STRANGER

by George Held

1.

Warum? Por qué? Pourquoi?

Why-o-why-o-why-o?

The people want to know: Why

Did Andreas fly into the alp?

It would be OK if he’d killed

Only himself – suicide, while

Regrettable, is acceptable,

But murdering 149 innocents …

That’s beyond the pale,

The boundaries of civilized

Behavior.

O the pounding on the door

And the screams of terror …

2.

Warum? Por qué? Pourquoi?

Why-o-why-o-why-o?

But what if the answer

Is “just because …”

Because Andreas could

And so he did,

Adding his name to those

Of Stavrogin, who killed

A child to prove his freedom

To do so, and Gide’s Lafcadio,

And Camus’ … is Lubitz

The new Meursault,

Author of an “acte gratuit”?

O the pounding on the door

And the screams of terror …

3.

Warum? Por qué? Pourquoi?

Why-o-why-o-why-o?

But those men and their victims

Are literature, figments

Of great writers’ dreams,

While Lubitz’ victims

Left living survivors,

feeling loss, grief, despair.

Germanwings suffered

A cockpit intrusion

By the co-pilot, who locked

the door, dialed the numbers

in and then hit

“Execute.”

O the pounding on the door
And the screams of terror …

George Held, a regular contributor to The New Verse News, has a new book out from Poets Wear Prada, Culling: New & Selected Nature Poems.

ALBERT CAMUS INTERVIEWS TED CRUZ

by Judith Terzi

Camus:               Did you become a Tea Party member today
                      or yesterday?

Cruz:                  Je ne sais pas. What difference does it make?
                     Adamant or ablative?
                     Buttonhole or brandish?
       
Camus:              Can I call you Ted?
                     Is the welfare of the people the alibi of tyrants?
           
Cruz:                 Entente or egregious?
                     Filibuster or fricassee?

Camus:              Ted, think about your Caucus. Do you consider
                     suicide as the only escape from the absurdity of
                     politics?

Cruz:                 Golf would be that, Albert. Golf. No question.
                     Herring or hubbub?
                     Infuse. Refuse. Refuse. Accuse. J'accuse! Zola, right?
           
Camus:             Eh bien mon frère, vous connaissez Sisyphe?
                    You know Sisyphus, right?

Cruz:                Oui, oui Albert. I graduated Princeton cum laude.
                    Judicious jab.
                    Kebob kingdom.
           
Camus:             LOL. I don't get the metaphor, Ted.

Cruz:                Mordant mincemeat.       
                    Nefarious narcolepsy.
                    Obama!

Camus:             Mon frère, we should be a rockin' & a rollin',
                    pushin' that boulder up the slope ensemble.
                    Together. Juntos! I didn't write that damn essay
                    to waste time. You've read La Peste, right?
           
Cruz:                Plague!
                    Quite a story if I say so myself.
                    Rats, rats, rats, rats.
                    Socialist rats. Everyone helping each other. So creepy.
           
Camus:             TMI, Ted.
           
Cruz:                United we stand, Albert.
                    Vouloir, c'est pouvoir. Where there's a will,
                    there's a way. Voulez-vous . . . High school French, man.

                         So tell me, Al. Why did the Stranger want a crowd
                    at his execution? Can't remember the weirdo's name.

Camus:             Very strange question from you, mon frère. Surely
                    you get off on les cris de haine, cries of hatred, right?

Cruz:                Wrestle with the wrath like I always say.
                    Xerox the xenophobia. You get my drift.

Camus:             Yak or yodel?
                    Zion or Zen?
                    Zut alors!

Cruz:                Yesterday or today?           


Judith Terzi holds an M.A. in French Literature. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Centrifugal Eye; Malala: Poems for Malala Yousafzai (FutureCycle); Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke: Erotic Poems (Tupelo); The Raintown Review; and Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s (She Writes). Her fourth chapbook, Ghazal for a Chambermaid, is forthcoming from Finishing Line. A former high school French teacher, she also taught English and ESL at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria.