NVN Monday: On the Roads Again
“Hell” by Clyde Always, “I-89 From Vermont to Canada in Winter” by Tricia Knoll, “Traffic Jam Trying to Reach the ‘Fight Oligarchy Tour’” by Susan Vespoli
HELL
by Clyde Always
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Eight measly months remain until the climate summit’s here. So, highway builders of Brazil, we’ve got a path to clear! Go raze that swath of jungle there! Knock down that açai! How deeply, for the Earth, we care the summiteers shall see. We’ll labor on it, night and day— our dying world be saved! This road will be, it’s safe to say, with good intentions paved.
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Clyde Always is an accomplished cartoonist, poet, painter, novelist and entertainer. His writings and/or illustrations have been featured in Light Poetry Magazine, Freaky, Jokes Review, etc. Visitors to Bay City are invited to enjoy his carnavalesque sidewalk show: a tall tale extravaganza known as the Surreal San Francisco Walking Tour.
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I-89 FROM VERMONT TO CANADA IN WINTER
by Tricia Knoll
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The Canadian border is less than an hour north. Our countries have history. Good neighbors, borrow and offer. Fight side by side. I get my power through Hydro-Quebec. Canadians come to shop, ski, hike icefish, and mountain bike. I drive north for museums and botanical gardens. Maple sap runs both ways. Sugar shacks boil here and there. I love the maple leaf flag as much as the blue and yellow of Ukraine. We share shock and a blood moon. So close now to winter’s big thaw. My eyes downcast. As if every winter pothole might eat me, vomit me out. Black slush banks the highway, a salt road gleams white. Once fleeing to Canada seemed like an escape-hatch. Love your neighbor. Don’t beggar them. Will Canadians forgive? The border is less than an hour away. We are so very close.
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Tricia Knoll lives in Vermont near the Canadian border. Her 2024 collection Wild Apples documents her downsizing and move seven years ago from Oregon to Vermont. The taste of maple is sweet; the anger of neighbors is not.
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TRAFFIC JAM TRYING TO REACH THE “FIGHT OLIGARCHY TOUR”
by Susan Vespoli
Photo by Kanishka Chinnaraj, The Daily Wildcat, March 24, 2025
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“Don’t become a monster fighting monsters.” —paraphrased Nietzsche quote
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Stuck on the Mill Avenue Bridge in Tempe a mile (Siri says an hour) from the stadium Bernie and AOC fill to capacity with voters in tee-shirts that say “Resist,” “Tax the Rich,” “Hope Persists,” and 1000s more line up outside, circle the arena, live stream speeches on their phones; us trapped in the car, the woman behind us melting down, honking, gesturing through her windshield for us to MOVE and my date is the kind of driver who smiles, waves other motorists into the flow, but she is blasting her horn, mouthing epithets, as his jaw clenches, middle finger twitching to flip, and I get it, but we’re gridlocked here. My granddaughter once said, if we had a flying car, this wouldn’t happen, but we don’t, so I unbuckle my seatbelt, turn around and rise so she can see me and I give her the peace sign and the namaste hands, and then shrug, what can we do? And her face looks like it might explode off her neck— until eventually the logjam loosens and she zooms into the next lane, passes us, her back bumper stickered with peace signs.
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Susan Vespoli writes from Phoenix, AZ and believes in the power of writing to stay sane. Her work has been published in The New Verse News, ONE ART, Anti-Heroin Chic, Gyroscope Review, and other cool spots. She is the author of four poetry books.
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