CROWNING BLOWS

Our founders didn’t plan a standing army.

Said, “Keep your guns. If ever we’re attacked,

fight back.” And yet the Continental Army

grew and grew. Today, its job is clear:

safeguard citizens from threats and harm.

Don’t be the threat—tear-gassing protest groups,

or shooting rubber bullets into crowds

to punish rebel rallies, menace them

with National Guardsmen, troops of tough Marines.

The army wasn’t meant to be an axe–

behead dissent, make Presidents into Kings.

President craved a warrior parade—

like North Korea’s storm-troopers and tanks.

So on his birthday, he has big, big plans—

impress Blue States, the MAGA crowd, the world

with how much fearsome force he can unleash

by snapping fingers. He—the chief, the star!

His birthday falls on an auspicious day.

He’ll mark the army’s anniversary

like no one’s ever seen– a huge parade!

Intimidate with grim, jackbooted troops.

a $45 million birthday bash!

June 14^th dawns hot, with drizzling rain.

So what? The show goes on. And on. And on–

down D.C. streets. The smattering of folks

that wait and watch are silent. You can hear

one hundred thirty tanks go squeaking by,

thirty-four horses, two old army mules.

Here come the hand-held drones, and robot dogs

whose jerky marching entertains the kids.

Platoon upon platoon in serried ranks–

Six thousand soldiers saunter past in camo,

walking out-of-step. Some even wave.

“The tone’s all wrong!” the pissed-off POTUS roars.

“I wanted troops that paralyze with fear.”

Berates his birthday present. Showers blame.

Looks glum, and naps. Some VIPs watch, yawning.

News videos show empty rows of bleachers.

Empty folding chairs outnumber full.

But he rewrites the pricey flop. Invents

a madly cheering mob! Huge numbers! Huge!

Meanwhile, all across the USA,

two thousand towns or more host record crowds–

Five million demonstrators fill the streets

with heartfelt, home-made protest signs and feet.

In Utah, wheelchairs leave the nursing home

and roll out on the streets to wave their flags

and question health-care cuts, their lives at stake.

Red States, Blue States, finally one voice:

       No one’s paying me to resist Fascism.

       If there’s money for a parade,

there’s money for Medicaid.

       Eggs are scarce, ‘cause chickens are in Congress.

       OMG, GOP! WTF?

       Even Ikea has better cabinets.

       Take a stand now, or bow down later.

       A King? No FAUX-king way!

No Kings! No Kings! Chains of human resolve

stretch for blocks. In some cities, for miles.

Peaceful, but expressing deep concerns:

immigration seizures, health care, tariffs,

Social Security, free speech, civil rights.

Over it all, the war cry of democracy:

we’re not the pawns of power. We are free.

No Kings! No Kings! You hear our voice? No Kings!

TRUMP’S WAR

Operation Midnight Hammer included seven B-2 Spirit Bombers, 125 total aircraft, and more than 75 precision guided weapons…

The largest operational strike in U.S. History.” –CBS News, 6/2025

Yo, Trump! Did you start World War III today?

Iran and Israel have been at odds.

So Netanyahu winks at Trump and nods.

Trump plans a strike, and stealth bombers obey.

We bomb three nuclear sites without okay

of Congress. Unprovoked attacks– Ye gods!

Will this uplift his sagging polls? Or prod

a larger war— a Middle East melee?

“Bone spurs” exempted him from wartime action

He thinks combat’s a cinch. His ace? The Bomb.

His lame parade’s eclipsed by this distraction.

Great press: Trump leads with boldness and aplomb!

Thinks war’s a lucrative, if lethal, sport.

He may yet build that swank Gaza resort.

TRUMP’S WAR: IRAN’S RESPONSE

After the bomb-strike, swift retaliation. 

Well, what did you expect? A medal? No!

You killed civilians! Bombed our towns! And so

your rationale rings hollow to a nation

using uranium for power, not bombs.

U.S. Intelligence confirms these facts.

Yet you join Israel’s feud, committing acts

of war! To flex your muscles? Vietnam’s

a faded memory? Afghanistan

forgotten? There are stand-offs no one wins.

We sign a nuclear treaty meant to ban 

nuke weapons. But it’s you, Trump, who rescinds.

Now you slap our face and think you’ll run?

Run fast! A bloodbath threatens everyone.

Reintegration Loops

After the scholars leave, a miracle occurs
Inside the tabernacle of their memories
The occasion is etched perfectly,
Spinning up an exact replica of every single detail lived

When they come back together, this power
Runs in full display as the memories show off
Every line, feature, rise, and lull
That took place between them in their encounter

Perhaps it helps that when they gather
They only talk about the last time they met,
An occasion when they discussed
The prior meeting’s agenda of the gathering before

We Are the Language Here

The best proof is a familiar one,
apparent in the form

Of a leaf and the branches
the leaf grew from

It is in the seed’s wings
that carry it in the wind

Or the proboscis
of the fertilizing butterfly

Is it all pretty?
Sure, and that is irrelevant

Along with camouflage
that tricks a predator’s eye

Plus the complexity
at play within those lenses

None of it points to a creator,
Only to an architect

And any architect implies
there is a contractor

But who? You and I reading
the blueprints for design

A way for the cosmos to show
we are here and needed

Garnet Harbor

Incursions in the morning,
is the sky wounded and red because I broke out

Or is the city gathering up
and throwing away a fire taken from the world?

Winds rolling along my limbs
try to stop me with their howling confessions

But temptations of the docks
are stronger than chances to glean absolution

On the waterfront, the world
lays down a deck of unfolding designs to scry

Black ships pierce and sail
along the horizon, floating pyramids and hotels

From shore to shore, a rebirth
of cargo and destinations, rewards of new use

Claim Your Jar Today

When will I stop overpaying on my car insurance? When
will I begin to pay it? And when will I get my car?
I never wanted one, until now, seeing what I am missing out on,
another deal, another steal, a sudden way
to get one over on others has opened up, and I want it to take me

Maybe then my scores will finally rise, my days will be
a bonus, and the hours no longer tiny devices that prolong a life
that keeps losing on the draw, and why?
Because I am of the eligible, newly worthy to know a secret
that unlocks a hidden world of fabulous savings

Schmutz and Length

In the morning, the estuary of possibility swirls
And flows in between the bed and front door

Each step across the hardwood and tiled stone
Brings in the heat of an afternoon coalescing

Hints of the trimming future hours undertake,
Potential adventures cut off at the budding branch

Ben Nardolilli is a theoretical MFA candidate at Long Island University. His work has appeared in Perigee Magazine, Door Is a Jar, The Delmarva Review, Red Fez, The Oklahoma Review, Quail Bell Magazine, and Slab. Follow his publishing journey at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com.

This

This ain’t no magic realism allegory

This ain’t no difference of opinion

This ain’t no nothing to see here

This ain’t no bump in the road

This ain’t no passing cycle

This ain’t no experiment

This ain’t no rehearsal

This ain’t no hiccup

This ain’t no joke

This is here

This is now

This is

This

Is

Peter Cherches’ episodic novel Everything Happens to Me is winner of the 2025 Next Generation Indie Book Awards for humor/comedy.

Writing

Words

Carved holes into

The walls, sunk

Their teeth

Into angry stares,

Peeled them off

Of faces and onto

My skin.

Wrapped themselves

Around me, too tightly

 to breathe.

My pen unwrapped my secrets

Turned their knives into my secret weapons

Saved me

Saved us

They made this house a home again.

slut-shaming+diets

isn’t it funny,

being a woman,

how all the sweet things

are sinful?

violence

screaming like the sea

falling like the sky

soaring as the eagles

violent as the waves.

rebirths

salt water

in my lungs,

waves reviving the sea.

ghosts

rewrite and rewrite

ghosts can become real

if you feed them

dipping my hand in the jar of memories

At first I don’t remember everything.

Just flashes

I am at the bottom of a cliff, my fingernails digging

desperately to stay afloat.

I have my head thrown back against the rocky wall,

 my hands limp at my sides.

I am sinking.

  But I just couldn’t stay down

I am running, jumping, leaping and feeling like I’m flying

Just to fall down to earth again.

All my useless tricks and shortcuts

 but I would do anything it took to STAY AFLOAT

Because i had to.

I am clinging to a rope, climbing higher and higher, my house of hards looking further away, knowing I could fall.

I did fall.

I fell and flew and jumped

but I kept swimming. I kept looking for the sunshine between cracks.

And it still wasn’t enough.

I don’t want to lie I don’t want to beg

And i don’t want to see myself

In my nightmares.

The Faces of L.O.V.E

Love’s gentle touch knows no equal

Love’s goodness breaks the strongest wall

Love’s greatness breaks the largest mall

Love’s gift should be everyone’s call

Love’s courage makes man abound

Love’s care makes posterity surround

Love’s cause heals the odd wound

Love’s cast takes off the burden of the heavy ground.

Love Lets Offered Values Exist

Love Locks Off Vices Exceedingly

Love Labels Outrightly Valued Entities

Love Locates Obvious Virtues Easily

These are the faces of L.O.V.E.

(J)

Dad Loves Me

Dad loves me
because He made me
Dad makes me trust him
because he made my team
Dad makes me strong
because he made me not want
Dad makes me smile
because he took care of my file
Dad makes me sleep well
because he made me well
Dad makes me work
because he made me walk
Dad makes me obey
because he kept ‘Bad’ at bay
Dad makes me pass life’s test
because he made me life’s best
Dad makes me read my book
because he made me the nook
Dad makes me a way
because he made me pray
Dad makes me alive
because he gave me a life
Dad makes me like everyone
because he made love anyone
Dad makes me preach
because he made me teach
Dad makes me modest
because he made me honest
Dad makes me eat
because he made me fit

Daddy loves me always! That’s why I love him too!

From the Northeast

When the wind

And rain shift,

Push abruptly

From the northeast,

Blow whistling through

My attic window,

Snatches my hat,

A schoolyard bully,

And all the starlings

Are vexed, skittish,

I do not comprehend,

I am confused by the turn,

My routine up-ended

(a precarious wont as it is).

To evade apprehension

And a sound pelting,

I’m required to tilt,

Bend my head in

A diffident incline,

An unaccustomed direction.

Neither Memo Nor Miro

Everything everywhere frozen,

Thawed and frozen again,

Over standing, brackish water,

Inconsequential configurations,

Curvilinear spirals of ice,

I admire, I’m mesmerized by

These designs and look longer

And longingly at the ditch,

Longingly at a simple beauty,

Longer than at oh-so-significant

Office memoranda, busy, busy

Strategies, missions, implementations.

No, these meandering forms

Are priceless museum Miros,

Studied, revered, emulated.

And no, quietly apparent, this

Scene is neither memo nor Miro.

You see, I told her, ‘There are small sand paths framed by green grasses, thick and beautiful in themselves…resilient grasses, and the ways lead to the places by the sea.’

‘Oh it does.’

‘Oh it does. Or, they do,’ I said, ‘and all the cliche things are there, the tropes as it were, but such things though the literati speak against them, are wonderful. Who will need anyone really? The warm breeze. The sun kisses the coastline and all around.’ 

‘Nice.’

‘It’s better than nice. There is a pier. Two actually. One to the north and one to the south.  There are loquacious birds, and they are against reason and logic, wise. They know things. We can be mystics also, like the birds are. Scry the sky. Watch the water. Intuit the wind. Make poems and pictures…’

I looked outside. The cold wind threw some garbage around and nothing even got anywhere. A stand of boulevard trees were the wrong colour on trunks and old leaves for traffic pollution. Not even a painter with several choices of grey could find a more rueful and uninspiring hue to declare the firmament with. And this grey was everywhere, for it must have melted into the earth and saturated it when a heartless joker was making the too long season. Loud modified cars, read noise pollution, yelled their egos, their small-mindedness and gauche vulgarity to anyone that could hear. And miles of uniform urban sprawl. No bird in sight. 

‘Hey,’ I asked her, ‘what was that term you used to use to denote people whose personalities became otherwise awkward, strange, cold, odd, for their value system and circumstance? Ungrounded people. Did you say “stunted”?’ 

‘Affected.’

‘Affected. That’s it.’

‘Ya. Affected.’

‘Let the affected have the affected. That’s great. They love one another. Let the affected live happily ever after. I wish them the best, that all their status quo dreams of shining mediocrity come true, and a thousandfold a that. But far away from me. I will be, beside the sea. See, that rhymes.’

‘Very funny.’

I glanced out and some poor soul, an elderly lady in a big coat, almost got hit by a car that rolled through a light turning. She stopped just in time. Then, what could she really do? The wind soon practically threw her over also. Many forces she had to battle, I thought. 

‘Anyways,’ I continued, trying to draw my conclusion, ‘I know a place. There is all that, and inland just a bit, is a marketplace with friendly souls, to get things. There used to be a small bookstore there also. Come to think of it, imagine if it is still there. I wonder. Probably not. But you know…it could be. It just might be there still.’ 

‘Are we gonna tend to the rabbits, George? Tell me about the rabbits George.’

‘Funny. I don’t mean it like that. Well maybe a bit. But you aren’t Lennie, and this is no book. There is nothing here, or not much…’

‘It’s a tale as old as the coast you describe.’

‘So what? Ya so what if it is? It’s new for every person journeying it in reality or imagination or both.’

And I could hear the sound of southern water somehow, for a second, like a sanguine auditory vision, a psychic impression. I realized it was a fountain and it took a minute to think away from it and go back, but I realized it was because there was a fountain right outside that market I had spoken of, had lauded. All this was then interrupted by the cacophony of a groups’ haughty course laughter under the blinking lights, lights intent on causing a headache where possible. Lights not like the light of the moon or the sun, lights not like the pink blue purple green, even orange electric and eclectic lights of those southern grounds, poetically and somehow musically accenting the earth (lights dreamt of and wished for). No, the current lights were too strong. They were blinding fluorescent lights. 

And they had no soul.