AMERICAN HISTORY

by George Held

Photograph: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/EPA via The Guardian.

              "I am honored and humbled to announce

the sale of an American firearm icon…"

--George Zimmerman

When George Zimmerman advertised
an auction for “a piece of American history,”
the gun he murdered Trayvon Martin with,
it didn’t take long for the bidding to soar
to 65 million dollars, since withdrawn.

The money, George said, would go to two
worthy causes: protecting peace officers
from the violence of Black Lives Matter
protestors and fighting Hillary Clinton’s
“anti-gun rhetoric.”

Like a magician’s wand, this gun will
“Open presto” not just the wallets
of fatuous rich collectors but also
the deep Pandora’s box of bigotry
and racial discrimination.

Poets have no tropes for dopes who
uphold the Second Amendment in order
to justify the right to shoot to kill
any “other” in a hoodie on a dark
Florida night

And they have no tropes for hope that when
President Obama flies the White House
coop he’ll leave the legacy of a post-racial
society, for America is more racialist
than ever.

It turns out that George Zimmerman,
who’s been unemployable since his
acquittal, has accepted a bid of $138,000
for his piece, enough to keep him in beer
and skittles for a few years.

George Held, a frequent contributor to TheNewVerse.News, has a new poetry collection Bleak Splendor (Muddy River Books, 2016).

THE ROAD TO ACQUITTAL ROAD

by A.J. Huffman



seems to lead to Florida.
To unpredictable judges and juries that care
more about holiday weekends and release
from sequestering than thoughtful consideration
of evidence, appropriating punishments
befitting the crimes.  To televised courtrooms
and litigation as the latest national pastime.
To reporters who lack proper research skills
and knowledge, but excel at sensationalism
and working up the viewing masses.  To underpaid
prosecutors and overpaid defenders, both paying
more attention to the fine print of their book contracts
than the necessary loopholes rampantly found
in evidentiary procedures, waiting to swallow
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
So help them.  God?


A.J. Huffman has published five solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses.  Her sixth solo chapbook will be published in October by Writing Knights Press.  She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and the winner of the 2012 Promise of Light Haiku Contest.  Her poetry, fiction, and haiku have appeared in hundreds of national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, Kritya, and Offerta Speciale, in which her work appeared in both English and Italian translation.  She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press.

AMERICA'S GOD (A LULLABY)

by David Breeden

“It was all God’s plan.” --George Zimmerman

In the United States, God
loves white and violent, it
seems; loves what’s inhuman,
it looks. Look at His plan

working as it does. In the
US, God loves those laws
that fill the jails, that fill
the pockets of the rich,

it appears. Just look. He--
yes, must be a He--gives
a vindictive wink and nod
to the violent, as long as

it’s Christian.

In the United States, God
likes the way Florida does it.
Loves the way Texas does
people in. Likes his women
on a short leash; his people

poor; likes violence and guns
a lot. In the United States, God
loves his guys white. Just look.
See how things are in the plan.

In the United States, God likes
many of his children murdered.
Some in prison. Most poor. Just
look at the justice. It’s some

God’s plan.


Rev. Dr. David Breeden has a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from The Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a Ph.D. from the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi, with additional study in writing and Buddhism at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He also has a Master of Divinity degree from Meadville Lombard Theological School. Rev. David is Senior Minister at First Unitarian Society, Minneapolis. The author of many books, tweets at @dbreeden.

THE VERDICT IS IN

by George Salamon

"We Are All Trayvon Martin," the protesters chant as Zimmerman walks.
We were all Berliners once, and New Yorkers as well.
But we won't be everyone who's gunned down or knifed or drowned
By man or by state, by religion or by hate.
We were not, and still are not, the girl just sitting on her Chicago porch,
Or the one on the bus in Jerusalem, and the one in the sandy refugee camp.
Murder is too much with us.
When it comes to its victims, you takes your choice
And common humanity goes begging.


George Salamon lives and writes in St. Louis, Missouri.

SIX WOMEN IN SEARCH OF WISDOM

by Earl J Wilcox

Without a doubt, by any reasonable standards,
the defendant will not be tried by a jury of his peers---
an Hispanic man at the mercy of six women,
all white save one, sequestered, mute even to each other
until the lawyers have their say. These women—eyes
blindfolded, unseen by millions on TV, seek justice
to life’s queries: what is guilt? Innocence?
Who is my brother’s keeper?


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to TheNew Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.