Vox Populi
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Matt Hohner: Remembering “The Jar” On the Eve of Another War 
1991, 2022
Doug, Joél, Rich, Darryl, and I sat on the roof
of the building in downtown Baltimore housing
“The Jar,” Doug’s art studio and performance space
above the carpet store that displayed a permanent
sign reading, Temporally Closed for Remolding.
Ears ringing after Jawbox played a blistering,
post-punk music show, condensation and sweat
dripping from the ceiling pipes, we decided
at 2:30 a.m. to flick the cockroaches scuttling
along the low wall on the front edge of the roof
onto traffic on Charles Street below. It was no
small feat of skill after several Rolling Rocks
to bounce one off the windshield of some hotshot’s
BMW convertible. We were deities bringing plagues
from the sky, powerful on the high cliff of our urban
heaven where angry angels belted out buzz-saw
hosannas into the humid air of a small room, while
half a world away, night vision goggles and gunsights
scanned a desert landscape for heat signatures,
signs of movement in a war about to begin.
Copyright 2022 Matt Hohner
Matt Hohner is an editor for Loch Raven Review. Hohner’s first collection of poetry, Thresholds and Other Poems, was published under Apprentice House, 2018, and his forthcoming collection from Salmon Poetry will be published next year. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Vox Populi 
Donald
James A Calderwood
I wonder about Sir Donald
Has he recently lost his mind
There are almost daily sackings
Of the people who do his grind
What moves about in his big head
The orange haired big bully
Have some gears stripped their teeth
Or a belt come off a pulley
The daily entourage of people
When they come to daily work
Must really have to ponder
What really runs this Jerk
He is going to build a fence
To keep the illegal migrants out
This will make his people happy
When there is work to be done about
When the people are found inside the US
He has a fit of anger and rage
He steals all of their children
And puts them in a cage
I do wonder about dear Donald
As rich as Midas he must be
As he sits in the chair like King Canute
To stop the tide from the briny sea
The Russians they are a coming
The Mafia we would not really want
Those who pull the toenails and bludgeon
Those who may cause him an affront
I am glad I live in good old Oz
Which is now the new land of the free
He can keep the other countries to himself
God Bless Australia for you us and me
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