Gnashing Teeth Publishing

| words that get in your teeth

The Morning After The Insurrection by PW Covington

The Morning After
The Insurrection
something about eternal vigilance…

It would be over on Election Day
They said
It was not over on Election Day

It would be over when the votes were counted
No one prone to sunburn could remember
How to count
It was not over when the votes were counted

It would be over when the Senate met in the marble city
Radicalized veterans stormed the Capitol
It was not over when the Senate met

It would be over if we cancelled Christmas
If we cancelled family, friends, and vectors of death
It was not over when we wore masks on our faces

It is never over, when the putrid spunk of thin, blue, line America
Leaks as goo
Onto
Zoom-grade classrooms, reeking of gunpowder

Sweet cordite Nashville and Washington echo
Twangy denial and impotence

It was going to be over when the Republican Guard fell
When Saddam was hanged
When Osama was shot
It was going to be over once the law was changed
And the “Whites Only” signs were burned

It was going to be over
When the bells rang
Eleven-eleven-eleven
The clocks are all ringing 13
When the wall was torn down in Berlin
It was going to over

We look for love and prepare for its end
With the same haphazard magic
The same worn out prayers

If we could just talk to each other
When we all had the Internet
It was going to end, remember?

Nothing ends until the last drop of money is milked
From every scorched and brutal bloom
BOOM!

Do not count on tasting any of the spoils

They said it would be over
The morning after the insurrection

It was not over
The morning after
Midnight motions, un-seconded and bested
By the weakest minds in the room

shadow image of a man pushing a cart with a large wheel and small umbrella

Pushcart Prize Nominees for 2023

Gnashing Teeth Publishing is proud to submit the following poems for consideration of the Pushcart Prize. Each of these nominees had work published by us in 2023, whether online or

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What an obscurity energy there’s no serenity A smile is what you’ll never see All you’ll hear is “In memory” Not a single ring on the telephone All you see

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