ENABLERS

by Elizabeth Kerlikowske

 

If you let your sons win at card games,          they will never learn strategy.

If you talk down to them using simple baby words,       they won't understand complexity.

Because you don’t want them to fail,                   you don’t make them do anything hard.

You accept every lie because it is easier   and more comfortable than checking up.

If your son is always where the trouble is,       your son is the trouble.

Your son knows you will bail him out,     make the excuse, buy him another car.

Hell, you might even buy him the gun          he uses to murder a man and then

kill himself.                     Your love knows no bounds.

Author’s note: I saw something like this play out in my own life when my stepmother did provide the gun my brother used at the end of the poem because she could not say no to him.

Elizabeth Kerlikowske teaches ekphrastic writing at the Kalamazoo Institute of Art and volunteers at an alternative high school. 

IT’S THE AMERICAN WAY

by Joanne Kennedy Frazer

“Shootings never stopped during the pandemic: 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades.” —Washington Post, March 24, 2021

 

consumed     with disgust,

          anger       at the other tribe?

 

have you given any thought     

      to addressing       your differences

     

    with, say,   

  the Ruger AR-556 assault weapon?    

 

you can buy one       on the world wide web

      right now       today      

 

Joanne Kennedy Frazer is a retired peace and justice director and educator for faith-based organizations.  Her poetry has appeared in several anthologies, journals, ezines and magazines. Her chapbook Being Kin was published in 2019. Home is Durham, NC.

ACCOUNTING

by David Radavich

Image credit: gemenacom / 123RF Stock Photo

A culture’s values
lie in its treasure chests.

What people spend
money on day in day out.

Rock concerts, sporting events,
hairstyles, boob jobs, four-wheel drive,

airline tickets
to the Caribbean .

What we buy we love,
and that loves us,

breath of life
and song and sight.

These coins I hand
to the beggar

before me
is small pittance

for a world
that doesn’t care.

We can even
sell our blood
and zygotes

for a big new screen.

The better to see
ourselves

in a good story

full of racing death.


David Radavich’s recent collections include America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love’s Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011). His plays have been performed across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe. His new collection is The Countries We Live In.