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Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.
Showing posts with label Kafka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kafka. Show all posts

Monday, May 29, 2023

THE NEW WORLD ORDER

by George Salamon


Nette Reed checks on Desi Hurd, 62, near the Human Services Campus in Phoenix, where there are several major shelters, a medical center and respite centers. (Caitlin O’Hara for The Washington Post)


"The lie has become the order of the world.” Josef K. in Franz Kafka's novel The Trial

"More people in the country's biggest cities were becoming homeless, more were living outside instead of in shelters, and a record number of people from LosAngeles to Denver to  New York were dying in premature and preventable ways on the street." —The New York Times, May 13, 2023

“Nearly a quarter of a million people 55 or older are estimated by the government to have been homeless in the United States during at least part of 2019, the most recent reliable federal count available.” —The Washington Post, May 22, 2023


Josef K. uttered the lesson he learned
as he was about to die, the lesson our
homeless have not yet fully grasped:
they, like Josef K., have no right to live
because they are abandoned and weak.


George Salamon thinks most of our politicians are not eager to deal with homelessness (or poverty) because their sponsors would tell them they're wasting their money, while it's OK to throw money to the Military-Industrial Complex because it does its money-wasting for a Strong America.

Sunday, January 29, 2017

ALTERNATIVE FACTS:
ESCHER MEETS KAFKA

by Kenneth Arthur


"Relativity" by M.C. Escher

Hooded walkers circle
the courtyard stairwell
intent on mysterious missions,
ascending, descending, never arriving.

Hoods up. Get in Line.
Eyes straight ahead.
Ascending patriots on the left,
Descending on the right.

Others watch amazed, amused.
Some sit pensively in despair.

Begin—
foot up foot down
foot up foot down
foot up foot down
march march march
Eyes straight ahead.
go go go
Do not notice that man you passed.
You will be at your destination soon.
That is not the same man you passed before.
Soon we will be great again.
How can you possibly pass the same person?
Do not believe your eyes.
You are on your way to greatness.
Hoods up. Get in Line.
Eyes straight ahead.

Atop the grand building
where columns and archways
impose facade upon
impenetrable interior,
no one disrupts the procession.


Kenneth Arthur is a former professional computer nerd and currently a minister in the United Church of Christ. Besides dabbling in poetry, he is the author of a book of theology scheduled for publication in 2017. He currently lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan.