balloon ride

inauguration day

by corinne delmonico

illustrated by palomine studios

i don’t like trump. trump is bad. he is evil. he is dumb. and he is a big baby. if you took king herod and all the pharaohs of egypt and all the kings of babylon who threw the children of israel into the fiery furnace and nero and caligula and henry viii and rolled them into one you wouldn’t have trump. if you took hitler and stalin and mao and pol pot and vlad the impaler and bad king john and darth vader and satan and rolled them into one you wouldn't have trump. if you took albert fish and jack the ripper and ed gein and ted bundy and john wayne gacy and the yorkshire ripper and the beast of the andes and rolled them into one you wouldn’t have trump. and dumb. if you took all the people who ever put their feet in their hat and their pants on their head and made them into one they wouldn’t be as dumb as trump. and a con man. if you took every carnival barker and every perpetual motion machine salesman and every ethiopian prince or princess and every telemarketer and every murphy man and every con man who ever stood outside a bank and told a little old lady he just needed $2000 to take out 2 million and every one who ever sold an acre of swamp or desert in florida or mongolia or jupiter or mars you would not have trump. if you took every kid who ever bit the governess in the leg and every kid in the history of the world who said his daddy made more than yours you wouldn’t have trump. he is a bad person. oh, and he has the emotional maturity of a six month foetus who is mad because mommy drank a martini or smoked a joint. i don’t like him. how about you? do you like him?

farewell song

by horace p sternwall

illustrated by palomine studios

in the depths of heaven the ocean roars shed a tear, shed a tear for the circus is no more * the sun sets over the highway the last track drives away the clowns watch the trucks disappear and head off to begin their new lives as panhandlers and fitness gurus and hedge fund managers all except one, chunky, the oldest of them all who is determined to find the last pie baked by the last widow on the last windowsill and hit donald trump or vladimir putin in the face with it the big tent has been cut up to make napkins at burger king the bareback dancers pack their bags and they too hit the road back to philadelphia and cleveland to get jobs as life managers and creative consultants the ringmaster and the magician make plans to start a maoist alternative to breitbart the magician’s apprentice goes back to a trailer park outside elko nevada to take care of her 12 younger siblings moe, the cook, lies down by the side of the road and cries manny and mac and mose, the roustabouts, enroll in management courses at the university of phoenix the elephants go back to africa the lions go back to mars the horses run away over the playgrounds filled with needles the lion trainer and al the acrobat hatch a scheme so complicated it can not be described here. suffice to say they will not settle for a few lousy billions ed the elephant keeper buys two bottles of wine and a chicken salad grinder, toasted, with cheese, and starts hitchhiking to the northwest territories alice the acrobat stuffs the trapeze into her bag, with plans to call it a work of art and get at least 15 million dollars for it they all make plans to meet again for a reunion at the arby’s roast beef outside las cruces new mexico in 2047

sweep

far outside this world

far outside this world
/ Jim Wittenberg

lark