Artwork © Eric N. Peterson

 

Musk Rat Blues

Musk rats fueled by foolish election bets,
steal our wealth but let us keep our debts;

they scurry here and scurry there on a lark,
even in broad daylight they work in the dark;

data pirates stealing lives on a hard drive,
waiting to see if the strongest survive:

Pop’s chemo meds seize mid-drip;
clean drinking water runs dry mid-sip;

hot Meals on Wheels stopped cold dead;
thousands in Myanmar begging to be fed;

paused clinical trials to save our hearts;
gummed up the government’s moving parts;
with lies and orders and executive charts
the Musk rats try to evade our darts,
they even blocked funding for the

 

M. Benjamin Thorne is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at Wingate University. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Feral, Gyroscope Review, San Antonio Review, Thimble Lit Mag, Last Syllable Lit, and Salvation South. He lives and sometimes sleeps in Charlotte, NC.

Eric N. Peterson is from Atlanta, Ga. He’s been drawing cartoons all his life. He leans towards the absurd, imaginative, and the surreal, as that’s where all the flavor is.