Kevin McDaniel's story will not let you down.
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We hope you are enjoying our newest issue of Gravel. We'll be adding new work to the September issue next week.
Please submit your best work (if we haven't published you in the past year).  The Election Fascist volcano spewing hatred once again portending ashes The Cabinet Best, brightest—hardly In a pool where filters fail scum will reach the top The Presidency Trump so damnable Jefferson and Hamilton cannot rest in peace  Alan Meyrowitz retired in 2005 after a career in computer research. His writing has appeared in California Quarterly, Eclectica, Existere, Front Range Review, Jitter, The Literary Hatchet, Lucid Rhythms, The Nassau Review, Poetry Quarterly, Shark Reef, Shroud, The Storyteller, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and others. In 2013 and 2015 the Science Fiction Poetry Association nominated his poems for a Dwarf Star Award.
 I am a remote control, clutched in swathes of duvet An alarm sounding at 4am, bolt upright, wide eyes. A glass of water leaving a ring on the counter. A neon ribbon of writing burns the screen as it moves, numbers flicking and fluctuating, with microphones under the chins of the stuttering. Frantic face after frantic face. Early, Blue sweeps and soars But Red encompasses. Swallows us. White and brown and black and yellow. All panicked, all paling. Half a world away, I feel the tremors, As they troop on stage, a snake of patent heels, Crisp suit lines and sunken, vacant eyes. That one Red tie. They can put up walls. Watch their faces when they see us climb.  Shannon Bushby is a British writer with a degree in English and Creative Writing from the University of Chichester and literacy teaching experience under her belt. She is currently working on a book length manuscript of fiction and has most recently had work published by The Grief Diaries and The Crucible. Catch her blog here.
 They trail about, packraiding In the hardest part of winter, Rifling through unmanned inheritances And claiming hearts as they lie Newly emerged, in the wild Where nothing is sacrosanct They gnaw her flesh clean Gaze up secondarily, red teeth bared, Eyes flaked by the fresh fallings: Something in that blue sphere echoes back You awake with blood on your tongue  Sean McGrath graduated from Brown University and has been teaching literature and writing for the past six years at college preparatory schools in Massachusetts and California. He now resides in Fullerton, where he waits for the drought to break. In spring 2016, he self-published Oculus, a book of poetry, to local success. You can find more of his work here.
 I walk past the whine of ambulances Visual noise of cop cars Someone got hit in white neighborhood I walk past all the brown people getting stopped And a white boy I used to fuck once Who called me at three am once A booty call I called him out And didn't have his number saved A fluke for which I felt perversely proud This dick ain't free Appropriating anthems again. You go ahead says a chocolate skinned girl to her white male companions if I walk over there imma get hit with sticks this country is a nebula imploding countdown until tomorrow's tomorrow It's Election Day Screams and shouts follow me into quiet side streets Indistinguishable from typical Saturday noise, the rumbling of the band. The boy I used to fuck once didn't notice me Though I smiled across the crosswalk Because of the short time In which our bodies Inhabited shared space- How funny How funny it is to be uniformly broke How funny it is to seethe over here with rage The eyes so hungry How funny that I can focus on this fuckboy’s dick While a woman is afraid to cross the street because this country is blinded by melanin I stay hidden in the shadows here, with the moon, the murky rut. Red lights from sirens swirl, these small footsteps cast shadows. I watch my cowardice. Don’t tread on me.  Sara True is a visual and performance artist, writer, and traveler. She hails from Los Angeles and exhibits her artwork internationally. Her recent poems and essays have been published online at Entropy Mag, Anti-Heroin Chic, 805 Art+ Lit Mag, and others. Her work can be found online here and on Instagram.
 When the TSA Sexually Assaults its sly on their part, a slash to the groin, a cuff of the penis, and if you complain they say, “We have to do this” and if you ask for a super- visor, you are given a little postcard to “write down the events” for the world to read as it goes from carrier to carrier announcing how you have been humiliated. I know that the TSA agent looked up at me, my groin in his hand and he had this look of power that said, “You will always be hated here,” eyes that said with Trump as president we don’t need ethics, only the rape of war. I’m Middle Eastern and not Middle Eastern. I’m Jewish and not Jewish. I’m white and not white. I’m indigenous and very indigenous. I’m multiracial and, in the time of Trump, I am supposed to ass- imilate, annihilate the self to become as white as corpse skin, the way it blanches, rigor mortis of ethnicity. In Class, I Say That I Went to a Republican Lecture given by a couple of the inside men in the Trump administration to see what they talk about and they talked about how there will be more arrests, how they will weed out the Muslims and that the Muslims are “weeds,” are drug-infested and like the cartels, and the speech went in directions beyond north, south, east, and west; the rant went up and down, down, down, into the shores of hell and it ended with the crowd chanting, “No more immigrants, no more immigrants, no more immigrants” and the lead speaker silenced them and said, smiling, that they could expect arrests, more arrests, mass incarceration that would make this country free. I tell this to my class on Islam and there is a pause and a student raises his hand and the professor calls on him and the student takes his time, talking very slowly, saying that it is wicked to talk about radical Republicans, that most Republicans are good, and that none of that represents conservatives. And then class ended. And on the news, all week long, I watched the mass arrests in Illinois, in Georgia, in North Carolina, in South Carolina, in Indiana, in Kansas, in Kentucky, in Missouri, in Wisconsin.  Ron Riekki's books include U.P.: a novel (Sewanee Writers Series and Great Michigan Read nominated), The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works (2014 Michigan Notable Book from the Library of Michigan and finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award/Grand Prize shortlist, Midwest Book Award, Foreword Book of the Year, and Next Generation Indie Book Award), Here: Women Writing on Michigan's Upper Peninsula (2016 IPPY/Independent Publisher Book Award Gold Medal Great Lakes—Best Regional Fiction and Next Generation Indie Book Award—Short Story finalist), and And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017 (Michigan State University Press, 2017).
 Taking Back Great I unravel the faux from every cap stitch by violent stitch, drain the lying ink dry out of its every slanderous use, scour it from the tongue of the abuser, churn all this muck into moonshine with these hands born of immigrant blood, blood shed. I take it swift, a warm shot against the throat, mad fire to the belly. I revel in the heat, let it sting me with its bitter and sweet truth, let it resurrect itself amongst the voices like a Phoenix only through the dregs of ruinous ash rendering such magnificence. Howl Septic up to my soul, it’s to the point I don't know what to howl about first. Police now rhymes with blood and I howl. School now means murder and I howl. Airport is a synonym for death. again I howl ad infinitum. My niece sleeps between sheets covered in pink flamingos. She doesn't know a thing about the world outside herself. Terror to her is the nightlight gone dark. She screams her displeasure at having to close her eyes to nap, mad at having to stop doing nothing and everything. Tucking her in it's all I can do not to break apart. Upstairs she dreams a reality I can only dream about while downstairs I sip wine to no avail. Tonight a new moon does not rise. Venus reigns the sky solely. I howl myself to shards, try to swathe her with every scrap of light that is never enough. Alternative Facts No, science did not save my life - twice - butterflied open to fix my heart, machines did not become my lungs, accordion breath in and out before doctors brought my static heart back to life, no my pulse shall rely solely on god’s will, according to your alternative facts. No my mother did not tell me to skip the part about my surgeries when our family switched insurance in the ‘90s, no, your alternative facts told me then, and threatens to tell me again, that I must live in my flawed body, with its pre-existing powder keg of a mucked heart, walk through fire and hope to your god I don't spark. No, a student did not ask me one week after the election how possible it would be to finish the course through email. My family, he quivers, moving back. No, I did not witness neighbors loading up their grief in a metal U Haul that same week, as they followed dusk into a life they did not ask for, no, your alternative eyes did not see them, did they? no, a transgender teenager did not commit suicide after your election, no journalists were not arrested for speaking the truth, after your election, no, women do not fear for their lives and rights, after your election, no, vets are still getting the assistance they deserve, after your election, no, Native Americans do not have to defend their land with blood, after your election, no, the rich are not robbing the poor, and sick are not dying after your election, no, everything is copacetic after your election, according to alternative facts. 
 oh, sure i’m still running around like a heads-up/off/prophet/profit/fit trying to cut off my very own de/(con)instruction and all other sordid a•void•able & available /a-Babel-Trumpish towers of post & toastmodern doom/daze/haze re(altho)guarding our environment in/ex/&/anterior terror too sometimes•always all afrightful with me//henish looking like this diminutive incarnation of Kali only i’m in a bantam suit or else looking all-a-fright in a head&heedless moreorless banshee keen/for/keening shrill before the sky’s death knell noi•some or just write-it-off (if you dare) darkest noir over•us•all! or to be exact, that is, of man/woman/chicken too kind-ah-so-dumb. really. so youbetcha any/old/witching/way this omen•amen•ahem•alarm of mine surely assures our sky will will will soon be falling trumptumbling twisting howling hellish or gone rumbling under a black-cloud of ig-nor-even-sense of truly veritas, verily. ok, eerily too or/and, get this, just-adjust-for-just•ice. back fright/fight dust thrown/throw-up into our frail•fray•feckless•fey faces like dark death//aces of ominous, yup, inspades while attending/to/attempting/to down-daft & de/feet/feat frightmare of immense as in tobe•chickenshit•downer over/under/all-around these scaly-scrambling hen’s feet of mine too scratchings caw-clawings while carrying/crying/cravening on in my fumble feeble way past every damned/doomed miscreant justice killer(s)! well, we will not be box(ed) up/ended in disheveled feather-ruffled time-for trumped-up or just down/down to our very own apocalyptic downtheriver•plucked•soooofucked. oh no, i persist/(in)sist. so as usual i’m still running around here/everywhere rear/guarding this dumbstate of our not making room4doom so trump(et) that always-ever-you-can.  Ed Higgins' poems and short fiction have appeared in various print and online journals including: Monkeybicycle, Danse Macabre, Word Riot, Triggerfish Critical Review, and Blue Print Review, among others. Ed and his wife live on a small farm in Yamhill, Oregon, raising a menagerie of animals including a whippet, a Manx barn cat (who doesn’t care for the whippet), two Bourbon Red turkeys (King Strut and Nefra-Turkey), and an alpaca named Machu-Picchu. Ed teachs literature at George Fox University, south of Portland, Oregon. Ed is also Assistant Fiction Editor for Brilliant Flash Fiction, an Ireland-based flash journal.
 Autocrat Noun A ruler possessing absolute power Iron fist One who insists on unfailing obedience Man seeking yes man Insubordinate women need not apply Inquire within Domineering despot Totalitarian tyrant Deciding dictator From the Greek autos Self kratos Power Empowered self? All-powered self. Omnipotence In the grubby hand of man God creates, man usurps Men suffer  Ann Schlotzhauer is finishing her final semester at the University of Tulsa where she studies English, Psychology, and Spanish. She enjoys creative self-expression of all kinds but is particularly fond of poetry and fiction. Her poetry can be found in Foliate Oak and is forthcoming in Her Heart Poetry.
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