The New Verse News presents politically progressive poetry on current events and topical issues.
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Showing posts with label Catherine McGuire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catherine McGuire. Show all posts
Catherine McGuire is a writer and artist with a deep concern for our planet's future. She has five decades of published poetry, four poetry chapbooks, a full-length poetry book Elegy for the 21st Century (FutureCycle Press), a SF novel Lifeline, and book of short stories The Dream Hunt and Other Tales (Founders House Publishing).
KALISPELL, Montana — The October death by suicide of the ninth local teenager in 16 months prompted offers of counseling, training for teachers and visits from national suicide prevention experts. But it also whiplashed into partisan recriminations, as residents lashed out in public forums against the superintendent of schools for failing to impose dress codes and discipline, against parents for not securing their plentiful firearms — used in several suicides — and against the supporters of masks and other pandemic restrictions for stifling teenagers. An issue the valley might have rallied around, in another time, risked dividing it yet again. Photo: The Flathead Republican Party float drives on Main Street in Kalispell. (Tony Bynum) —The Washington Post, October 25, 2021
It started in panic, pulling in—
closed doors, empty roads,
huddling—unseen killer abroad!
Whole towns went still.
Closed doors, empty roads,
displayed by drones, at first.
Whole towns went still with
the novelty of crisis
displayed by drones, at first.
We drank in urgent news,
the novelty of crisis,
but weeks smudged together.
And we drank, as urgent news
became the same old: needles into arms.
The novelty of crisis
morphed to anger at refuseniks.
And now the same old needles into arms
became a rallying cry,
morphed to anger at refuseniks:
“How dare you endanger me?”
The same rallying cry,
spread like a virus on both sides:
“How dare you endanger me?”
revealing a comorbidity
that spread like a virus on both sides:
or like a wildfire flaring from a spark
to reveal a morbid comity:
we’re right; no sympathy for them!
And like a wildfire flaring from a spark
that falls on parched, unhealthy ground
this drought of sympathy for “them”
ravages communities more than virus did.
Self-absorption is parched, unhealthy ground.
How will we explain to grandkids that what
ravaged our towns more than virus did
was the climate that turned townsfolk into enemy?
How will we explain to grandkids that what
had us huddling—unseen killer abroad!—
was the inner climate that turned townsfolk into enemy?
It starts in panic, pulling in.
Catherine McGuire is a writer and artist with a deep concern for our planet's future. She has four decades of published poetry, four poetry chapbooks, a full-length poetry book Elegy for the 21st Century (FutureCycle Press), a SF novel Lifeline, and book of short stories The Dream Hunt and Other Tales (Founders House Publishing).
Trumpty Dumpty sat on his wall,
Trumpty Dumpty looked on toward the fall.
“I’ve won their horse race, I’ve got my own men—
I’ll make America greatest again.”
Cheered by a racist, misogynist rabble,
Trumpty Dumpty struts and he babbles—
“It’s gonna be HUGE, cause everyone loves me.
I own the party; there’s no one above me.”
In the hallways of power, the leaders are shocked—
this kind of revolt should be easily blocked,
and yet Trump has smashed the establishment boys;
he can stoop even lower than the worst red state ploys.
And smug pundits claiming, “It could not happen here”
choke on their words and cry in their beers,
“It’s the death of conservatism! Horror of horrors!
If Trump becomes president, there’ll be no tomorrow!”
So now Trumpty Dumpty wants to be crowned;
wants the Bushes to grovel, Paul Ryan to bow down.
Though he thinks he has won this political bet,
Trumpty Dumpty may find elephants never forget.
And Trumpty Dumpty will find in the race,
most voters require at least some social grace.
Small-hand obsessions and childish tweets
show the orangest candidate can’t take the heat.
While the world looks in horror, while the world holds its breath,
the voters will choose if we pull back from the death
of what makes America historically best—
patience and kindness, tolerance, respect.
But that’s not up to Trumpty; that job’s up to us!
Enough with the rhetoric—it’s time to discuss
where we’re going with neighbors, we can and we will
back away from the hatred and turn down the shrill.
Find your opposite number, have a coffee or beer—
chat for an hour, unlearn your fear.
We live here together, and together must work
to uncover and vanquish the hatred that lurks
where people feeling unheard and under attack
blame their lost future on the Latin, the Black—
don’t put your trust in a strange orange man;
let’s bring our country together again.
Catherine McGuire is a writer and artist with a deep concern for ecology and our planet's future. Her first full length poetry book, Elegy for the 21st Century, will be published in October 2016 by FutureCycle Press.
He had a fake federal air marshal ID in one pocket, a Ruger .380-caliber pistol in the other and was driving around Long Island with ballistic body armor and a loaded AR-15 assault rifle. He also had an arsenal of weapons at his gated home. But don’t worry folks, Mark Vicars wasn’t a threat to anyone, Nassau County officials insisted Friday. The amount of firepower is comparable to what terror couple Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik had during the massacre they committed Wednesday in San Bernardino, Calif. “At this time we don’t see any immediate threat to the public,” Nassau County Police Department spokesman Det. Lt. Richard LeBrun told reporters. —NY Daily News, Dec. 4, 2015
Forget the guns – he’s not a dusky
son of some other soil.
Homegrown is American –
every blond mother’s son
likes to have a little fun.
The badge? Maybe leftover
from Halloween – no sweat.
We know what we’re looking for –
the profile is clear, and we’re not swerved
by accidental discoveries.
Give ‘em a break.
Everyone needs a hobby.
Catherine McGuire is a writer/artist with a deep interest in philosophy. Using nature as a mirror, she explores the way humans perceive themselves and their world. She has poems published in the US and abroad and has four chapbooks: Palimpsests, (Uttered Chaos, 2011) Glimpses of a Garden, Poetry and Chickens, and Joy Holding Stillness.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” began Judge [Marvin] Wiggins, a circuit judge here in rural Alabama since 1999. “For your consideration, there’s a blood drive outside,” he continued, according to a recording of the hearing. “If you don’t have any money, go out there and give blood and bring in a receipt indicating you gave blood.” —NY Times, October 19, 2015. Photo of Judge Marvin Wiggins from Diverse Issue in Higher Education. It accompanied a August 5, 2014 story on Wiggins’ ouster by Gov. Robert Bentley from the Board of Trustees of Alabama State University.
So you’re broke, and cannot pay –
we’re gonna get you anyway.
The Bloodmobile awaits outside
so bare your arm and stuff your pride.
The other option’s prison for
indigence: three months or more,
where debts increase, as jail’s remittance
is layered on that once small pittance,
which balloons into a lifetime’s debt.
So pay your pound of flesh – no, wait!
I mean pint of blood, a “free will donation”
I’m not Shylock – no relation.
Catherine McGuire is a writer/artist with a deep interest in philosophy. Using nature as a mirror, she explores the way humans perceive themselves and their world. She has poems published in the US and abroad and has four chapbooks: Palimpsests, (Uttered Chaos, 2011) Glimpses of a Garden, Poetry and Chickens, and Joy Holding Stillness.
with taped mouths, lowering themselves to asphalt,
lying on wet roads and looking up
at the thousand-eyed headstones our cities erect
to cover the dead. I Can't Breathe.
Above them, the window eyes glow with money,
with silk-suit rituals to appease a Quad of Horsemen
who are already too near. The children below
give themselves lovingly to the pavement;
no real fear of death can penetrate the young.
But they've offered their hearts
to those who have been pierced – they've seen mothers
crushed and groping, tear-drenched or too numb for tears.
They've seen the impotent rage – that they can feel –
and they lend their bodies, their voices
hoping to be the horns that sounded so pure
that Jericho itself came down.
Catherine McGuire is a writer/artist with a deep interest in philosophy. Using nature as a mirror, she explores the way humans perceive themselves and their world. She has poems published in the US and abroad and has four chapbooks: Palimpsests, (Uttered Chaos, 2011) Glimpses of a Garden, Poetry and Chickens, and Joy Holding Stillness.
Russia's version of Facebook is being used to recruit men to cause conflict in Crimea. --“Photos To Start A War By” by Kelly Weaver, Liberal America, March 1, 2014.
On a day twin lambs were born and Russia grabbed Crimea the rain riffed on roofs and washed the blood off brick into gutters already so wise, so cynical.
On a morning camellias bloomed and some hens eggs were fertile the spy nets bulged with threats and plaints jet fuel burned as minions swooped but the guns were smug, now silent.
This mud is not ready for green, nor spring. Too much is drowning here.
Catherine McGuire fills her well of grief for the world with poems. She has published in the US and abroad and has four chapbooks: Palimpsests, (Uttered Chaos, 2011) Glimpses of a Garden, Poetry and Chickens, and Joy Holding Stillness.
They stand at their podiums – empty voices in empty chambers – they might as well be on different planets. Maybe they are. The words spoken earnestly repeated, re-tweeted, their mantras pass through each other like fumes, like dogs barking, like that chill of someone walking on your grave. Meanwhile, the country folds flat like a house of cards collapsing.
Catherine McGuire has had almost 300 poems published in venues such as: Adagio, Avocet, Folio, Fireweed, FutureCycle, Green Fuse, Main Street Rag, New Verse News, Nibble, Portland Lights Anthology and Tapjoe. Her chapbook, Palimpsests, was released by Uttered Chaos in 2011. She has three self-published chapbooks.
“It’s gotten hard,” he said, shaking out a Lucky from the pack, lighting, sucking nicotine. “Bank slammed us with overdrafts, landlord wants us out. Two jobs folded – there’s nothing in this county. Nothing.”
Drizzle feathers his worn shearling coat. He glances at me, away. Under the anger, terror. At thirty, strong, skilled, he chases two-bit jobs, like mine. Between rabbits, he tells me of the farms shut down, or selling out, of the rattle-trap car too complex for him to fix. The job forms, the ad in Craigs List, the silence. He dispatches the second rabbit, cuts short its squeal with practiced aim.
He shrugs. “Might have to leave. Alaska, shale fields… but moving costs money – what if there’s nothing there?” I give him five bucks, offer him a rabbit, let him have his pick of homemade jams. No welfare for single white men. Let them work, the Lear jet crowd sneers. or let them starve.
Catherine McGuire has had almost 300 poems published in venues such as: Adagio, Avocet, Folio, Fireweed, FutureCycle, Green Fuse, Main Street Rag, New Verse News, Nibble, Portland Lights Anthology and Tapjoe. Her chapbook, Palimpsests, was released by Uttered Chaos in 2011. She has three self-published chapbooks.
the barrios of Rio, the drained and droughty deltas
of Tigris, or Sudan – Apocalypse can knock
and enter; no one will care.
Which is to say, the world is always ending;
our treasures crumble, dust to dust.
The myth-inflated bogeys threaten
while behind our backs, our futures rust.
Catherine McGuire is a writer and artist with a deep interest in philosophy, the “Why we are here?” question that lurks under so much of our lives. She will have a chapbook released by Uttered Chaos in September. It is tentatively titled, Reflections, Echoes and Palimpsests. She is webmaster for the Oregon Poetry Society and claims her entire garden as her 'poetry office'.
