ANTHEM FOR THE WOKE

by Geoffrey Philp

‘Stay Woke, Go Vote’ rally stirs spirited emotions, heartfelt pleas

—South Florida Sun-Sentinel, May 22, 2022

 

Where are the protestors from the summer of plague

who saw Black lives threatened, and marched to free

us from fascists and were greeted by an army of fear

mongers united in their cause to make sure change

would never happen, and began a campaign of lies

among the afflicted to sate the elites' lust for power,

 

that revealed their resistance to Black power—

the rising numbers in the cities they see as a plague,

so every cable series or news story is filled with lies

about Black crime—dire warnings that if we're ever free,

no one will be free, for we will have changed

America for the worse, and everyone will live in fear?

 

It's what Public Enemy was rapping about in Fear

of a Black Planet, especially in "Fight the Power,"

so we'd start the process of believing in the change

that must happen at the top, or else we'll be plagued

by doubters who will delay our quest for freedom

from their lies. For they lie. They lie. They lie.

 

But what if we stopped believing their lies,

the denials and gaslighting that keep them in fear

of shadows they've invented—that won't set them free

until they've given up their need for control, for power,

at the cost of the planet's life—before we're plagued

by circumstances, we won't be able to change

 

once the irreversible effects of climate change,

which oil company CEOs have labeled as a lie,

melts ice caps and releases viruses to plague

future generations, who will live in perpetual fear

of the next hurricane, heatwaves that disrupt power

grids, melt electric cables—when fresh air won't be free?

 

The ancestors' promise lives in the struggle to be free.

Ancestors like Marcus and Malcolm, who tried to change

our minds about the hold of the empire's power

over our people who have been educated with lies

about our past while others, paralyzed with fear

stare into the future as if it were a plague.

 

Rise, once again, and free yourselves from the lies

that keep us cowering in the dark. Rise, change your fear

from a plague of doubt into a power that liberates.

 

Geoffrey Philp is the author of the novels Garvey's Ghost and Benjamin, my son, five books of poetry, two collections of short stories, and three children's books, including Marcus and the Amazons. His forthcoming books include a graphic novel for children, My Name is Marcus, and a collection of poems, Archipelagos, which borrows from Kamau Brathwaite's "Middle Passage" lecture, Aime Cesaire's "Discourse on Colonialism," Sylvia Wynter's "1492," and Amitav Ghosh's thesis in The Nutmeg's Curse to explore the relationship between Christianity, colonialism, and genocide in the Plantationocene. He is currently working on a collection of poems, Letter from Marcus Garvey.

MY DAUGHTER, A HISTORY AND HOLOCAUST EDUCATOR, SAYS IT’S IMPORTANT WE BEAR WITNESS; WE BOTH KNOW IT’S NOT ENOUGH

by Laurie Rosen

Two days after their daughter, Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio, was shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas, Kimberly Rubio and her husband are urging elected officials to pass restrictive gun laws to help prevent future tragedies. “We live in this really small town in this red state, and everyone keeps telling us, you know, that it’s not the time to be political, but it is—it is,” Ms. Rubio said, her voice breaking through tears. “Don’t let this happen to anybody else.” Their family was contacted by Gov. Greg Abbott’s office on Wednesday, she said, and asked if they would be willing to meet with the governor. Ms. Rubio and her husband declined. —The New York Times, May  26, 2022. Photo: People visit a memorial for the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 28, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas, United States. Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images via CHRON

He lays still, pretends to be dead. 

He frantically calls his mom from his classroom,

she hides under a desk, covers herself with her dying friend’s blood,

she whispers on the phone to 911, send police,

he hears a bullet crack his friend’s nose.  

She hears a cop shout to her, yells help, gives away 

her hiding spot, then promptly succumbs to gunshot. 

A husband dies broken-hearted two days after his wife perishes 

by gunfire—four children, left parentless.  

A mother’s son never returns home.

A father’s daughter, a cousin, a nephew, never return home. 

This is not a war zone/This is a war zone/We live in a war zone.

Our children grow up in a war zone, are taught to escape killers, guns

and madmen/Our children learn they won’t escape madmen with guns, 

that bullets meant for war pierce metal doors, tear off locks. 

Bullets ravage the faces and bodies of teachers and best friends, forever haunt 

survivors' dreams––nightmares of pooling blood and mangled flesh.

Our children promise to stay still and quiet/If only they stayed still enough, quiet enough. 

I did good Mommy, I stayed still, I stayed quiet.  

A lifelong New Englander, Laurie Rosen’s poetry has appeared in The Muddy River Poetry Review, Oddball Magazine, Zig-Zag Lit Mag, Peregrine, The New Verse News, Gyroscope Review, and elsewhere.

IN MEMORIAM DAY

by Michel Steven Krug

How do they know the real population of Minnesota, asked my daughter, as her older sister was within hours of an and-one moment. There are vital statistics kept, each birth and death are tracked to offset the changes. Deaths by IED, in schools, grocery stores, dance clubs, by gangster/zealot/misguides with ARs, by combat, depression, vengeance-disease or age. Thinking of my Aunt, with her new pacemaker, describing her day to her what’s-his-name son, because after dinner, the mind’s velocity wanes, as if a human comet falling back to earth. I visited my dad’s grave, saluting his WWII Airforce time, sure, but his greatest service as mentor to all. If he could see what the insurrectionists assert today in the name of patriotism, he’d re-enlist and ask for a D.C. assignment, thinking he could detox the paranormal hatred engendered against progressive democracy. If unsuccessful, he’d enter his “come on now” mode, demanding nothing less than reason, flinging treason into the infested sewer. It’s said we are coded.  His sense of equanimity/persuasion/reason/forceful compassion = soother of spirits. We each inherit a collection of such souls, all of the elements swirling within, like an alphabet of inclinations. With it do we promote peace, or reflexively look for sales, fitfully running from the best within? Memorial Day is indeed solemn, honoring passed down lives that survive as we ride the bear, the bull and the barrel.

Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. He’s Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News (PRTN) literary magazine and litigates. His poems have appeared in Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Jerry Jazz Musician, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Portside, The New Verse News, JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Mizmor Anthology, 2019, PRTN, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Raven's Perch, Main Street Rag, and Brooklyn Review. 

FINGERPRINTS

by Peter Witt

A mother in Black Creek, GA

drops her child off at school,

heads to the AR-15 assembly line

at Daniel Defense, where guns

coming off the assembly line

are packed by a father of three,

two in college, one still in high school.

A young woman, barely out

of high school processes online

orders for the killing machines

from gun stores across the U.S.,

trying not to think about if one

will end up in the hands of an 18

year old with murderous intent.

The owner of a Uvalde gun store

remembers legally selling the semi-

automatic weapon of mass destruction

to a young man who'd just turned 18,

then heading home for a birthday party

for his elementary school-aged niece.

A host of people, some with children,

have their fingerprints on the bullets

that made their way into the hands

of the Uvalde shooter, never realizing

they'd touched the bullets

that would shatter bones, blur faces

in a one-hour classroom rampage.

Somewhere in a peaceful office

a NRA publicist cranks out scripts

that pols and apologists can use

when the inevitable questions

about gun safety and control emerge,

he's yet to marry, have children,

doesn't think that children killed

in the sure to be future mass murders

could someday be his offspring.

In a conference room in Black Creek, GA,

the owner of the killing machine company

authorizes another 50K donation to the NRA,

a necessary cost of doing business,

profits from his company putting

his children through college.

Airforce One ferries the president and his wife

to yet another memorial gathering

where he will console parents whose

children never came home from school,

having only recently returned from

a similarly gathering of families

recovering from the hatred of a racist

who shot up a supermarket in their town.

At dinner tables around the country

families gather over traditional

Memorial Day hot dogs and hamburgers,

some with thoughts and prayers,

others to have discussions

about the need to own a gun,

protect their families, stave off

the murderous intent of someone

who purchased a gun made, shipped,

sold by fellow citizens, many with school

aged children—who firmly believe

the 2nd amendment is God's will

and plan to protect their children

from mayhem...

while somewhere in a bedroom

a young man, not yet 18, dreams of the day

he too can go the local gun store, purchase

an assault weapon made, shipped,

and sold by people with children,

so that he too can join the ranks

of the dead who've created

mayhem in a supposedly safe

classroom somewhere in the U.S.A.

Peter Witt lives in Texas, only a few hours away from Uvalde.  His work has appeared in The New Verse News, other online publications, and several print volumes.

APPROPRIATION

by Judy Juanita

Sources: Khloé Kardashian claps back at criticism she holds daughter True, 3, ‘too much’, Khloe Kardashian Faces Backlash for Holding Baby True Dangerously: 'You're About to Break Her Neck!', The Kardashians' Legacy of Blackfishing and Appropriation, Kardashians and Cultural Appropriation | Penn State - Presidential Leadership Academy (PLA)

a kardashian butchers her face into

a kewpie doll with our lips

another apes us with silicone butt

mocking the slavemasters who auctioned us naked

inserting the middle finger to show our fertility

one nestles a brownbaby against that recast jaw

triggering envy hate monstrous anger

the reproach: you hold our brownbaby too much

she is defiant: we good

nah

you good

we not

Judy Juanita's poetry collection Manhattan my ass, you're in Oakland won the American Book Award 2021 from the Before Columbus Foundation. Her poem "Bling" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Her semi-autobiographical novel Virgin Soul is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s (Viking, 2013). Her collection of essays DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland [EquiDistance, 2016] examines race, gender, politics and spirituality, as experienced by a black activist and self-described "feminist foot soldier." Winner of the Tartt Fiction Prize at the University of West Alabama [UWA], her short story collection The High Price of Freeways will be published by Livingston Press [UWA] in July, 2022. 

KEEP SCREAMING

by Indran Amirthanayagam

March for Our Lives

Keep screaming. I will, Sister. Keep screaming.

I will, Dearest. Keep screaming. The children

will not be forgotten. Keep screaming. The guns

will be stopped, bullets intercepted. With our minds.

Our pens. Here, Senator, is our petition. Here you go

the draft legislation. Don't worry. Take your time

to read every word. We are staying here until

you decide to vote for or against. Not beyond

this line. Not any more. Never again. Not anywhere

in this America. We are not murderers. We are not

going to take the fall for the military industrial

profiteers. We are not going to be quiet. We are

not going to play dead; allow the demon to destroy

what's left of the Dream. Not for Martin. Not for

Malcolm. Not for Ginsburg. Not for John Lewis.

Not for you or me. I was a wretch. We were all

wretches standing on the street while the murderer

walked into the school unopposed on May 24th, 2022.

Keep screaming: Never again. Ban the filibuster.

Never again. Institute background checks,

psychological evaluations. Damn the idiot

argument of arming the teacher and the guardian,

He walked in unopposed. He killed nineteen

children and two teachers. Keep screaming.

Indran Amirthanayagam's newest book is Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks). Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

NEVER ENOUGH

by Judy Kronenfeld

The people embracing each other, wiping

tears from their eyes, kneeling

to place roses and carnations, 

the banner headlines, the when

is enough enough? Then the families

home alone after our national rituals,

the presidential visit. Now the children’s

bereft bedrooms, the stories slipping

down front pages and inside the newspaper,

then gone, now Absence just beginning

to take up residence, burrowing

in and in and in. 

Judy Kronenfeld’s fifth full-length collection of poetry Groaning and Singing was published by FutureCycle Press in February, 2022. Previous books include Shimmer (WordTech, 2012) and Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017). Her poems have appeared widely in journals including Cider Press Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, New Ohio Review, Offcourse,  Slant, and Verdad.

HERE LIE DEAD IN TEXAS

by Amy Worley

Nick Anderson

Here lie dead

a star gazer

a trailblazer

a bodhisattva

2 artists with tiny Mona Lisas

stamped on their still small spirts

not yet emerged.

 

Here lie dead

two seasoned, storied, spirit guides,

who were delicately, precisely, so, so lightly,

tending gossamer spirits.

 

Here lie dead

would-be mothers &

would-be fathers &

all the glorious would-be children &

all the would-be made inside them.

 

Here lie dead

among the bullets & bone fragments

unwritten books & unbuilt churches

un-prayed prayers in the

dark, wet cave of adolescence.

 

Here lie dead

the African-descended

the Mexican-descended

the whatever mix descended

double helixes no longer spiraling.

 

Among the dead

slivering over bloody bodies &

and rising up to stare us in our unseeing eyes

is the serpent of our failure.

 

Not an either/or failure but a slimy sludge

of yes/and foundering and non-doing,

with a forked tongue &

voluminous, sweet-smelling venom.

 

Here lie dead

in this community graveyard

a virologist

an ecologist

a drummer

a plumber

a shattered grandmother whose shards pierce like shrapnel.

 

Here lie dead

what we didn’t do to serve an unwell young man &

what we didn’t do to protect the hatching of the future.

 

Here lie dead

we all

knowing of good & evil

and choosing to hide behind the tall, dark tree

rather than stand naked in the dappled light of truth.

 

Amy Worley is a poet and nonfiction writer living in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, two boys, and her literary dog, Leroy. She is also an attorney and management consultant. She has a BA in English Literature and a Juris Doctorate. Her creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared in various online and hardcopy publications.

SOULS IN SOLES

by Jen Schneider

Gun-control advocates hold a vigil outside of the National Rifle Association (NRA) headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

again / tiny souls in rubble

and rubber soles

and rainbow-hued cotton

laces. elastic tips tucked

and tied. two-loops.

classroom pride. hide

under desks, behind doors,

on carpet-covered floors.

time once a concept

to be taught, not measured.

again / time knocks

on the doors of a nation

of shame and guns

with no roses

and loopholes

on parades / again

            with no brakes

mindless modeling

of putty and clay

must stop / now

so tiny souls

in rubber soles

            may learn, laugh, live

again / to teach and tell time,

sculpt and script

            a future of roses

                        with no guns  /  what if

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

PERFORMANCE BONUS

by Imogen Arate

Four of the Republican senators bankrolled by the NRA. From left to right Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney, Richard Burr, and Roy Blunt. —Newsweek has the “Full List of Republican Senators Who Receive Funding From the NRA.”

Every time a bullet screams a child's name

Congress rings in a payday

Every time gold-strung puppets mimic "thoughts and prayers"

NRA makes it rain

The more they pile up

the cheaper they come

The higher the body count

the bigger the ROI.

The stock market may be free-reeling

NFTs may be worthless

but LaPierre makes good on his promises

though he trades in rubles 

We've arrived at the age 

of lead-pegged currency

We've come to celebrate each day

as gun-violence survival day

drunk the mercurial mead 

of gilded hearts playing 

a mental-health sleight of hand

while we thirsted for salves

that vanished as another gunman

turned the page onto another tragedy

danced our last to the whizzing rhythm

of gun-powdered blues

as we grew confused over 

which loved ones got shot when

or which crisis actors got paid

while feigning condolences 

Imogen Arate is an award-winning Asian-American poet and writer and the Executive Producer and Host of Poets and Muses, a weekly poetry podcast that won second place at National Federation of Press Women's 2020 Communications Contest, where she has served as a national-level poetry judge in 2021 and 2022.  Her poetry has appeared in 18 publications on four continents.  You can find her @PoetsandMuses and @ImogenArate on Twitter and Instagram.

COON CAT TUESDAY

by Jan Steckel

Nick Anderson

Sunny sweats on her stoop,

says she’s seen raccoons and cats

mating in her backyard. They’ve bred

a tribe of unholy hell beasts,

coon cats, who haunt the bushes.

She also says we shouldn’t call the cops

if her ex violates the restraining order again.

She doesn’t know whose blood

stains the street today,

the woman gunned down in front

of Carlos’s taco truck. Helicopters

roar overhead, caution tape and wagons

cut off our exit from the block for hours

as officers snap photos, pick up shell casings.

People carry out chairs to sit and watch.

The children are all walleyed and gabbling:

¡Pistolas! ¡Policía! ¡Ambulancia!

Everyone has Covid, except those out

dodging bullets. In Texas, someone shot up

a school again, but that seems far away.

Jan Steckel’s book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, 2018) won Rainbow Awards for LGBT Poetry and Best Bisexual Book. Her poetry book The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011) won a Lambda Literary Award. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) and poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) also won awards. She lives in Oakland, California, USA.

GOING GONE

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman, I.W.B.S.

Nick Anderson

here in texas we say 

go down the road a bit 

for getting to the next town 

or just to the next gas station 

where you can fill up 

before you drive on 

sometimes i say 

once you get out of texas 

you are halfway to where you  

are going 

now  

this week  

children and adults again are going nowhere 

with families stuck in a forever sadness  

sad that 

until those in the power of going 

somewhere   anywhere 

feel the bullet bite their own child 

all of us  

will still be going nowhere 

Sister Lou Ella has a master’s in theology from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is a former teacher and librarian. She is a certified spiritual director as well as a poet and writer.  Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines such as America, First Things, Emmanuel, Third Wednesday, and The New Verse News as well as in four anthologies: The Night’s Magician: Poems about the Moon, edited by Philip Kolin and Sue Brannan Walker, Down to the Dark River edited by Philip Kolin, Secrets edited by Sue Brannan Walker and After Shocks: The Poetry of Recovery for Life-Shattering Events edited by Tom Lombardo.  She was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2017 and in 2020. Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless was published in 2015 (Press 53.) On May 11, 2021, five poems from her book which had been set to music by James Lee III were performed by the opera star Susanna Phillips, star clarinetist Anthony McGill, pianist Mayra Huang at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The group of songs is entitled “Chavah’s Daughters Speak.”

ADRENALINE ATTACK

by Dana Yost

Barry Blitt

Awake all night.

Adrenaline attack.

Not like the attack

in Texas. Not twenty-one dead.

But fueled by that, 

this adrenaline attack.

What is it in us,

in Americans,

that makes it

OK? One mass

shooting after

another.

Some plead,

some pray.

Some say

leave it alone.

Ted Cruz

says don’t

politicize it.

Ted Cruz

needs a bruise.

It has to be politicized.

It has to be debated

in the public arena.

It has to have meaning,

this debate of ours,

or else it’s meaningless,

the senselessness

goes on.

Gunmen squeeze

their triggers

and children die.

The rest of the world

looks at us and

asks “why.”

We have no answer.

We have no answer.

So I stay awake,

shaking, fretting,

swearing. We pray,

we vow, we say

never again,

but they are hollow

phrases until

we put the gun lobby

down like a dog

with a hole in its gut,

which in any logical

world would be

the case: the gun

lobby allowing

these wounds

to open, to fester,

to be picked and pulled

at until the gut is

an open sore.

Awake all night.

Adrenaline attack

the day of a school

attack, the day we mourn

yet again the loss

of little lives.

Dana Yost was an award-winning daily newspaper journalist for 29 years. Since 2008, he has published eight books. His poetry has been published in numerous reviews and magazines, including The New Verse News. Yost is a three-time Pushcart nominee in poetry.

TEXAS IN HELL

by Robert Knox

The eyes of the others,

les autres

 

Hate mongering

Closed doors of the mind in self-panic

Race-pandering Congressional creeps

stalk the Halls of Hades

When? in God’s name?

 

A universal set of trigger-fingers

in circular execution

A lake of burning fire

Armed to the teeth = utterly unprotected

Gehenna on the dusty plain

 

Looking into the eyes

of the lost

No consolation in the knowing

 

Self-slaying America

Compelled to repeat the same self-torture

endlessly: forever

Infinite self-slaughter

 

An underworld of hate,

unholy perdition

Robert Knox is a poet, fiction writer, Boston Globe correspondent, and the author of the recently published collection of linked short stories, titled House Stories. As a contributing editor for the online poetry journal Verse-Virtual, his poems appear regularly on that site. 

COLORING BOOK WITH SECRET SUPERHEROES

by Bonnie Proudfoot

This is a coloring book without lines.

This is a coloring book where Jane

wears any clothing she feels like

wearing and so does Dick, and both

of them won’t carry a gun. In this book

guns aren’t invented. Still, this book

is full of action figures, girl ones and boy ones

Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel

and Doctor Strange and Harley Quinn, ones

who move in light, and ones who delight

in mayhem. All the superheroes use their powers

to keep sharp things out of babies’ reach,

even though they shine. There’s a secret superhero

you can find her if you look, and it is you, 

this is a book that claps for you, who can

almost roll over, who has never worn

a shoe, who can eat her bare feet,

who marched at six months of age,

well, sort of marched, for women’s choice.

This is a coloring book that says it’s ok,

use all the colors, be who you are, it hopes

you see the light that shines through your light

gray eyes, a book that looks like a mirror of love,

that smells like your breath that is a mirror

of milk, that marvels at the impressionist

masterpiece that is your diaper after eating

peas and beets, and that is only something

a nana would say, yes yes, this book

has another secret superhero, NanaMan,

who has the power to stop a gun from firing

at a supermarket or a school or a church

or synagogue, Nanaman is the conscience

of the world, or some kind of weird spirit,

don’t ask me how she/he works. The book knows

that babies are born into light, they come

here with all the colors that they need, and

when the pages of the book are clasped shut

it prays that the world does not start

taking those colors away too soon. 

Bonnie Proudfoot has had fiction and poetry published in the Gettysburg Review, Kestrel, Sheila-Na-Gig, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, SoFloPoJo, and other journals. Her first novel Goshen Road was published by Swallow Press in January of 2020, and was  long-listed for the 2021 PEN/ Hemingway award for debut fiction. Her debut book of poems Household Gods (Sheila-Na-Gig Press) will be published in the summer of 2022.

WHAT WAR-WOUNDED OFFERED TODAY

by Joan Leotta

The wounded offer healing

Each morning I look to Ukraine,

Through the eyes of an email correspondent.

She and I mourn over cities laid waste,

adults and children wounded, dead

strewn on streets, live ones sheltering in cellars.

The email reaches out to me for support

to help them act on the prayers.

Daily I respond,

I send my hope and prayers

and concrete aid as I can.

Today, in the daily email,

along with news of wasted cities,

wounded children,

they sent their prayers to America

hoping we can put our own, offering prayer.

I pray we can turn our and their

prayers into action to stop the killings here.

Joan Leotta is an author and Story Performer who feels we need to do more than simply shed tears and points to the efficacy of the Assault Weapons Ban in lessening of such horrific incidents as one concrete thing we have once done and should do again.

JUST ANOTHER DAY IN THE U S OF A

by deb y felio

The former guy "is scheduled to speak at the National Rifle Association's Annual Leadership Forum on Friday. But audience members at the group's annual meeting, being held this year in Houston, won't be able to carry guns during his address. The conference is going ahead in the shadow of Tuesday's mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school that killed at least 21 people—including 19 students." —NPR, May 25, 2022

Let us now raise our voices

for the freedom we have to make our choices

of who lives who dies 

and not on the battlefields where all are armed

but at schools and churches newly charmed

with flowers and toys, memorialized.

Let us now send out our thoughts and prayers

and pay no notice to the real players

who love to make a stand

not against the gun lobbyists

or restrictions for purchases

those real actions would be too grand.

So Texas before you can bury the children

the NRA you will be welcoming

and after all it isn’t guns that kill.

But if that eighteen year old had entered

that school today and stuck out his finger

would so many lives have been stilled?

deb y felio is a poet writing as witness to the mundane and miraculous and the under-represented sides of historic and current issues while working as a family and child therapist in Colorado. Published credits include anthologies Hay(na)ku 15; Gabriel’s Horn: Startled by Nature (2020); Refuse to Stay Silent (2020). Her cherita sequence was a finalist in MacQueens’s Quarterly March 2021 ekphrastic challenge.

TREE

by Katherine Smith

Kevin Siers, The Charlotte Observer, NC

The maples scatter their necklaces of seedpods

to the grass. My heart aches

for Texas where yesterday an eighteen-year-old

walked into a school and shot

 

eighteen children, more than one for each year of his life.

Anger spins inside me like wind-torn seeds.

All year long in the classroom I teach my students

to barricade the doors. The children are right

 

to ignore me. They go on chatting

while I point to tables and chairs.

My explanation will do no good

as the faces of congressmen and senators

 

at the NRA convention in Houston

do no good, pledging allegiance

chins up, wooden jaws squared as if relishing

yet another opportunity to stand rooted

 

like dead wood to their murderous cause.

Katherine Smith’s recent poetry publications include appearances in Boulevard, North American Review, Mezzo Cammin, Cincinnati Review, Missouri Review, Ploughshares, Southern Review, and many other journals. Her short fiction has appeared in Fiction International and Gargoyle. Her first book Argument by Design (Washington Writers’ Publishing House) appeared in 2003. Her second book of poems Woman Alone on the Mountain (Iris Press) appeared in 2014. She works at Montgomery College in Maryland.

WE LIKE OUR FREEDOM

by Ginny Lowe Connors

And our steaks—we like them rare.

Our vengeance bloody and loud. Lightning bolts

aimed at the heart. That thrill. That satisfaction

when our rage explodes.

 

Ask the six-year-olds of Sandy Hook.

Ask their parents. Or anyone from Ulvalde.

Ask the stuffed bunny left behind

on the bed, one ear bent and frayed.

 

Tissue paper parachutes

drifting over the wastelands of our freedom—

that’s what the prayers became

of those in the Pittsburgh synagogue

and in the Fort Worth Baptist Church.

 

Nobody asks about the anonymous workers

who come in afterward to clean up the blood.

In the schools, the churches, the nightclubs.

The homes, the offices. Grocery stores.

That sludge, that slurry of hatred, cold sweat, malice—

how long must the smell of it linger?

 

I myself cannot eat steak. I cannot free myself

from the vision of a little boy racing a school bus. 

Something is happening to the field of wildflowers

I used to carry in my chest, asters and daisies, bees.

Summer sunlight. I’m full of holes.

The hummingbirds are escaping.

 

 

Ginny Lowe Connors taught English in a public secondary school for many years. She is the author of four full-length poetry collections, including her latest poetry book Without Goodbyes: From Puritan Deerfield to Mohawk Kahnawake (Turning Point, 2021). Her chapbook Under the Porch won the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, and she has earned numerous awards for individual poems. She is co-editor of Connecticut River Review and runs a small poetry press, Grayson Books.

PINKY PROMISES

by Ann E. Wallace

“Pinky Promise” by Joseph Patton

Can you see it?

The shredding of precious 

organs, of slim muscles and growing

bones, of smiles and baby teeth,

of dimples and pinky promises, 

when weapons meant for war

open fire on 40- and 50-pound

children crouching under desks,

hiding behind racks of graded 

readers, and huddling

in the pretend play center.

 

Can you imagine

what damage has been 

wreaked when a mother must 

recall the neatly pressed 

dress or red striped shirt 

her third grader selected 

for the end of school festivities, 

two days before summer break, 

when a father must swab 

his cheek or offer a vial of blood 

to confirm that the shattered 

remains held in the morgue 

belong to his darling child?

 

How as a nation 

do we bear that another 

community has been asked 

to be patient, that parents 

were again told to not pick up 

their kids, not yet, when they heard 

the news, so as not to cause chaos—as if

parents’ terror caused this mayhem—

until officials have finished scouring

the brightly colored classrooms 

for small victims, until doctors

have saved those they could

and zipped those they could not 

into oversized body bags, until 

every student has been accounted for,

until nineteen sets of parents 

have learned they will never 

again pick up their children?

 

How do we justify

that while the devastated 

people of Uvalde have waited 

in desperation for their children 

to be accounted for, 

no one is holding 

our leaders accountable? 

 

Ann E. Wallace is a poet and essayist from Jersey City, New Jersey. Her published work can be found at AnnWallacePhD. Follow her on Twitter @annwlace409 or on Instagram @annwallacephd.com.

THE AMERICAN IDEAL OF JUSTICE

by Howie Good

The gunman

shoots to death

19 children

 

in an elementary school

in Texas

 

and then turns the gun

on himself.

Editor's Note: The specific circumstances of the death of the shooter at the scene of Robb Elementary School had not yet been clarified by authorities at the time of the posting of this poem. Since then, authorities have announced that the gunman was killed by law enforcement officers.

Howie Good is a poet and collagist on Cape Cod.

UVALDE TEXAS MAY 24, 2022

by Alan Catlin

19 children 

and one teacher

dead

because one

elementary

school shooting

wasn't enough

Alan Catlin has published dozens of chapbooks and full-length books, including the chapbook Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance (Presa Press), a series of ekphrastic poems responding to the work of German photographer August Sander who did portraits of Germans before, during, and after both World Wars.

ROE V. WADE—THE PREQUEL, 1972

by Marianne Gambaro

I guess I can’t blame them

for feeling the way they do.

 

They weren’t there.

They didn’t see your ashen face

against the blood-soaked

laundry service sheets

on your dorm bed.

 

I wish I could remember your name—

Karen, I think,

or maybe Caryn—

your whitebread family

was pretentiously middle class

so would have spelled it differently,

not at all like that boy

who knocked you up.

Did he disappear fast when you told him!

 

You were a quiet girl, younger

than the rest of us freshmen,

smarter too,

with all your advanced placement classes.

 

I think it was your roommate who took you

to that bogus doctor in Pennsylvania,

who stayed with you

and finally called the RA

when she couldn’t stop the bleeding.

 

You never did come back to the dorm.

Did you come back to school?

Did you even live?

No one talked about you after you left,

at least not above a whisper.

 

I guess I can’t blame them

for feeling the way they do now.

But maybe you can.

 

Marianne Gambaro’s poems and essays have been published in print and online journals including Mudfish, CALYX, Oberon Poetry Magazine, Pirene's Fountain, Avocet Journal, Snowy Egret, and The Naugatuck River Review. She is the author of Do NOT Stop for Hitchhikers (Finishing Line Press). She lives in verdant Western Massachusetts, with her talented photographer-husband and two feline muses.

COWS WHO DIDN'T JUMP OVER THE MOON

by Dick Altman

Jason Grostic's cows are tame and relaxed on his small Michigan farm. But after repeatedly testing his farm for PFAS chemicals in biosolids applied to his fields, state officials stopped Grostic from selling any meat or cattle from his farm. Feed grown on his farm is contaminated as well, and he's having to buy feed for the herd he can no longer sell. (DTN photo by Chris Clayton) —Progressive Farmer, May 9, 2022

After euthanizing several thousand contaminated cows, Art Schaap is losing not only a once-thriving dairy farm but a place where he and his family have lived for a quarter-century. He has no choice, he said, because the polluted runoff from Cannon Air Force Base that tainted the groundwater, soil and his livestock with cancer-causing chemicals has left Highland Dairy in Clovis [New Mexico] an empty shell… Schaap euthanized 3,665 dairy cows in phases over the past four years, when he first learned they’d become contaminated with PFAS from drinking polluted groundwater. PFAS is short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. Dubbed “forever chemicals” because they last indefinitely in the bloodstream, PFAS can cause increased cholesterol, reproductive problems, impaired immunity and cancer. Highland Dairy, a 3,500-acre farm, is a casualty in an ever-growing environmental and health issue as PFAS increasingly turn up in public drinking water, private wells and food. —Santa Fe New Mexican, May 19, 2022

Hey, diddle, diddle.

The cat and the fiddle.

The cow jumped over the moon.

Except the bovines,

all thirty-six hundred,

who couldn’t overcome

pollution’s deadly gravity.

Who weren’t invited

to your last barbecue.

Whose cream didn’t fortify

yesterday’s Frappuccino.

 

Hey, diddle, diddle.

The cat and the fiddle.

The cows who didn’t

jump over the moon,

died rife with PFAS,

“forever chemicals” etched

into their bloodstreams.

Cholesterol/reproduction/

immunity all impacted.

Cancer lurking.

 

Hey, diddle, diddle.

The cat and the fiddle.

The cows who tanked up

on PFAS-ed groundwater.

Who drank the brew/runoff

of airbase firefighters practicing

with PFAS-laced foam.

The entire herd euthanized/

farm closed/soil toxic.

PFAS showing up

in public drinking water,

wells and food.

 

Hey, diddle, diddle.

The cat and the fiddle.

The cows’re all dead.

No place to rest/exit.

Oh, just this once.

change the flight plan.

Let them jump on the moon—

rather than over it.

 

Dick Altman writes in Santa Fe’s high, thin, magical air, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. The Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, Haunted Waters Press, and many others have published his work in the U.S. and abroad.  A poetry winner of the Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems, Voices in the Heart of Stones and Telling the Broken Sky.

PRAYERS OF WAR

by Peter Witt

On May 20, Dmytro Kozatskyi, a soldier of the #Azov Regiment posted his photos of the defenders of #Mariupol, calling on the world media and those who can help to distribute them. "Well, that's all. Thank you for the shelter; Azovstal is the place of my death and life. See you".

I.

I hear the drums of war banging

as recruits shoulder their weapons,

while merchants of arms pray

half-heartedly for peace knowing

money is to be made

off the mayhem and suffering.

II.

Somewhere safe and hidden,

a barely 19 year old guides

a drone capturing images

of hospitals, schools, that

will soon smolder with

the aftermath of airborne

mechanized chaos...silently

he offers a prayer for the living

and soon to be dead.

III.

Mother with teething child,

walker propelled grandparent,

and shivering family dog

board a train that chugs

its way to the western border,

rails singing "pray with me,

pray with me."

IV.

Someday, when bodies

are counted, refugees

and soldiers hobble home,

there'll be an annual day

of remembrance of victory

and defeat, speeches made,

loved ones honored,

as the priest asks

the assembled to bow

their heads and pray.

Peter Witt lives in Texas.  His poetry has appeared in a variety of online and print publications.

UKRAINE HAIKU

by G. R. Kramer

On May 20, Dmytro Kozatskyi, a soldier of the #Azov Regiment posted his photos of the defenders of #Mariupol, calling on the world media and those who can help to distribute them. "Well, that's all. Thank you for the shelter; Azovstal is the place of my death and life. See you".

all across the road

blood of butchered                  root in cracks

seed of black spring             bloom

 

weapon

 

below white flowers

we lie with the fray of bees

nowhere people are

 

child

 

mir meant peace to both

when trees leafed over laughter

now           stumps             stand    their     ground

 

      explosive

 

see how the flies help

keep down             the odor of rot

old men in ditches

 

witness

 

may the good endure

tanks missiles sunflowers plows

may the lost                    return

 

annihilate

 

family        stained             red

parlor tatters                      open sky

empty sniper eyes

 

artillery

 

war machines rust out

wind blown blood loam covers steppe

lily bulbs open

 

memory

 

when do nations live

empires feed         death to their dead

human history

 

for get       ting

 

mothers of soldiers

whose blood drains to the black sea

mothers of soldiers

 

G. R. Kramer grew up in Canada, Kenya and the U.S., the child of refugees from fascism and communism. A lawyer by vocation, his passion for writing poetry has rekindled in late middle-age. His first poetry chapbook is forthcoming from Finish Line Press and he has published in numerous journals.