POWDER KEG

by Mark Danowsky

Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it.
—  The Matrix
 

I wake with teeth clenched
 
I find myself holding my breath
 
We’ve pitted brother against brother
too long
 
In the end, it doesn’t even matter
who starts a war
 
They call it suicide by cop
when a gunman refuses to disarm
 
Sondheim reminds us
we lionize assassins
 
A conservative leader insists
The Left has choices
 
False prospect  
for a bloodless revolution
 
Shots fired

Mark Danowsky is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry. He is the author of four poetry books. His latest poetry collection is Meatless (Plan B Press). Take Care is forthcoming from Moon Tide Press in 2025.

SHOTS FIRED

by Brian Forehand

Again they preach this backwards gospel
Hating the sinner yet loving the sin
Protecting the rights of the assassins
they willfully arm again and again
with inaction, blind faith revealed 
in the whistling sound whizzing past their deaf ears
 
Holding harmless again this loaded gun
Vending ammo like chewing gum
triggering semiautomatic responses
blaming misfiring synapses or fiery rhetoric 
Awaiting again the false prophet’s ascension  
Fist pumped into the still pierced air
 
Anointed in blood, the worshipers witness
rushed motorcade departing
traveling this road they laid and repaved
built by their hands and blessed
with their words, this karmic path
that led them to this judgement day.


Brian Forehand is a creative polymath with too many interests and too little time. A late bloomer, he only recently embarked upon the cathartic practice of writing poetry. He lives in Washington, DC with his husband and their stripy cat.

WATCH THE VIDEO

by George Held

Screenshot of the video of the murder of Tyre Nichols.

For Rodney King

 

 

After Memphis, what more can we ask video

to do? After Tyre Nichols, what more

can it confirm? About barbarity,

good ol’ American barbarity? 

The Nazis had nothing on us when it

comes to barbarity. Just look at

the video and see those black men in

uniform dishing out murderous mayhem,

 

killing Tyre as surely as pink-cheeked

SS troopers brutally murdered an old Slav

or a Jew. Yes, these assassins, blond or black,

and legitimized by uniform, carry out

the will of the culture, brutalize the despised

while we, mute, wait to watch the video.

 

George Held occasionally contributes to The NVN and has poems now in Ultimate Reality and Jerry Jazz Magazine.