote laid a paw on his

that one costs, son

they all cost now

I reached around back

and there it was

a penny

jammed in the fuse holder

where the fuse should be

I’ve seen it a hundred times

the protection’s built in at the factory

but it keeps tripping

keeps saying no

so somebody shuts it up

with a penny —

and it runs fine

runs fine

till the night the whole house goes up

and they stand in the yard

calling it bad luck

I pried the penny out

the coyote quit grinning

the picture shrank to one white dot

hung there

went out

work order:

unit not damaged

safeguards bypassed by owner

can be restored

needs somebody who gives a damn

Judgment

I can picture my judgment day

and it plays like Inherit the Wind,

the Scopes trial, Tennessee,

way before my time,

but I caught it every time

it came around on television.

Not realistic,

but realistic enough

for movies back then.

My God, it was entertaining.

It’s run its course with me now.

Last time, I could spot every cue

meant to jerk an emotion out of me.

Still fun.

Good fare for the masses.

What amazes me is the structure:

a reckoning waiting for us.

Waiting for anyone, really,

promised a hereafter

for when they’re no longer here.

That makes sense, I guess,

but to get there you’ve got to squeeze

through the gates on dogma,

and I find that absurd.

Still, I can see myself

in the hot seat, no pun intended,

and in the gallery

all my dead relatives,

a few old associates,

some girlfriends, whatever,

watching the proceedings.

How embarrassing.

All the crap I pulled for decades

with total disregard for consequences,

read into the record.

And at the very end

the defendant gets fined

a hundred dollars,

which of course gets struck down

on appeal.

I wonder if that’s how it’ll go for me,

if I have to sit through

all that nonsense.

But not to worry.

I don’t believe in it.

Never had a personal savior.

I pay homage to convention,

speak of a creator like we all do,

but I don’t believe any of it is real.

Kind of sad

that’s what it took

to keep human beings

from slaughtering each other off completely,

and even then

we didn’t do a very good job.

Look around.

So I should be safe.

I’d be pleased

if one night I just didn’t wake up,

a sudden stroke, something quick.

But I don’t think there’s any judgment.

Whatever made the universe,

if anything did,

I don’t believe it’s watching.

I exist, or existed,

just another creature,

a byproduct of evolution

over the eons.

Touchstones

by DW Chance

For decades, on occasion, a quick search online

a veteran’s website concerning the Vietnam War.

Veterans would submit pictures and their stories.

It grew as a rambling, garish website

I kept returning because it helped me.

There were plenty of photographs of places I knew, places I had been

on assignment. I shared their meals and sweated the same sweat

suffered through mosquitoes that never seemed to stop.

That was part of the experience.

During my eighteen months in total, I never bought a camera.

Occasionally I borrowed a friend’s.

One of them had a Polaroid.

Another took pictures and made copies for me.

Maybe a dozen or so…

I always regretted

a hundred dollars bought a good camera.

I traveled a lot.

I had a lot of experiences during that time.

No camera.

This is 2026, and today I was feeling that familiar restlessness.

I went to the Internet and tried to find the veteran’s site.

It wasn’t there anymore.

I searched my brain for memories.

I continued using Google.

I used ChatGPT.

Nothing.

Suddenly it became clear.

It was gone.

All those touchstones were gone, and for all I knew, he was gone too.

I feverishly searched for Vietnam War sites, and they were gone too, or at least the ones I was looking for. There were, of course, headings from official sources, histories and government records and all the proper things.

But that wasn’t what I was looking for.

I was looking for the messy stuff.

The photographs.

The stories.

The places.

The memories of people who had actually been there.

I was looking for something that said: Yes. I remember that too.

Now I’m sitting here alone with only half memories left to my name.

DW Chance (Donald W. Chance) is a Vietnam veteran who served six years in the U.S. Navy. He started writing poetry in his early sixties and hasn’t stopped, with around 500 poems and fourteen self-published collections. His work has appeared in literary journals, and he is a member of Poets & Writers. He writes free verse in the plain-spoken tradition of Bukowski and the Beats, and lives in the desert Southwest.