Monday, April 16, 2007

NO LONGER HEADLINE NEWS

by Alan Catlin


Bush's latest
admonition

screed against
Democrats

against troop
withdrawal

bumped by real
news shootings

on campus in
Virginia

Bush's formerly-
to-be-broadcast-

live statements
reduced to sound

bytes same-old
same-old

while elsewhere
life does not

go on as usual


Alan Catlin's latest chapbook is a long poem, "Thou Shalt Not Kill", an updating of Rexroth's seminal poem of the same name. Whereas Rexroth riffs on the abuses of the Eisenhower adminstration, the update observes abuses of power in the current administration with particular attention to the cynical, criminal behavior towards the Katrina hurricane victims. One year later, the victims are not forgotten. No matter how many candles the Bushes light, the appalling lack of humanity and the blatant hypocrisy of the folks in charge is as apparent as the disenfranchised, the homeless, and the poverty stricken people of the Gulf states.