FOR THE BOY ON TRIAL

by David Southward

From left, Judge Bruce Schroeder, Kyle Rittenhouse and defense attorney Mark Richards watch a video Nov. 12 during Rittenhouse’s homicide trial in Kenosha, Wis. (Mark Hertzberg/Pool/AP via The Washington Post)

I don’t wish death

or solitary confinement

or even the hell

of half a life wasted

behind bars. No:

I want him to be stricken

with disgust—at the blood

he’s spilled, at the horror

of his rash heroics. I want God

to part the clouds of his mind

and set afire

its nest of fear and folly.

I want the clearing smoke

to open his eyes

to true manhood: the facing down

of an enemy hiding

within—the answering

of a people’s need

for sobriety, not messiah.

I want him to rise

above the buzzfed grapevines,

the twitter of rumor

and rumble of propagandas

and remember history:

to become his republic’s

most disarming

spokesman. I want him

to march and preach

civility—to be Prince Hal

to a nation of Hotspurs,

to become (in the unpredictable

flowerings of time)

our next King

of change.

 

 

David Southward teaches in the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of Apocrypha (Wipf & Stock 2018) and Bachelor’s Buttons (Kelsay Books 2020). 

TWO SIDES TO KENOSHA

by David Southward

Officer Sheskey feared for his life;

thinking that Jacob clutched a knife,

he shot, shot, shot in self-defense,

assured of his own innocence.

No charge was brought: who would convict

a fear too sane to contradict,

when video (which carries clout)

leaves wiggle room for reasoned doubt?

Jacob also feared for his life;

seeing the gunmen, he knew his knife 

would prove no use in self-defense.

He knew no black man’s innocence

is ever presumed, that courts convict 

the captured, suavely contradict

their stories, summon legal clout

to silence them with reasoned doubt.

 

 

David Southward teaches in the Honors College at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the author of Apocrypha (Wipf & Stock 2018) and Bachelor’s Buttons (Kelsay Books 2020), and winner of the 2019 Frost Farm Prize for Metrical Poetry.

SUBURBAN SMOKE

by Alejandro Escudé

Sometimes I visit the suburb of LA
I grew up in. There was a park
a block away from the house we rented.
I played little league baseball there.
It was a park, like a park with swings
and a pool. Now it’s a homeless encampment
and the little leagues are gone.
Maybe baseball is gone too—I can’t tell.
I mean I watch it. I root for the Mets
because that’s the team I was on
when I was a scrawny lefty outfielder
because there was no way
the coach was playing me on first base
or shortstop. I was lucky if I got to bat.
The coach was a winner; if you’re American,
you know what I mean by that.
I was lucky if I got to bat.
I remember hearing the LA riots looming
in the east; a hornets nest of helicopters,
the smell of smoke, a cacophony of sirens.
My father talked of Reginald Denny
he said: “I just crossed that intersection.”
His face pale. “I had so many tools
in my truck too.” Maybe that’s what
a suburb is, a place where one just
barely avoids the tragedy of America.
Oh there were lawns, basketball hoops
above garage doors. On Sundays,
it was very quiet, and I don’t remember
talking about the President.
He wasn’t a big fat face in the sky.
There weren’t goose-stepping posters
lining every citizen’s mind, a fear-bomb
exploding each half hour. In every suburb,
there’s a Beirut, a Moscow, a Jerusalem,
a Kenosha, a T***p bent over in his driveway,
cutting up a freshly caught rattlesnake.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

JACOB IN KENOSHA

by Marilyn Peretti






 Now it’s Jacob

and his little boys
    saw it all
    from the back seat
the 7 shots
    to their Daddy’s back
as he got into the car

7 shots
    into the lifeline
    his spine
and he cannot walk

Now it’s Jacob

Whose Daddy will it be
    next week?


Marilyn Peretti, poet near Chicago, dreads the news every day.

SEVEN BACK BITING BULLETS

by Peter Witt

Bullet One—man trying to open a car door
so he can bring comfort to his children

Bullet Two—cell phones record the images
in disbelief

Bullet Three—kids are in the car,
wondering why their daddy
is lying on the ground, not moving

Bullet Four—policemen coordinate their stories
so that what we see with our eyes
are simply alternative facts to truth

Bullet Five—nights of social unrest
turn to violence, Fox news
preaches law and order

Bullet Six—late night hosts mock police
with not so subtle jabs at their
let's wait to see the facts excuses

Bullet Seven—fathers have another discussion
with their black sons about how to survive
another day in a dying while black world


Peter Witt lives in Texas, writes poetry about a variety of topics including issues of social justice.

COURTING JUSTICE

by Sister Lou Ella Hickman

Middle school hasn't always been the kindest of places, and when a cheerleader with Down syndrome was bullied from the stands during a boys' basketball game, it seemed to be just another example of kids being cruel — until a few players stepped up to make it stop. It turns out that Desiree Andrews, an eighth grader from Kenosha, Wis., had some friends in her corner. "The kids in the audience were picking on D, so we all stepped forward," said Lincoln Middle School basketball player Chase Vasquez, who told TMJ4 in Milwaukee about the moment a teammate finally left the court to ask for the harassment to stop. NY Daily News, March 12, 2015

the cheering crowds provided anonymity
or so they thought . . .
for who would call them on their words
like a foul or an out of bounds
then came time out
for this time
in a world of monstrous bullies
grown from small ones like these . . .
three boys to men also grown
simply said

                stop

                                the

                                          game

losers, your game is over

                                now


Sister Lou Ella Hickman, I.W.B.S. has been a teacher and a librarian.  Her poems have appeared in America, Commonweal, Sojourners, and First Things among others.  Her first book of poetry entitled she: robed and wordless will be released in the fall of 2015 by Press 53.  She is presently a poet, freelance writer, and a spiritual director.