WARNING SIGN

by Diane Elayne Dees

The sign is hard to miss,

as shoppers cross 

the parking lot to buy

t-shirts, groceries, toys,

bath towels, cosmetics.

The sign next to it 

is even bigger, and 

just as serious, warning

patrons that abuse of any kind

toward staff will not be tolerated,

and that law enforcement

will be notified. Maybe someday,

those signs will appear normal—

the new normal, that assumes

that we are all under threat of attack

at every moment in any place.

Or maybe someday, 

in a parallel universe, 

it will be normal not to carry

shotguns and knives on errands,

or—in a different galaxy—

normal to treat people with respect.

In the meantime, every time I pass,

I wonder about the little girls and boys

—already anxious, already frightened,

clinging to their teddy bears—

I wonder what must have happened

inside that glass-enclosed pediatric clinic,

and I wonder what will happen next.

Diane Elayne Dees is the author of the chapbooks Coronary Truth (Kelsay Books) The Last Time I Saw You (Finishing Line Press), and The Wild Parrots of Marigny (Querencia Press). Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that delivers news and commentary on women’s professional tennis throughout the world.

SHARING THE ROAD

by Bill Aarnes

Davy Crockett called his flintlock Ol’ Betsy

 

 

The traffic has slowed to a stop 

on the West Side Highway,  

my Lyft now going nowhere. 

 

The gun lover driving the pickup 

stuck just a few feet ahead 

in the lane to the right 

 

must take pride that someone 

as ignorant as me has never bothered     

to learn by heart the brands    

 

of the five firearms shown 

on the decal on his back window 

above the words "My Family." 

 

I wonder if the guy goes home 

to a flesh-and-blood family, 

if they approve of the decal. 

 

I guess maybe his wife 

found it for him in a gun shop.              

Then I make up some names 

 

for the weapons: cute Little Lethal 

(or is it Pocket-Sized Bullpup?), 

older brother Son of a Gun, 

 

big sister Knock-em Dead, 

a less motherly than steely 

Femme Fatale, and the cock-sure 

 

Ready to Unload My Load. 

Car and pickup both inch ahead. 

I fear I’ve made up names   

 

he—and his family—would like. 

Bill Aarnes now lives in New York, where he is recovering from COVID.

EXOTIC THRILLS

by Mark Zimmermann

April 13, 2019 photo taken at USA ガンクラブ Shooting Range, Tamuning, Guam.

Luxury shooting ranges
dot the tourist colony of Guam,
draw planeloads of Japanese.

They want an authentic
American experience
unavailable at home:

blasting away with firearms.
Pistol, shotgun, assault rifle,
submachine gun—open fire,
get a glossy souvenir photo.

Their moment of exotic thrills
over, the tourists return
to life in Japan.

Where in 2017
there were
three gun homicides.

Mark Zimmermann’s first poetry collection, Impersonations, was published by Pebblebrook Press in 2015. His work has previously appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Wisconsin People and Ideas, Stoneboat, and elsewhere. From 1990-2001 he lived in Japan and is currently working on a poetry ms. centered on his time there. Currently he lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

RIFLE CLASS, DAY AFTER A MASSACRE

by Jon Wesick




Robert Dear shoots up a Planned Parenthood clinic.
A militia takes over a wildlife refuge.
The only defense against a conservative with a gun
is a liberal with a gun
so I spend weeks in rain, hail,
and desert heat learning to shoot.

Here, on this day the screams
of the wounded are far away.
Instead hands practice the choreography
of magazine changes and malfunction clearing.
I like the rented AR-15. It’s accurate,
doesn’t kick much, and it’s loose spring
goes boing when it chambers the next round.

Hot wind sucks water from my body
and even slathered in sunscreen my face burns.
Ammo belts on women’s hips distract me.
“It’s too quiet,” the teacher says.
“All I hear is pistols next door.
Let’s show them what real firearms sound like!”
With others I center my ghost ring sight
on a gray silhouette and squeeze the trigger.
Rifles’ booms alert car alarms. Dust puffs
on the berm behind paper targets.
Hot brass flies from an ejection port,
falls down my shirt, and burns.

We sling loaded rifles over shoulders only once.
“Feel something different?” the teacher asks.
“That’s the feeling of freedom!”
I don’t feel freedom.
I feel a rifle
and a heavy responsibility

Host of the Gelato Poetry Series, author of the poetry collection Words of Power, Dances of Freedom, and an editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual, Jon Wesick has published over three hundred poems in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Pearl, and Slipstream. He has also published nearly a hundred short stories. One was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. One of his poems won second place in the 2007 African American Writers and Artists contest. Another had a link on the Car Talk website. Jon has a Ph.D. in physics and is a longtime student of Buddhism and the martial arts.