PITY THE NATION

an update

by Kent Reichert 

to his August 25, 3020 New Verse News poem

after Kahlil Gibran

after Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Pity the nation who despises “the other,”
who returns to a past that never was,
where everyone knew their place
and the uncomfortable facts
have been replaced with patriotic fantasies,
as if flags and hats and colors and slogans
are the qualities of true citizenship.

Pity the nation that clings to fictional fears
and praises violence
when used against the unpopular,
the marginalized or those
with whom it disagrees.

Pity the nation that bathes
daily in the warm waters of grievance and victimhood,
accepting no responsibility for its failings,
all the while claiming a Messianic destiny
ordained by God into a faith rarely lived.

Pity the nation that despises books and ideas,
becomes its own arbiter of truth 
and basks in the comfort of ignorance,
that would rather be told what to believe
and look no further.

Pity the nation where the mantle of freedom
is bestowed by those in power
leaving them free to dispense it just
to those they favor.

Pity the nation that calls its own citizens enemies.

Pity the nation…
Pity the nation.


Kent Reichert passes the time spoiling his dogs, practicing digital photography and writing. His poetry has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies.

MIDTERMS

by Adin Thayer

The heft
of the planet’s
turbulence
the severing
nation
burst
into wails
 
there were
leaves 
falling 
everywhere
raining 
free gold  and 
          apricot
littering the path
with the bright
carved shapes
of renewal
 
and why   why
can not 
this world 
itself
lead
us errant 
citizens
down this 
path  where
mingled
leaves of maple 
oak and ash 
together 
anonymously
mix the trees’
spring supply
of delicious 
dirt
 
this path
not
the other

  
Adin Thayer has worked in a variety of roles, as a psychotherapist, a teacher at the Smith College School for Social Work, and a peacebuilding facilitator in several African countries. In addition to what she draws from these sources, her work engages her childhood growing up in Virginia when it was a legally segregated state. Her poems address how the lawfulness and beauty of the natural world provides sustenance in the face of human struggle. One of five sisters and the mother of two daughters, she lives in Massachusetts. She published a volume of poetry, The Close World, in 2020.

WHY THEY DID WHAT THEY DID

by Lisa Vihos

It was a little over week ago today,
that legislators in Wisconsin gaveled in,
gaveled out. 17 seconds in which
they would not consider
the governor’s request.

During a deadly pandemic,
under a stay-at-home order,
how can we ask the citizens
of our fair state, to risk
their lives to vote?

Not only can we ask,
the legislators said,
we will demand, and gain
the support of our brethren
on the highest court in the land.

April 7, 2020, mark the record,
SCOTUS kicked Wisconsin
in the balls, under the bus,
out the window along with
12,000 absentee ballots

that could not be returned in time,
because they had not been received
in time, even though so many
had been requested by good
law-abiding folks way back in March.

No matter, we are closing down
this right, they said, knowing that
with only five of one hundred eighty
polling places open in Milwaukee,
they could effectively

suppress the vote. Because,
as the chief thief and narcissist
among them had pointed out—if ever
we should expand early voting
or voting by mail—“you’d never have
a Republican elected in this country
again.”  


Editor's note: screenshot of an April 14 tweet—

Lisa Vihos is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared in numerous journals both print and online. Author of four chapbooks and editor of two anthologies, she is poetry and arts editor of Stoneboat Literary Journal and an organizer for the world-wide movement, 100 Thousand Poets for Change. She lives in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.