KEEP SCREAMING

by Indran Amirthanayagam

March for Our Lives

Keep screaming. I will, Sister. Keep screaming.

I will, Dearest. Keep screaming. The children

will not be forgotten. Keep screaming. The guns

will be stopped, bullets intercepted. With our minds.

Our pens. Here, Senator, is our petition. Here you go

the draft legislation. Don't worry. Take your time

to read every word. We are staying here until

you decide to vote for or against. Not beyond

this line. Not any more. Never again. Not anywhere

in this America. We are not murderers. We are not

going to take the fall for the military industrial

profiteers. We are not going to be quiet. We are

not going to play dead; allow the demon to destroy

what's left of the Dream. Not for Martin. Not for

Malcolm. Not for Ginsburg. Not for John Lewis.

Not for you or me. I was a wretch. We were all

wretches standing on the street while the murderer

walked into the school unopposed on May 24th, 2022.

Keep screaming: Never again. Ban the filibuster.

Never again. Institute background checks,

psychological evaluations. Damn the idiot

argument of arming the teacher and the guardian,

He walked in unopposed. He killed nineteen

children and two teachers. Keep screaming.

Indran Amirthanayagam's newest book is Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks). Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

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.

THE CRISIS 2013

by George Held

Safe in gerrymandered districts
House Tea Partiers vie
To end the democratic process
Through calumny and lies.

Hateful of our President
And much in love with Cruz
Tea partiers set new precedent
For filibustered schmooze.

Ask not what to do for country
But just for Red State views –
Pro-gun, pro-life, and anti-tax
And poor and migrant crews.

Safe in gerrymandered districts
Untouched by Reason
And wed to right-wing cliques
Tea Partiers foment treason

And call it Constitutional;
While liberals quake and quail
And cry, “Delusional!”
The nation lies derailed.


An occasional contributor to The New Verse News, George Held occasionally blogs at www.georgeheld.blogspot.com