News Poetry: “2018: The Year in Review – A Prose Poem”

At Garrison Keillor’s Hague trial for fixing The World Cup, Justice Gorsuch mistakenly referred to George Papadopoulos as “George Pocahontas”. In the ensuing melee, North Korea fired a ballistic missile, which struck and ruptured the Keystone XL Pipeline, spilling nine-hundred-thousand gallons of Alberta tar sands crude. During the cleanup, five Black Lives Matter volunteers were shot in the back and killed by North Dakota State Troopers, each of whom was acquitted by a grand jury, as all the body cam footage was destroyed in back-to-back Category 6 hurricanes. At which point, President Trump rose, tossed back a twelve-ounce tumbler of liquid oxycontin, cried out, I LIKE LITTLE GIRLS, then fell back into the arms of a bare-chested and weeping Vladimir Putin, and subsequently died.

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From the Poetry Editor:  We are starting 2018 with a few news poems by Carbondale poet, José A. Alcantara.  Enjoy this marvelous work!

Photo credit: Julian Fong, Creative Commons, Flickr

Jose A. Alcantara is a former construction worker, baker, commercial fisherman, math teacher, and studio photographer. He currently works in a bookstore in Aspen, Colorado. His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Poetry Daily, The Southern Review, Spillway, Rattle, Beloit Poetry Journal, and 99 Poems for the 99%.