NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman

 

for those who were killed in lewiston, maine 

                                                            by a man with an AR style gun 

                         

Just months before this week’s mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine’s Legislature considered three major bills to tighten gun restrictions: one to require criminal background checks for gun purchases, another to create a 72-hour waiting period before someone could take possession of a gun after purchasing it and a third to outlaw modifications that make semiautomatic weapons more deadly. All three bills were defeated in the Maine Senate by sizable margins. Maine, a largely blue state where Democrats control both chambers of the State Legislature and the governorship, has a long history of resisting gun control measures. —The New York Times, October 26, 2023

we begin this celebration 

in the name of

my right  my right  my right  

amen 

                         

             our response to today’s reading 

of the second amendment  

page 6 in your hymnal 

                        hail to thee, oh AR-15 

we will sing all 25 verses 

after which we will recite 

our litany of thanksgiving  

                         

now   let us rise and say together 

 

for no background checks 

we are thankful 

 

for our mutual support 

so needed in our holy culture of guns 

against those who deny our rights

we are thankful            

 

for being called to be a member 

to this sacred society

we are thankful 

 

for being able to sleep at night 

we are thankful 

 

for all those who sell AR-15s 

for this we are truly thankful 

 

for $$$$ 

we are very thankful 

 

please join me after this service 

for coffee   donuts 

and a short meeting 

concerning future recruitment plans  

 

now let us say amen to the final blessing  

 as we go to serve AR-15 

 

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, US Catholic, Commonweal, The Christian Century, Presence, Prism, and several anthologies. She was a Pushcart nominee in 2017 and 2020. Five poems from her book, she: robed and words, set to music by James Lee III were performed on May 11, 2021. The soloist was the opera singer Susanna Phillips, principal clarinetist Anthony McGill of the New York Philharmonic and Grammy® nominated pianist Mayra Huang. The arrangement was part of a concert held at Y92 in New York City. The group of songs is entitled “Chavah’s Daughters Speak.” Another concert was held in Cleveland, Ohio on March 28, 2023. The soloist was Elena Perroni. 

EXTENDED MAGS FOR KING GEORGE III

by Dave Day

Source: For the Sake of Arguments

Grapeshot, grapeshot

British artillery and redcoat musketmen

undone by Rhode Island farmboys

heeding the militia’s call

bearing

fully automatic AR-15s with

laser sights and aerial drone support

the colonists spray the loyalists

in the killzone

nine-millimeter sidearm

dum-dum jacketed softpoint

magnum ACP

thirty rounds for Lord North and

the madman King George

to enfilade the tyranny of

the House of Hanover

well-regulated militiamen all

comporting with the history and tradition

of SEAL Team Six, which was founded after

the Battle of Agincourt

the militia, our militia

selfless minutemen doffing

tricorne hats, brass buttons gleaming on

ballistic body armor, hurrah!

Dave Day is an attorney from Honolulu, Hawaii.  Dave has published poetry in The Ekphrastic Review and The New Verse News, and extremely nonpoetic articles in the Hawaii Bar Journal and Emory International Law Review.

ANNIE

by Judith Terzi

Arm me, I'm a teacher. Give me the best

that you've got. A pistol won't cut it. With 30 kids

in a class, a couple of shots too few. I'll need

an AR-15 to prevent the next slaughter. And give me

time above all. I'll need time off to learn what I'm not

trained to do. And give me a double to plan all my

classes, correct all the math, the history, the English,

the science, geography. The reading. And give me

another one to attend all the conferences, the meetings.

The kids will get why their teacher's not there.

They heard those big men on TV declare

that teachers are the absolute key to keeping them safe.

Oh give me the guts to learn how to kill.

Make me a sharpshooter, an Annie, if you will.

Author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay), as well as of five chapbooks, Judith Terzi's poetry appears in a wide array of journals and anthologies. Her poem "Ode to Malala Yousafzai" was read on an episode of BBC/Radio 3's Words and Music. A new chapbook, Now, Somehow, will appear later this year. She taught French for many years in Pasadena, California, as well as English at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria.

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.

THE RUT

by Pepper Trail





They are coming out of the hills into town
Young bucks, spiked with peachfuzz velvet
Old bulls, necks thick and haunches heavy
Veterans of the autumn brawls of many years

They enact the understood rituals of threat
Send signals of dominance, await submission
This has worked among themselves forever
In the sparring, none got hurt, usually not

But now, nothing is enough for respect
Not the bellow, the big beard, the big arms
Not the waved flag, the holstered sidearm
Not even the AR-15 - nothing is enough

So there will be trouble - how not?
Baffled by the strangers in their way
Hearing only challenge in the voices raised
They lower their heavy heads and, blindly, charge


Pepper Trail is a poet and naturalist based in Ashland, Oregon. His poetry has appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Spillway, Kyoto Journal, Cascadia Review, and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net awards. His collection Cascade-Siskiyou was a finalist for the 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

THE OLD FACE WE SAW

by Ryan Schaufler

AP Photo, 1956

Jacob Blake is not dead, yet.
The 7 bullets tried to kill him.

He’s just paralyzed from the waist down
Chained to a hospital bed.

Guns don’t kill people
People kill people.

Police are people.
Police tried to do what they do:

Kill a black man by shooting him in the back,
Where they normally kneel on a neck.

They feared for their lives.
They feared for their lives.

August 29th. 2020.
The Black Panther is dead.

The year has knocked the wind out of us.
My wife & I decided to take a walk.

We drove to Port Washington.
We had lived there happily for 9 years.

That was before T***p.
Before a 17 year old thug from Antioch

Drove to our state with an AR-15
The good ole Smith and Wesson

30-round magazine loaded & ready
Protecting businesses, right?

Protecting the right to kill two & maim one.
Just like a video game. Hands up & walk away.

“Need a bottle of water?” I know you’re thirsty!
For blood. “We appreciate you!” White supremacy.

Recorded for posterity:
The voice of police.

Armored vehicles pass by
The privilege of a white boy with a big long gun

Survives
As the crowd pleads: He shot them! He killed them!

They feared for their lives.
They feared for their lives.

We lived here before all of this.
Before the plague.

Port Washington isn’t the same now.
The country is not the same now.

None of us are now. We walked by the lake.
75 degrees. Blue sky. The moon, peeking.

A playground. Deer in the distance, peeking.
The lake breeze reveals the stillness of rage.

White People frolicking under the sun.
Away from Milwaukee or Kenosha.

A Truck pulls up behind us.
Us. A white man. With his Black wife.

Truck. filled with boys. that look like
Kyle Rittenhouse. Glassy eyed. Smiling

Crooked. They slow down
Their heads out the window.

Their faces mirror the gleeful hate
60 years ago

As white pro-segregationists
Battered the bones of Freedom Riders.

Demonic smirks directed our way
A familiar evil. Just as familiar as the beautiful park

We walked. Our eyes connect.
“Boo!” A boy shouts. His face

Cold, hardened with ignorance
Smoldering with hatred. He blows a kiss

Flipping us off. I respond, instinctually, “Boo.”
Blowing a kiss back. I do not flip him off.

My wife quickly whispers to me,
“Stop. Don’t engage.”

She instructs me to cut across the park.
Away from the truck. They fit the profile.

Internet militia gang. Radicalized. White.
Militant. Seeking blood. An uncivilized war.

“You got to listen to me. They don’t see you.
They see me. You can’t respond like you want.”

She’s right. I can’t see clearly. Their rage
Enrages me. My white privilege doesn’t work here.

White people continue to picnic and laugh
Unaware of the terror. We keep our eye on the truck

As it slowly cruises the park. Are they armed?
Will they stop? Will they canvas the area with AR-15’s?

We did not call the police.
We could not call the police.

Will they shoot us for existing? They have been incited.
Trump has released the underbelly of America.

We feared for our lives.
We feared for our lives.


Ryan Schaufler lives in Milwaukee and received a BFA from California Institute of the Arts in Acting. He is a professional actor, special education teacher, theatre teacher, playwright, director, photographer, artist, and a father. His plays and poetry have been published in such journals as Southern Indiana Review, Rise Up Review, and Clockhouse. His photography can be seen in Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Elizabeth Horan’s 2019 Chapbook Fem Box, Moonchild Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Riggwelter, The Perch, and Cream City Review among others. @schauflerized

UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE: ASYLUM IS OUT OF STOCK

by Joanne Godley

The United Nations refugee convention of 1951 provides the basis for American asylum laws. Unlike the Trump plan, it does not prevent refugees from traveling through several countries before landing in the United States and seeking asylum. But it does ban signatories to the convention, like the United States, from deporting asylum seekers to countries where their safety is at risk, a process formally known as “refoulement.” —The New York Times, September 14, 2019. Photo: Members of a migrant caravan made up mostly of Hondurans and Cubans resting in the town plaza of Escuintla, Chiapas, Mexico, in April.Credit: Brett Gundlock for The New York Times.

put the word out  on the street    we’re out of asylum         finished      weʻre not stocking asylum this season    there’ll be no safe harbor here    if you were looking for justice / equality / a listening hand / freedom from persecution     we used to carry all those things but no more
asylum was way too popular!     everybody wanted it!   we couldn’t keep it on the shelves    it got out of hand     anyway we won’t be offering asylum under this current management
you ask—is there anywhere  you can go to  get some asylum these days? under the table? you’d pay above market price?  you say  you just want a whiff?  well   you might try our neighbor to the  north—they may have a small amount of vintage asylum  left         i wouldn’t advise trying our southern neighbor    they’re liable to tell you “si, como no    asylum”  then try and  interest you in  some AR-15s smuggled from here to there

Joanne Godley is a practicing physician and poet whose work has appeared in the anthology 50/50: Poems and Translations by Women over Fifty and the Kenyon Review blog. She lives in Maine.

THE COURAGE OF CHILDREN

by Charles Hughes

Pink, perfect orchid blossom off its stem,
Still ballerina crumpled to the stage.
A little life gone out of this new day
That could, being a school day, be the one

When a small child you love far more than flowers
Performs her class's active-shooter drill
For real, because an angry man acquired
A real AR-15 to bring to school.

She leaves at home dance slippers, princess dresses.
Beginning kindergarten, she's been brave—
Unlike her country, which (you sense she senses)
Will only do so much to keep her safe.

Charles Hughes is the author of the poetry collection Cave Art (Wiseblood Books, 2014) and was a Walter E. Dakin Fellow at the 2016 Sewanee Writers' Conference. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Christian Century, the Iron Horse Literary Review, Measure, the Sewanee Theological Review, The Saint Katherine Review, Think Journal, and elsewhere. He worked as a lawyer for thirty-three years before his retirement and lives with his wife in the Chicago area.

HELL IS PUNGENT WITH GUNS

(My Neighbor Calls Gun Owners ‘Beelzeguns,’ 

Says They Call Themselves ‘Gun Nuts’ 

Because Otherwise They Don’t Have Any Balls)

Graphic from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.

by Ron Riekki


There have been two killed and twenty injured
by gun violence in the U.S. since Parkland.*
The melting pot is melting because of climate
change and the heat of being ambushed by
a blizzard of shrapnel. I taught a course on gun
violence and near the halfway point a student’s

girlfriend was shot and killed on campus. Life
used to stand until a Loaded Gun carried me
away to my graveyard shift where I don’t teach
anymore, sunk into the valley of security,
unarmed security, where I’m paid to stay awake
and at night, in the mountains of dark I remember

a kid telling me during that class that he used to take
his gun and shoot it at the lake at his parents’ camp,
December, Alabama, trying to make the bullets
skip. I asked him if he thought he might have
killed someone by mistake doing that and he told
me, Nah, no one was around for miles. There’ve

been more than two killed, more than twenty injured
now since.* Since. In Detroit, I remember a moment
on the street where someone commented on
another person’s visible bullet-hole scar.  He
lifted up his shirt to reveal more and then a bunch
of those nearby started sharing their bullet holes,

pant legs rolled up, shirts off, the drinking
of wounds. In Virginia, I delivered a Feast Pizza
to a trailer where the guy sat on his historical sofa
holding an old shotgun pointed at my college chest.
I asked what the hell he was doing and he said,
I just wanted to see your reaction. His girl-

friend told him to put the gun down,
but he didn’t. When I got back to the Dominos,
one of the other drivers asked, Did he do it to you?
He likes to do that to everyone who delivers there.
A cop told me about a kid who got shot in the eye
and the bullet ricocheted and came out the other eye.

During EMT class, the instructor asked if any
of us had been shot and one of the students
raised his hand; he’d shot himself by mistake,
cleaning his gun. The instructor told us a story
of how he got shot by a kid when he was doing CPR
on a rival gang member that they didn’t want saved.

By a kid, I mean a child. By a child, I mean that we
are drowning in the shallow end. After school shootings,
gun sales go up. I mean, throw up. As in puke. “It’s too
soon to talk about gun control.”  Hell, it’s too late.
Graffiti by my apartment says, What You Rape
Is What You Sewer with an AR-15 policed underneath,

plastered to the wall, pulverized to the wall in onyx
paint. Two times in my life, when talking about gun
control, I’ve had a person reach over and pull a gun out
of nowhere. Anti-magic. One was under a couch.
Another in a purse. As if guns were cigarettes.
As if guns were TV channels. As if the guy who lived

across from me in Chicago wasn’t shot and killed
in his apartment. My favorite superheroes never
use a gun. That’s for villains. Batarangs and bat-darts—
sure, but I always prefer those who simply outsmart, whose
sheer intelligence comes out. The opposite of those
who cure guns with guns, who stop choking by choking

more. The king of choking. We elected the king
of choking. Chos—a Persian word for fart.  The NRA chos-
king. A rump . . . Real hunters use bow-and-arrow. They bow
before the flesh and honor the animal by using every
body part, not sitting next to an elephant, leaning
against its belly with the gun in his crotch. Cowards.


*Accurate as of February 21, 2018. The numbers have enlarged since then.


Ron Riekki wrote U.P.: a novel (Great Michigan Read nominated) and edited The Way North: Collected Upper Peninsula New Works (2014 Michigan Notable Book), Here: Women Writing on Michigan's Upper Peninsula (2016 Independent Publisher Book Award), and And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917-2017 (Michigan State University Press, 2017).

RIFLE CLASS, DAY AFTER A MASSACRE

by Jon Wesick




Robert Dear shoots up a Planned Parenthood clinic.
A militia takes over a wildlife refuge.
The only defense against a conservative with a gun
is a liberal with a gun
so I spend weeks in rain, hail,
and desert heat learning to shoot.

Here, on this day the screams
of the wounded are far away.
Instead hands practice the choreography
of magazine changes and malfunction clearing.
I like the rented AR-15. It’s accurate,
doesn’t kick much, and it’s loose spring
goes boing when it chambers the next round.

Hot wind sucks water from my body
and even slathered in sunscreen my face burns.
Ammo belts on women’s hips distract me.
“It’s too quiet,” the teacher says.
“All I hear is pistols next door.
Let’s show them what real firearms sound like!”
With others I center my ghost ring sight
on a gray silhouette and squeeze the trigger.
Rifles’ booms alert car alarms. Dust puffs
on the berm behind paper targets.
Hot brass flies from an ejection port,
falls down my shirt, and burns.

We sling loaded rifles over shoulders only once.
“Feel something different?” the teacher asks.
“That’s the feeling of freedom!”
I don’t feel freedom.
I feel a rifle
and a heavy responsibility

Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, author of the poetry collection Words of Power, Dances of Freedom, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published over three hundred poems in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Pearl, and Slipstream. He has also published nearly a hundred short stories. One was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. One of his poems won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists contest. Another had a link on the Car Talk website. Jon has a Ph.D. in physics and is a longtime student of Buddhism and the martial arts.

THE POPE IS LIKE A REPUBLICAN SENATOR

by James M. Croteau

Apologies are like prayers
without action. Catholic claims
of intrinsically disordered and
contrary to natural law are like
allowing Sig Sauer MCXs and
AR-15s to be purchased with
no restrictions. Sorry's not enough.

James M. Croteau lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan with his partner of 31 years, Darryl, and their two Labrador retrievers. Jim grew up gay and Catholic in the U.S. south in the 60’s and 70’s and his writing often reflects that experience. His poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Right Hand Pointing, Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South and Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry among others. His first chapbook will be published by Redbird Chapbooks in 2016. He occasionally blogs about writing at talkingdogsholymen.blogspot.com.

THE MAN WHO SPENT HIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN DEGRADING LGBTs WANTS YOU TO KNOW YOU’RE IN HIS #THOUGHTSANDPRAYERS

by Cathleen Allyn Conway

TOM THE DANCING BUG: The Power of Congress-Man - Thoughts and Prayers

Their families and grieving loved ones are in our thoughts.
Ted Cruz abandons political correctness for $65,300 from NRA; votes for guns
The victims of the Orlando terrorist attack must remain in our prayers.

Cathy McMorris got $14,950 from NRA so we won’t be able to lean on her.
Speaker Ryan took $35k from NRA; issued statement that doesn’t mention guns.
Their families and grieving loved ones are in our thoughts.

Representative Webster got $7,950 from NRA, so he’s only using his prayers.
NRA pumped $922k into McConnell’s re-elect so he doesn’t mention guns.
The victims of the Orlando terrorist attack must remain in our prayers.

How much of a ‘paramount priority’ is it for Mike Kelly if he won’t ban AR-15s?
John Boozman got $24,618 from NRA, votes for guns.
Their families and grieving loved ones are in our thoughts.

NRA spent $2.8m to elect Joni Ernst so gun reform isn’t in her counter-strategy.
Senator Tim Scott got $13,400 from NRA, votes for guns.
The victims of the Orlando terrorist attack must remain in our prayers.

My calendar is out: When can we talk about limiting terrorists’ access to AR-15s?
Rob Portman received $596,489 from NRA, votes for guns.
Their families and grieving loved ones are in our thoughts.
The victims of the Orlando terrorist attack must remain in our prayers.


Source: Igor Volsky, Deputy Director, Center for American Progress Action Fund

Cathleen Allyn Conway is working on a PhD in creative writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is the co-editor of Plath Profiles, the only academic journal dedicated to the work of Sylvia Plath, and the founder and editor of women's protest poetry magazine Thank You For Swallowing. Her pamphlet Static Cling was published in 2012 by Dancing Girl Press. Originally from Chicago, she lives in London.

A SIMPLE TRUTH

by Gil Hoy

Seven minutes. That's how long it took me to buy an AR-15, the semiautomatic rifle used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. Seven minutes. From the moment I handed the salesperson my driver's license to the moment I passed my background check. It likely will take more time than that during the forthcoming round of vigils to respectfully read the names of the more than 100 people who were killed or injured. It's obscene. Horrifying. —by Helen Ubiñas [@NotesFromHel] The Philadelphia Inquirer Daily News, June 14, 2016. Photo: Daily News columnist Helen Ubinas with a newly purchased AR-15 semiautomatic rifle on Monday. AARON RICKETTS / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER 

For so long as the NRA
controls Congress

With its pumping poison
mutant lifeblood

Corrupting souls,
buying silence,

Innocents will
continue to die

From high-powered
weapons of war

As lone wolves sing
their rancid noteless song:

A witch’s brew of shrill
staccato tempo

That our numbed eyes
don’t hear anymore

and that tastes
forgotten anyway.

Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer and is currently studying poetry at Boston University, through its Evergreen program, where he previously received a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. Hoy received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy's poetry has appeared (or is scheduled for publication) most recently in Right Hand Pointing-One Sentence Poems, The Potomac, Clark Street Review, TheNewVerse.News and The Penmen Review.

CONFUSED

by Eloise Bruce

The bottom of the ad reads, "If it's good enough for the professional, it's good enough for you." Image source: Business Insider.

When you relish Mossberg, Rock River and Rugger
how do we know if you are a good man or a bad man?
Maybe of two minds, you are a good man who kills the bad man

or vice versa?  Are you the kind of man following orders
to shoot students to death in Kent Ohio.
Are you an autistic boy with an AR-15 assault rifle

or a crazy man or maybe a bad woman
with a sig Sauer semiautomatic?
You can get an assault weapon in mossy oak pink camouflage.

Are you wearing a uniform or a badge
and aiming a Glock 9-millimeter while worshipping
the Berretta, Bushmaster, Colt?

Are you armed like the deputy
was at Columbine?  Did you fire at the bad boy?
Did you miss? did he miss?


Eloise Bruce’s book Rattle was published by CavenKerry Press, and she is a member of the poetry and performance group Cool Women.  She has been involved with Playwrights Theatre’s initiative for Poetry Out Loud from its beginning in 2005.  A a Teaching Artist in schools throughout New Jersey, she focuses on poetry and theatre. She teaches for the Arts and Education Center working with middle school writers.  A fellow with the Cloud Institute for Sustainable Education, Bruce is currently working with Young Audiences of New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania on Beyond Recycling, a project allowing children to explore sustainability through the arts.