Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Friday, September 06, 2013

CYRUS VS. SYRIA

by Greg Scott Brown


Khan al-Assal Massacre


I imagine the young man kneeling in a ditch
in Syria would rather hold forth on Miley
and twerking, to wit: simply awkward,

morally bereft, or downright un-American?
The young man kneeling in a ditch
in Syria is not American, of course.

No matter.
Given a choice to debate the reprobate
Miley, or taking a bullet to the brain,

I imagine which choice (which is no choice)
he might make while waiting
to add his blood and brains to the ditch.

Might he imagine something more
than Miley in a Syrian ditch
where his voice is blood and sand and void?


Greg Scott Brown lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he teaches Composition, Critical Thinking and Literature at Los Medanos Community College.