ACHE

by Ron Riekki

Artist Frederic Remington painted “The opening of the fight at Wounded Knee” in 1891. The massacre took place on December 29, 1890.

"There have been more mass shootings than days this year: As of December 25, the 359th day of the year, there have been 406 mass shootings in the U.S., according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which tracks every mass shooting in the country. Twenty-nine of those shootings were mass murders." —Jason Silverstein, CBS News, December 25, 2019

“The deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history took place in 1890, when representatives of the U.S. government executed as many as 300 Native men, women, and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, for practicing Ghost Dancing, a spiritual tradition within our culture.” —Allen Salway, Teen Vogue, June 14, 2018

“Arise from their graves” —William Blake, “Ah! Sun-flower”

Ugh! Gun-powder!  weary of EMT
shifts, how it may look like an entrance
wound in front and an exit wound in back,

but it was really two bullets, fired behind
and in front, and bullets, now, with shitty
NRA-backed legislation are made to

ricochet around in the chest once they
enter, going from organ to organ, intro-
ducing themselves with a bloodbath,

destroying colons and lungs and spleens,
the way that colonizers smallpoxed
and large-poxed and sent poxes upon

thee—the Pawnee, the Cherokee, the
Kansa?  Have you never heard of the
Kansa?  Because extinction is erasing—

worse than erasing, de-racing, destroy-
ing the -ing of a people: their breathing,
talking, writing, hearts beating, cultures

living.  And over an Xmas dinner,
we get on guns, and I say that I wish
I could take all the gun-owners and

put them on an ambulance with me,
allow them to see what bullets do,
see bullets in merry-go-rounds and

bullets in dollhouses and bullets in
Etch A Sketches where you shake
the world and nothing changes.

Ron Riekki's most recent book is Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press, 2019).

LISTLESS

by Tricia Knoll

I’ve grown weary of best of
recipes with wine
or cookie doughs
which candidate raised the most
murder mysteries
and top discoveries
must-see
movies
raw hip-hop
and alternative songs
records for longest feather
boa
lies we stopped counting
we endured
the year of fire
flood
wind
tornadoes
and can’t we just move
on
knowing what needs
to be done
and do it.

Tricia Knoll has seen dozens of media lists of "best of" in the news. The flashes of what famous people died in 2019 (without including the names of all the victims of bombings and war) and is suspicious there are also lists of the year of the most people who died by gun violence, etc. 

ANOTHER YEAR

by George Held

Another year ends and a new year starts
and I have fewer—it’s just math—
to count on, but I’m glad to have
been born too young for WW 2
and too old for Korea and Nam

and too ancient for the all-volunteer
Army dispatched, like Caesar’s legions,
to any hot spot in the Empire,
though Afghanistan’s a region
a bit too far out for our ambition.

Another year, the President’s third
in office, on the horizon for him
to continue our retreats
from remote and alien climes
(poetic word for “region” and for rhymes)

or to launch new strikes, like missiles
out of the blue: it’s all up to him,
our grand commander-in-chief,
our modern chief executive officer
and main deal-maker and pussy-grabber.

Will this be another year of immunity
for executive privilege, the one man
above the law, for him who has slouched
from the bestial floor in Bethlehem
to rename the world like a neo-Adam,

whose jutting chin recalls Mussolini
and racist rants echo Hitler’s
and whose repeated lies outdo Goebbels’
but who knows how to talk the talk
that enthralls his adamantine Base.

Another year, or could it be our last
before the earth floods or a nuclear blast
solves our overpopulation problem?
The bourgeoisie now draw near the edge
over which many poor have lately plunged,

and the widespread wish of “Happy New Year”
seems frivolous if not a beard for fear.

A longtime contributor to the TheNewVerse.News, George Held writes from New York. His forthcoming book is Second Sight (Poets Wear Prada, 2019).