PERFECT PORTRAIT

by David Radavich

Sometimes metaphors are

too perfect for words:

 

Police in riot gear

standing in a school hallway

in Uvalde, Texas

                

doing nothing

 

for 77 minutes,

strolling, phoning,

reaching for hand sanitizer

 

while inside the classroom

the crazed gunman

mows down

 

one child after another

two teachers

 

air burning

with smoke and blood

 

and screams

only ending

 

when death explodes

or oozes out.

 

This is America in 2022:

Immobilized.  Imprisoned

in a trap of power.

Lost in the hallways

of moral evasion.

 

We can’t address

racial justice

or climate change,

enforced poverty

or violent inhumanity.

 

We are the cops

standing around

checking our phones

 

doing nothing

 

to save our children

to guarantee our future.

 

Look in this frame

and see 

 

what we’ve become.

Among David Radavich's poetry collections are two epics, America Bound and America Abroad, as well as Middle-East Mezze and The Countries We Live In.  His latest book is Unter der Sonne / Under the Sun: German and English Poems from Deutscher Lyrik Verlag.

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH

by R.W. Rhodes

  after the war poem of Wilfred Owen

In Texas we still prize our purebred cattle

   while monstrous Leftists plot to take our guns.

For us a rifle's like a baby's rattle,

   with cartridges we measure out in tons.

Our cemeteries are such peaceful places.

   And there are countless young in other schools,

so we can just forget these names and faces.

   Let none restrict our guns by stricter rules.

We'll light more candles and repeat more prayers,

   and freely arm more boys, and one and all.

A maniac not armament's the slayer,

   as on our kids we place a bloody pall.

The floral tributes in the heat turn rotten.

And by the dusk these dead will be forgotten.

R.W. Rhodes was a teacher for over 40 years before retirement. His classes ranged from global religions to death & dying. He published a series of hand-crafted books, many for children, with The Catbird-on-the-Yadkin Press in North Carolina.

TOO GRAPHIC

a poem found

by James Penha

in “Why the Austin American-Statesman chose to publish video from inside Robb Elementary,” July 12, 2022.

Above: screenshot of the video.

We have also removed

the sound of children

screaming

as the gunman entered

the classroom.

James Penha edits The New Verse News.

PICTURE PROBLEM

by Rémy Dambron

Video footage (via The Texas Tribune) recorded inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde at 12:04 p.m. May 24. Authorities stormed the classroom at 12:50 p.m.

this picture

evidence we all see 

now for the first time

released 

officers’ long guns drawn

from behind ballistic shields 

formed up for an advance 

but shockingly at a halt

at least five men

sworn trained and well-armed

against the one 

*murderer of children still

the photo’s caption 

stating the time scene was 

captured

12:04pm

just underneath 

another detail displayed

authorities storm the classroom

12:50pm

forty-six minutes

they stood by to witness

as calls for help simply went

(unanswered)

as parents right outside 

against their wishes 

hands tied

by more armed men who just waited

for forty-six minutes

they wouldn’t act, only witness

another sickening school shooting

ensue

Rémy Dambron is a former English teacher now Portland-based poet whose writing focuses on denouncing political corruption and advocating for social/environmental justice. With the help of his chief editor and loving wife, his works have appeared in What Rough Beast, Poets Reading the News, Writers Resist, Words & Whispers, Spillwords, Robot Butt, and The New Verse News. 

LOOK, UP IN THE SKY

by Michelle DeRose

Trey Ganem's company, SoulShine Industries, created special caskets for 19 of the 21 victims killed at Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, Texas.

What music accompanies a Superman coffin?

What song will waft your boy over buildings

that block your sun, black your path

with shadow? Does the melody

to lull you to sleep exist, and 

will the hum of your own voice

be enough? Birdsong mocks, small 

throats on spindly legs, sparrows still

in the care of their father. Where 

will your boy fly now, outstretched 

arms and closed fists planing so fast, 

so fast, 

away from you?

Michelle DeRose teaches creative writing and Irish, African-American, and world literature at Aquinas College. Some of her recent poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Midwest Quarterly, Dunes Review, Sparks of Calliope, Making Waves, and The Journal of Poetry Therapy.

SCHOOL DOORS

by Alejandro Escudé

Doors are important in schools.

That’s why when you’re a teacher

they give you lots of keys, keys

that you then have to return when 

you leave for summer break, which

is why leaving for summer break

feels so final, so like confronting

a kind of early retirement, or death.

It’s also why after twenty years

teaching English, I hate doors and

I hate keys, which feel so primitive

to me, those flecks of coded copper

that pinch your upper thigh, get stuck

in your sunglasses, become tangled

up within themselves and you have

to wrestle them free. Once, I lost

a whole set of school keys; I’d

stopped at a gas station and they

slipped out of my dress slacks.

I got home and reached into my

empty pockets, and I felt this

utter panic, my face turned cold.

I drove back and there they were 

beside the fuel pump, laying as if

waiting for me to swipe them.

I looked around and felt a welling

up of gratitude. Who could’ve

had access to this world of youth

that I was in charge of every day?

Who could’ve hurt them? I worked

at a school not long ago who often

left the back door to the gym open.

Mornings, I’d walk by and see

the door propped ajar, inviting 

anyone from off the street to come

inside, take anything they wished

from the locker rooms: gloves,

helmets, jerseys, pompoms, lives.

So I’m empathetic when I read 

about the school shooting, how  

a teacher left the door open. Then 

how it was shown she hadn’t, yet 

locked doors often refuse to stay

locked. Doors like remaining open,

they prefer to welcome others.

I’ve been around school doors

so long, I believe I can hear that 

thing screeching as the shooter 

yanked it back, the big rock 

the teacher had used to prop it 

against the grass, to one side.

And like that—nowhere to hide.

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.

SOUND AND FURY FROM UVALDE

by Suzette Bishop

I hear it from a two hours’ drive north,

From just below the scenic Texas Hill Country,

The scream of first getting the news

Their loved one was gunned down

Merged into one long, piercing, repeating sound,

Before a storm barrels southward,

Hail starting up slowly,

Then shaking the cathedral ceiling,

Our windows,

Animals running for cover.

We’ve driven through the small town,

Stopped to get gas,

Know a couple people who went to the junior college

On barrel racing scholarships,

Heard the grandson of someone from work survived.

A heart-stopped moment in class once

With the popping sound down the hall,

Two students, a veteran and FBI agent, meeting my eyes,

The veteran immediately slamming the door shut.

He always sat next to the door,

One leg jiggling, ready to escape.

Do you know what to do if there’s a shooter?

The agent asked me, asked the class.

Everybody nodded. 

The lectern and desks our only hope

Of keeping that door closed since there is no lock,

And I’m not given the key,

I am forced to tell them.

That time, it was just some backfiring or mechanical sound,

And we got back to what we were supposed to be doing,

Our hearts re-starting,

Still, I see us rocking the lectern from its moorings,

Pulling up the tape covering the wires to the computer,

Pushing and dragging it to the door,

The wires sparking, desks piled around it,

Some of us smashing desks into windows.

In one scenario, we get this done before

The shooter appears at our classroom on the second floor,

In some scenarios, the students jump two stories down,

Breaking bones, cut by glass, but alive,

In another scenario, the shooter enters at our end of the building

And sprints up the stairs, bypassing the first floor;

The veteran, some of his classmates

Sitting near him, try to keep the shooter out

By leaning hard against the door, but can’t,

The agent pulls out his concealed gun and shoots most times.

In many scenarios, the lectern is too heavy,

Too stuck, to move,

The desks too flimsy and small,

Their tabletop hinges squeaking loudly,

Drawing attend, wasting precious time.

In a few scenarios, the shooter is one of my students,

Already in the classroom,

Like the one who lovingly wrote poems about his gun,

The one having a meltdown and yelling at me

During the final,

Another ranting so loudly, another instructor looked in on us,

The one writing about hurting a classmate,

The one who mailed me a threatening letter,

Whoever left a knife at the lectern.

With the sound of hail ringing like deadbolt locks,

I use the knife to cut the wires.

Suzette Bishop has published three poetry books and two chapbooks, including her most recent chapbook Jaguar’s Book of the Dead. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. In addition to teaching, she has given workshops for gifted children, senior citizens, writers on the US-Mexico border, at-risk youth, and for an afterschool arts program serving a rural Hispanic community. She lives with her husband and two cats.

MY DAUGHTER, A HISTORY AND HOLOCAUST EDUCATOR, SAYS IT’S IMPORTANT WE BEAR WITNESS; WE BOTH KNOW IT’S NOT ENOUGH

by Laurie Rosen

Two days after their daughter, Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio, was shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas, Kimberly Rubio and her husband are urging elected officials to pass restrictive gun laws to help prevent future tragedies. “We live in this really small town in this red state, and everyone keeps telling us, you know, that it’s not the time to be political, but it is—it is,” Ms. Rubio said, her voice breaking through tears. “Don’t let this happen to anybody else.” Their family was contacted by Gov. Greg Abbott’s office on Wednesday, she said, and asked if they would be willing to meet with the governor. Ms. Rubio and her husband declined. —The New York Times, May  26, 2022. Photo: People visit a memorial for the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 28, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas, United States. Anadolu Agency/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images via CHRON

He lays still, pretends to be dead. 

He frantically calls his mom from his classroom,

she hides under a desk, covers herself with her dying friend’s blood,

she whispers on the phone to 911, send police,

he hears a bullet crack his friend’s nose.  

She hears a cop shout to her, yells help, gives away 

her hiding spot, then promptly succumbs to gunshot. 

A husband dies broken-hearted two days after his wife perishes 

by gunfire—four children, left parentless.  

A mother’s son never returns home.

A father’s daughter, a cousin, a nephew, never return home. 

This is not a war zone/This is a war zone/We live in a war zone.

Our children grow up in a war zone, are taught to escape killers, guns

and madmen/Our children learn they won’t escape madmen with guns, 

that bullets meant for war pierce metal doors, tear off locks. 

Bullets ravage the faces and bodies of teachers and best friends, forever haunt 

survivors' dreams––nightmares of pooling blood and mangled flesh.

Our children promise to stay still and quiet/If only they stayed still enough, quiet enough. 

I did good Mommy, I stayed still, I stayed quiet.  

A lifelong New Englander, Laurie Rosen’s poetry has appeared in The Muddy River Poetry Review, Oddball Magazine, Zig-Zag Lit Mag, Peregrine, The New Verse News, Gyroscope Review, and elsewhere.

FINGERPRINTS

by Peter Witt

A mother in Black Creek, GA

drops her child off at school,

heads to the AR-15 assembly line

at Daniel Defense, where guns

coming off the assembly line

are packed by a father of three,

two in college, one still in high school.

A young woman, barely out

of high school processes online

orders for the killing machines

from gun stores across the U.S.,

trying not to think about if one

will end up in the hands of an 18

year old with murderous intent.

The owner of a Uvalde gun store

remembers legally selling the semi-

automatic weapon of mass destruction

to a young man who'd just turned 18,

then heading home for a birthday party

for his elementary school-aged niece.

A host of people, some with children,

have their fingerprints on the bullets

that made their way into the hands

of the Uvalde shooter, never realizing

they'd touched the bullets

that would shatter bones, blur faces

in a one-hour classroom rampage.

Somewhere in a peaceful office

a NRA publicist cranks out scripts

that pols and apologists can use

when the inevitable questions

about gun safety and control emerge,

he's yet to marry, have children,

doesn't think that children killed

in the sure to be future mass murders

could someday be his offspring.

In a conference room in Black Creek, GA,

the owner of the killing machine company

authorizes another 50K donation to the NRA,

a necessary cost of doing business,

profits from his company putting

his children through college.

Airforce One ferries the president and his wife

to yet another memorial gathering

where he will console parents whose

children never came home from school,

having only recently returned from

a similarly gathering of families

recovering from the hatred of a racist

who shot up a supermarket in their town.

At dinner tables around the country

families gather over traditional

Memorial Day hot dogs and hamburgers,

some with thoughts and prayers,

others to have discussions

about the need to own a gun,

protect their families, stave off

the murderous intent of someone

who purchased a gun made, shipped,

sold by fellow citizens, many with school

aged children—who firmly believe

the 2nd amendment is God's will

and plan to protect their children

from mayhem...

while somewhere in a bedroom

a young man, not yet 18, dreams of the day

he too can go the local gun store, purchase

an assault weapon made, shipped,

and sold by people with children,

so that he too can join the ranks

of the dead who've created

mayhem in a supposedly safe

classroom somewhere in the U.S.A.

Peter Witt lives in Texas, only a few hours away from Uvalde.  His work has appeared in The New Verse News, other online publications, and several print volumes.

NEVER ENOUGH

by Judy Kronenfeld

The people embracing each other, wiping

tears from their eyes, kneeling

to place roses and carnations, 

the banner headlines, the when

is enough enough? Then the families

home alone after our national rituals,

the presidential visit. Now the children’s

bereft bedrooms, the stories slipping

down front pages and inside the newspaper,

then gone, now Absence just beginning

to take up residence, burrowing

in and in and in. 

Judy Kronenfeld’s fifth full-length collection of poetry Groaning and Singing was published by FutureCycle Press in February, 2022. Previous books include Shimmer (WordTech, 2012) and Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017). Her poems have appeared widely in journals including Cider Press Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, New Ohio Review, Offcourse,  Slant, and Verdad.

PINKY PROMISES

by Ann E. Wallace

“Pinky Promise” by Joseph Patton

Can you see it?

The shredding of precious 

organs, of slim muscles and growing

bones, of smiles and baby teeth,

of dimples and pinky promises, 

when weapons meant for war

open fire on 40- and 50-pound

children crouching under desks,

hiding behind racks of graded 

readers, and huddling

in the pretend play center.

 

Can you imagine

what damage has been 

wreaked when a mother must 

recall the neatly pressed 

dress or red striped shirt 

her third grader selected 

for the end of school festivities, 

two days before summer break, 

when a father must swab 

his cheek or offer a vial of blood 

to confirm that the shattered 

remains held in the morgue 

belong to his darling child?

 

How as a nation 

do we bear that another 

community has been asked 

to be patient, that parents 

were again told to not pick up 

their kids, not yet, when they heard 

the news, so as not to cause chaos—as if

parents’ terror caused this mayhem—

until officials have finished scouring

the brightly colored classrooms 

for small victims, until doctors

have saved those they could

and zipped those they could not 

into oversized body bags, until 

every student has been accounted for,

until nineteen sets of parents 

have learned they will never 

again pick up their children?

 

How do we justify

that while the devastated 

people of Uvalde have waited 

in desperation for their children 

to be accounted for, 

no one is holding 

our leaders accountable? 

 

Ann E. Wallace is a poet and essayist from Jersey City, New Jersey. Her published work can be found at AnnWallacePhD. Follow her on Twitter @annwlace409 or on Instagram @annwallacephd.com.

THE AMERICAN IDEAL OF JUSTICE

by Howie Good

The gunman

shoots to death

19 children

 

in an elementary school

in Texas

 

and then turns the gun

on himself.

Editor's Note: The specific circumstances of the death of the shooter at the scene of Robb Elementary School had not yet been clarified by authorities at the time of the posting of this poem. Since then, authorities have announced that the gunman was killed by law enforcement officers.

Howie Good is a poet and collagist on Cape Cod.

UVALDE TEXAS MAY 24, 2022

by Alan Catlin

19 children 

and one teacher

dead

because one

elementary

school shooting

wasn't enough

Alan Catlin has published dozens of chapbooks and full-length books, including the chapbook Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance (Presa Press), a series of ekphrastic poems responding to the work of German photographer August Sander who did portraits of Germans before, during, and after both World Wars.