THIRTEEN DAYS ON “THE NRA CIVIL RIGHTS CALENDAR”

by Gilbert Allen

Blood On Their Hands _ Anti-NRA T-Shirt by Sarana Mehra

January 1

If the world seems cold

to you, perhaps

you’ve already fired.

January 6

Stop

the Magnetometers!

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Guns don’t make the world

go round. Guns make

the rounds worthwhile.

Ash Wednesday

Praise the One before whom

thou needest no silencer.

April 1

We inherit our relatives, but

we can choose

our AR-15s.

Good Friday

It is more blessed to grieve

than to reprieve.

Memorial Day

Talk not of wasted

ammunition. Talk instead of those

you’ve wasted

July 4

Believe the worst

about everybody. That way

you don’t have to aim.

Labor Day

My bullets are Teflon.

My burden is light.

Halloween

Every boy

needs a blackbird

to shoot at.

Thanksgiving

Guns don’t kill turkeys.

Turkeys kill turkeys.

December 24

I am the ghost

of Kevlar passed.

New Year’s Eve

Some of us are like cannons: we don’t

like to be pushed, and we’re only happy

when loaded.

Gilbert Allen lives and writes in Travelers Rest, South Carolina. His most recent collection of poems is Believing in Two Bodies.

A PERILOUS YEAR

by Tom Bauer

What fireworks are good enough on any
nation’s holiday? What illumination
is light enough? The light of sweet relief
is the light most creatures seem to love the best.
Where do we find it? Shooting in the streets
and yelling for our rights? Can we ever,
can anyone find peace in war and hate?
How can we feel our best? Ignore the worst?
Paint flowers in the mind? Sell hopes and smiles?
Bring on delightful lies and praise our kind?
It happens, and we never even knew
a flash of light could take it all away.
The long night’s fireworks scream at us all.
We cannot do this anymore. No more.


Tom Bauer's an old coot who lives in Montreal and plays a lot of board games.

7.4.22

by Don Brunnquell

Terrified paradegoers fled the Highland Park, Ill., Fourth of July event after shots were fired Monday. At least six people were dead, more than 40 people were hospitalized and a gunman was at large Monday afternoon after shooting Fourth of July paradegoers from a roof in this Chicago suburb, authorities said. (Photo: Lynn Sweet/AP via The Washington Post, July 4, 2022)

            In the dark times

            Will there be singing?

            Yes, there will be singing.

            About the dark times.

—Bertolt Brecht, “Motto”

 

Oh, say can you see, on this day

we celebrate what we used to call

one nation, with liberty and justice

for all, from every mountainside

let us sing all the songs our country

has earned, not only O beautiful

for spacious skies, but the mourning

dirge for today’s dead in Chicago parading

beside us with the children of Uvalde

and the spirit of George Floyd, not only

“Columbia the Gem of the Ocean”

but Woody’s “I Ain’t  Got No Home,”

and with fitting irony This land is your

land, this land is my land, recalling

whose land this really was, every verse

written on the mounds of the old bones.

Perhaps sing “You’re a Grand Old Flag”

not for the flag worship of the title,

but the lines, forever in peace

may you wave, and never a boast

or brag, sing “We Shall Overcome,”

but also the source of its tune,

“No More Auction Block For Me.”

All the songs need to be sung,

then return to “America the Beautiful,”

the closing lines of the second verse,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law. 

Don Brunnquell is a poet working in Saint Paul, MN after careers in pediatric psychology and bioethics.  He is one of the coordinators of the Midstream Poetry Series in the Twin Cities. 

FREEDOM ON FIRE

by Emily Jo Scalzo

Let the flag fly inverted on our 

so-called Independence Day,

a message from the newly chained:

we cannot abide these treasons—

rampart rockets set to kindle

a drought-wracked nation

aflame with hate and greed,

and all the rest no longer 

free to flee conflagration

in the twilight of justice. 

Emily Jo Scalzo holds an MFA in fiction from California State University-Fresno and is currently an assistant teaching professor teaching research and creative writing at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Their work has appeared in various magazines including Midwestern Gothic, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Blue Collar Review, The New Verse News. Their first chapbook The Politics of Division (2017) was awarded honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards in 2018.

THE APPROPRIATED FLAG

by William Aarnes

                        a final dispatch from Clemson, South Carolina, June 27, 2022 

 

Fifteen or so white men gather  

on Mondays before dawn 

 

on the intramural field/parking lot 

closest to Death Valley. 

 

Perhaps they’re innocent, 

meeting to pray together 

 

(I’ve seen them all kneel), 

if prayer is ever innocent. 

 

They’ve been a constant for years, 

looking as if they’re training 

 

for something. Sometimes, 

though not this morning, a boy 

 

or two are out here with them. 

They’re in their customary circle, 

 

the Stars and Stripes at the center, 

the emblem of every right               

 

they’re ready to defend. 

They’re talking things over, 

 

likeminded, making sure. 

When the dog and I pass, 

 

a few look our way, polite, 

offering smiling nods.    

William Aarnes is leaving South Carolina.

JULY

by David Radavich

Can we be independent 

together?  It is

 

a contradiction

devoutly to be wished.

 

Parades, floats, marching 

bands, twirling batons,

tricolor costumes,

 

fireworks

in the festive key.

 

Much of our food

is the same—

grilled, between buns,

sided by slaw, beans,

beer and boasting,

 

a ball tossed 

with betting, servers 

bustling as bees.   

           

Ironic how we choose

the same means

to be ourselves

and free—

 

can shared rituals

save a divided land?    

 

Among David Radavich's poetry collections are two epics, America Bound and America Abroad, as well as Middle-East Mezze and The Countries We Live In.  His latest book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German and English Poems from Deutscher Lyrik Verlag.

ALL-AMERICAN CANAL

by D. Seth Horton

All-American Canal seen here in Imperial County, California, January 24, 2022. Photo: Matthew Bowler to accompany “Officials doing little as more migrants drown in Imperial County canal,” KPBS, February 8, 2022.

Border Patrol

operator

spotted

All-American

Canal in Calexico

agent

23 seconds

later not

advancing

55 seconds

still struggling

sank

below

canal's current

surface

Author’s Note: This is a found poem sourced from a recent U.S. Customs and Border Patrol media release. It is part of a larger project on resisting Federal interpretations of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. In terms of composition, I deleted most of the original material until I was left with the poem that had previously been hidden within the bureaucratese.  To be clear, I added no words, punctuation, or capital letters to the body of this poem, nor did I change the original word order in any way.  Instead, I simply erased what was in the way and then moved the words that remained into appropriate line breaks. In case readers are interested in comparing this poem against the original source material, they can click here.

 

A writer and scholar focused mostly on the borderlands, D. Seth Horton’s work has appeared in more than forty publications, including the Michigan Quarterly Review and Glimmer Train. Two of his stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His latest book is a forthcoming collection of stories set throughout the U.S.-Mexico borderlands entitled On a NASA Flight to Heaven (TCU Press, 2024). Seth currently teaches creative writing and American literature at the University of Virginia. 

IN DREAMS, DEATH

by Dick Altman

The death toll of migrants who died after they were abandoned in the back of a tractor-trailer that was discovered Monday in San Antonio rose to 53 on Wednesday… —CBS News, June 29, 2022

 

The land of the free...

 

I write this today – in America –

thanks to grandparents who heard

in heart and spirit that phrase echo

in Russian – Yiddish – perhaps

even German – Echo as they escaped

the poverty and oppression of Eastern

Europe in the 1900s – crossed mostly

by foot the continent – to land

at the magic portal of Ellis Island –

opening a door to life that until

this moment existed alone in letter

and rumor and what the mind

conjured as America

 

The land of the free... 

 

From lowlands – highlands – jungles

and shores they came two days ago –

walking – struggling – like my forebears –

this time from Mexico and South America –

leaving mothers and fathers – leaving birth’s

land and language – leaving with visions

that America would somehow – as it had

in the past – open its arms – offer – as it

had in the past – another chance at life –

Except the door – which had for

decades swung so freely – creaked on

its hinges –budging barely an inch

 

The land of the free... 

 

How many times did the refrain echo

in the minds of the sojourners – who –

no longer on foot – stood packed

in an airless – overheated subway

car of a semi-trailer – sworn to open

America’s locked heart – How many times

before the refrain turned from dream into

breathless prayer – How many times –

as one by one – the precious cargo lost

consciousness – calling – screaming

to the heavens – crying out to America’s

indifferent soul

 

The land of the free... 

 

 

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry forthcoming from the New Mexico Museum Press.

WHAT TO TELL CHILDREN WHEN ALL THE NEWS IS SCARY

by Diane Dolphin

“With war in Ukraine, editors help kids cope with scary news.” —News Decoder, February 25, 2022

We have failed you,

utterly.

 

We sold you a fairy tale: Once upon a time,

all children were created equal.

We proclaimed your bodies, your lives

as sovereign. Daughters,

that is no longer true. Black and brown sons,

we know it never was.

 

We have fiddled while the west burns,

the east floods, the poles dissolve.

We watched our elders succumb to pandemic

while we fought over masks. Lost

our children to weapons of death while

we debated the definition of

assault rifles. We wait ­–

we wait—as you are picked off

one by one.

 

Child, the barbarians have breached the gates.

The monster is in your classroom.

Dread seeps into your sleep.

Jabberwock has grown a new head,

is assembling his army of minions.

How can we possibly

console you?

 

You need to grow up,

quickly now. Leave us, the weak-willed

and stunned.

Take up your pen and shield, unleash

your small voices, amass in great numbers.

Demand we step aside.

You are your only hope.

Author’s Note: Above is a poem I wrote in response to the deluge of bad news lately, culminating in the Supreme Court Decision. The poem—and my title—is inspired by the barrage of media articles that always come on the heels of unimaginable news, and which are headlined along the variation of: "What to tell children when the news is scary." 

Diane Dolphin is a poet, writer, and former college instructor from Warwick, RI. 

FOOTBALL GODS ABOUND

by Gary Lark

The Supreme Court said Monday that a Washington state school district violated the First Amendment rights of a high school football coach when he lost his job after praying at the 50-yard line after games. "The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion.

After the thunder and dash
we have the coach
and his batch of Evangelicals
kneeling at the fifty yard line.

The Wiccan folks are on one twenty
and Muslims on the other.

Down by the east goalposts
there's an Indigenous circle
seeking guidance with peyote.

Over to the west Jains
are trying to avoid the ants.

Sikhs and Jews are having a debate
about the shape of the field.

Eleven Buddhists are chanting
on the east thirty,
Hindus claim the west.

On the track three Mothers
Against Drunk Driving
have given up and are passing a bottle.

The Eckankar crowd are setting up
near the concession stand.

The Crips and the Bloods
are sharing a joint with Spinoza
in the bleachers.

There's a street preacher
practicing his quick draw
when the lights go out.


Gary Lark’s most recent collections are Easter Creek (Main Street Rag), Daybreak on the Water (Flowstone Press), and Ordinary Gravity (Airlie Press). His work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Catamaran, Rattle, Sky Island, and others.

ESTRANGED: LINES OF AN AMERICAN EXPAT

by Andrew Frisardi

Our smoldering has turned to smoke

That streaks the sky like contrails spread

Across the sea. Your fertile body

Gave me a life before I woke

To sleepwalk where my dreams had led,

Oblivious there’d been a rift.

Though distant, you still have your hooks

In me. Your plain talk has gone shoddy,

Your ruddy natural good looks

Are faded, yet your undertow

Still raises riptides in my blood.

Marking our continental drift

Apart, our fits of fire and flood

Are all goodbye and half hello.

My mother, my love, our past runs deep.

We don’t know what is going wrong,

To whom or where we now belong,

As we turn and toss and turn in sleep.

Andrew Frisardi is a Bostonian living in central Italy. His recent books include The Harvest and the Lamp (2020) and Ancient Salt: Essays on Poets, Poetry, and the Modern World (2022, forthcoming).

SCREE

by Akua Lezli Hope

The five-justice Supreme Court bloc that overturned a half century of women's abortion rights on Friday had coalesced less than two years. But they had found their moment and they seized it. 

—CNN, June 25, 2022

This is insane, jackboot, psychic rape

The Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade

another way the inane U.S. of A

reminds it's not for most of us

already thrown under the careening bus

of a twisted, hegemonic, male patriarchy

 

We’re flattened again into oppressed dust

made to adhere to perverted needs

the worst of pornographic politics

their insatiable soul-robbing greed

to control another’s body

There's no daycare, scant maternity leave,

 

and yes, human trafficking is on the rise… 

as are rates of suicides, which could be

assuaged by an increase in minimum wage

 

They are on the take, ensuring innocent’s demise

States have their say over our reproduction

 

Those who don’t give a damn, limit our care

already so much less than what is fair

I pay 5 grand a year for nothing,

fight each and every month for access

to protective gear, bandages, dressings

 

Regressive, life threatening government decisions—

we feel the genteel violence of head in sand inaction

the incessant roar of entertainments’ self-indulgent distractions

who cares if one multimillionaire berates another

 

They build on sliding mountaintops and buy

their own fresh water, their own fresh air

their wild caught this and free range that

we communicate instantly these mounting tragedies

ever less and less and less free

Akua Lezli Hope is a creator and wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music,  sculpture, and peace.  A paraplegic, third-generation New Yorker, her honors include the NEA, two NYFAs, SFPA, Rhysling and Pushcart Prize nominations.

THE FARRIER OF TIME

by Ian Randall Wilson

“Death blue butterfly” by mirrurin at Deviant Art

It's like waking from the dream of an accident

into the accident, real and sure to be bloody,

the day pulling hard from the list of extinct thoughts

suddenly revived after 50 years.

It's easy to be furious with the ones

who read the entrails but ignored

the auguries, secure in their belief

the drum would not beat this day,

forest sending smoke rings back in time,

and yet I find I am furious with myself,

feeling at fault that somehow we let them—

I let them—turn the wheel

so the earth-mind must shift

toward thinking again

about bent wires and blood.

 

Except those endowed enough

to survive the ruins

and make it to the coasts

on damaged wings, the back alleys

will open for business

and the blue butterflies

will once again

die there.  How can it be

that the permanent road

now leads elsewhere?

 

Oh, the six are resplendent

in their black robes pretending

the sunset is not bleak.

They hold up their hands

which they claim are not stained,

the rest of us stand covered in ash.

 

When they entered the pit, they told us

the air was settled, vowed all was settled.

How good of them, how good

for them in their bribed cabins,

their false and active gods arranged,

watering the Chrysanthemum.

Ian Randall Wilson has poems published in many journals including Puerto del Sol and Alaska Quarterly Review. His first full-length collection is entitled Ruthless Heaven. He has an MFA in poetry and in fiction from Warren Wilson College. By day, he is an executive at Sony Pictures.

TWO DECADES BEFORE IT WAS LEGAL

by Sarah Brown Weitzman

Under a morning sky like curdled milk in a blue bowl

my childless friend of 40 years confesses to a 1953 abortion.

 

She was fifteen.  She was a virgin.  She had been beaten.

into submission.  She had been raped.  She gave

 

$100. to an elderly Carribean woman who laid her

hips on a rough, grayed towel, spread her knees apart

 

to stuff a narrow rubber hose cut from an enema bag

and stiffened with a copper strip up into her womb,

 

packed the cavity with wads of cotton, all tied together

by a string like a tampon.  “Tomorrow pull the string

 

and everything will come out.”  Three bright drops of blood

on the towel, the color of induced labor hours later.

 

The wall of her womb pierced.  Peritonitis. Hospital.

Penicillin.  Police.  But she was free of that unwanted child

 

or any child she could never have now.   Her nipples oozed

droplets of sour milk staining her bras for weeks after.

Sarah Brown Weitzman was a past National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Poetry and twice nominated for the Pushcart Poetry Prize.  A finalist for the Academy of American Poets First Book Award contest and the Foley Prize, Sarah has had poems published in hundreds of journals and anthologies including North American Review, Rattle, New Ohio Review,  Mid-American Review, Poet Lore, Potomac Review, Miramar, The American Journal of Poetry, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Her fifth book Amorotica was published during the pandemic by Main Street Rag.