DECLARATION OF A TERRORIST

by Taylor Norris

Knee on a neck, 

Match poised to strike,

With a final exhale, 

Flames did ignite. 

 

A firestorm erupted,

Fervent movement did arise, 

Suffocated by a tsunami, 

Of "All Lives Matter" cries. 

 

Abusive power wears many masks, 

Yet speaks a single tongue,

A requiem of callousness, 

Tide of lives wrung.

 

Seized, silenced, deprived of voice, 

Crushed by tempest creed, 

As the faceless gasp for breath, 

Dragged beneath waves of greed.

 

Palestinians butchered by golem rampage, 

While leaders fiddle in their gilded bubble,

Israel's broken promises rain down,

As last dregs of conscience soak into the rubble.

 

Students denouncing genocide, 

Abducted off streets like trash,

Futures and rights vanished, 

Disappeared in a Gestapo flash.

 

Ukrainians in scorched ruins stand tall, 

Courage unwavering, despite the pain,

Their sacrifice met with jealous disdain,

As an American führer bows to Putin's reign.

 

Sudanese starve on apathy alone, 

Wasting away to hollow bone, 

While the privileged eat cake, 

Glutted, glued to their phone.

 

Immigrants condemned, banished beyond aid,

Hostages snatched to a circus cage,

Mercy extinguished; identity stripped,

Erased by those with contrived rage.

 

Tiny tots seen, once heard, now lost,

Voiceless, cast out with derision,

Birthright a farce, a due process mirage,

Dispelled with coldness and precision.

 

Judges defied, jailed with contempt, 

Justice held ransom, chained to the bell, 

As cracked scales teeter on the brink, 

Ears crane for liberty's death knell.

 

If my conviction of unity, 

Is intolerable sedition, 

Call me a TERRORIST, 

I embrace the affliction.

 

Truth-teller in an age of lies, 

Empathetic when compassion dies,

Revolutionary when liberties decline,

Relentless when cruelty is the infection by design,

Outspoken when silence is the golden law,

Resilient by refusing to withdraw,

Inclusive when others build walls of divide,

Solidarity with the denigrated caste aside,

Transformative in spirit that cannot abide.

 

The most sacred amendment, first on the parchment, 

Will withstand your calculated bombardment,

If TERRORIST I must be, in your criminalized fiction, 

I'll wear your pointy yellow badge with distinction.

 

While propaganda devours, 

Truth strikes with bolt and thunder, 

Electrified, embers take flight,

Defiance echoes, never again forced under.

Taylor Norris treads the thin verse between comfortable and the disturbed that can’t be unseen. In the stone age that was pre-y2k Taylor was a film critic for a LGBTQ publication and was published in two poetry anthologies with a poem translated for a Spanish newspaper. Taylor was also produced in Best Short-Lived 2.0 in San Francisco. After a long hiatus, she is returning back to her roots.

THINGS I DIDN’T DO WITH THESE EYES & THINGS I DID

by Gil Hoy

The Witness by Matt Paw

1.

I didn’t witness the iceberg-flanked passageways of Antarctica, didn’t spot a kangaroo giving birth to a joey, didn’t see the Beatles live, didn’t descry a proton or an electron, didn’t read all the best books, didn’t see my best friend’s wedding, didn’t read the physics texts that my father taught, didn’t see the world explode in a thermo-nuclear war, didn’t witness democracy crash and burn as of yet, didn’t watch the last polar bear step off the last piece of melting arctic sea ice and drown, didn’t spot God, and didn’t see any sign of Jesus. Instead, I squinted and stared, focused and buckled down, and managed to

                                                                                                              
2.

See a hummingbird at my feeder fly close to my face, spilled tears with them, closed them in rooms filled with smoke, closed them in rooms filled with bigotry, opened them when instructed to do so, opened them when I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, saw too many 100 plus degree days, saw a police officer put his knee on a man’s neck, saw a criminal become President, saw sycophants flatter him, saw the brainwashed follow him, saw Republican challengers afraid to challenge him, saw his fingerprints taken, saw a mugshot taken, and generally witnessed the greatest threat to American democracy since the founding of the Republic with no way yet to see with what effect and what result.

Gil Hoy is a Best of the Net nominated Tucson, Arizona poet and writer who studied fiction and poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program and The Writers Studio in Tucson, Arizona. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Hoy is a semi-retired trial lawyer. His poetry and fiction have previously appeared in Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, Tipton Poetry Journal, Unlikely Stories Mark V, Chiron Review, The Galway Review, Right Hand Pointing, Rusty Truck, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, The Penmen Review,  Third Wednesday, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, and elsewhere.

THE CONDITIONAL CASE FOR CONVICTION

by Diana Cole

A patron of a laundromat near Cup Foods watching the Derek Chauvin trial on Monday. Credit: Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times, April 6, 2021

for George Floyd

 

 

Nothing can be true, so the dog barks all night

          missing the man who feeds him.

 

Into the fire go the stars. If the garbage is collected

          in the morning, the moon will go too.

 

Without evidence of insects, birds have nothing to eat.

          He’s talking so he’s fine.

 

Nothing but a man, a sizable guy who loves his Mama, 

          who lost his Mama.  

                                    

I kneel in case the sun will intervene in time.

          Inside the car, the back seat is a thick darkness. 

 

A black man could get lost if the air is handcuffed.

          Even if he pleads 20 times, he is under the influence,

 

under suspicion, under the knee, undertaken.

          All for 20 dollars, supposing that, even if, as long as… 

Diana Cole, a Pushcart Prize nominee, has had poems published in numerous journals including Poetry East, Spillway, the Tar River Review, the Cider Press Review, GBH Public Radio, Friends Journal, Verse Daily, and the Main Street Rag, and upcoming in Crab Creek Review. Her chapbook Songs By Heart was published in 2018 by Iris Press. She is an editor for The Crosswinds Poetry Journal and a member of Ocean State Poets whose mission is to encourage the reading, writing and sharing of poetry. 

EXPOSED IN MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

by Sandra Sidman Larson

A fist sculpture is situated at the intersection of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, also known as George Floyd Square, on March 25 in Minneapolis. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)

As a spring storm begins to rumble outside, I wrap

my dog in his thunder shirt, yet I must remain calm

and unprotected from what bears down

on us, whether it is thunder, city coyotes howling,

the probable headlines of the Star Tribune—the paper flung

outside my door this morning, as every day, by a poor man,

his young children waiting in his idling car.

The fate of George Floyd’s murderer is soon to be

determined by twelve citizens in a courtroom barricaded

with barbed wire as have been the halls of Congress,

precautions against returning mobs, recently sicced

on the representatives of our frail democracy

by a crazed president who we supposedly ushered out

the door. But what to do about the cop who puts his knee

for nine minutes upon the neck of a Black man,

smothers him to death, stopping all our lives, turning us

to marching in the streets, while troublemakers—homegrown,

or blown into Minneapolis—set the city streets and stores afire,

inciting chaos among thousands of protesters, many of us

now realizing we need other gods or old gods to appear,

to stop us from killing each other, we who are filled with love,

hate, hope, and despair, stirred up by the fates—

so little to protect us?  All I can do is close the window

against the thunder, the smells of rain-damped debris;

note the snow almost gone from the ground, now newly bare.

Sandra Sidman Larson, twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, has three chapbooks to her credit: Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, Over a Threshold of Roots (both Pudding House Press Publications), and Weekend Weather: Calendar Poems. Her chapbook Ode to Beautiful was published by Finishing Line Press in 2016 and her first full manuscript by Main Street Rag Publications in 2017. Her poetry has been published in many venues such as the Atlanta Review, Grey Sparrow, Earth’s Daughters and on-line in The New Verse News and others. Her work has also appeared in numerous anthologies, one being what have you lost? edited by Naomi Shihab Nye.  (Who nominated her for one Pushcart Prize). With a Masters Degree in social work and community planning, Sandra’s primary career was in social service and social justice work. Her poetry career began at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. As a poet with grandchildren and great nieces and nephews she longs for a world where all children are cherished and cared for and justice reigns for all.

IN-SUH-REK-SHUHN

by Rémy Dambron

they said this man was just like them we said he doesn’t feel the same

they said he said that’s just fake news we said this is a dangerous game

they said he’s making us great again while we witnessed his power abuses

they diminished and deflected delivering his excuses

we called this pattern treacherous nefarious hateful nasty

they called him biblical 

patriotic bold and crafty

we said he’s promoting violence 

they said he doesn’t mean it

we showed them clips of footage 

they said we just don’t see it

we said hands up don’t shoot 

black lives matter me too

they said shut up and dribble 

all lives matter back the blue

we plead for justice 

but just us took a knee

so they beat us up with shields batons and false decrees

we said we have our rights 

they said well not today

we said these were our streets 

so they gassed us all away

we protested peacefully 

get your knees off our neck

they called us anarchists

then wrote themselves some checks

we turned out in record 

to win the election

they claimed there was fraud 

pledged their objections

we agreed to a recount 

they cried stop the steal

maskless they rallied 

refusing to heal

they threatened more violence despite our constitution

we said he’s propagating 

they called it lib delusion

then hundreds and hundreds 

with his flags and motifs

assailed the steps

of our nation’s top chiefs

we cried this is madness 

the building’s not secured

they said our take-back has begun and we will not be deterred

we said look at the police 

they’re like ushers in disguise

allowing them to enter 

with insurgency supplies

we saw gates open wide 

with a skirmish or two

then a lonely black cop

with just a stick and film crew

never drawing his firearm 

just clutching his baton

yelling and retreating

his leverage too far gone

they paraded their faces 

took selfies and stole files

besieged and disgraced

our nations state house defiled

they were released without consequence 

set free without question

acquitted of their felonies 

at forty fives direction

we watched in horror for hours

what we had known would come true

his fascist america 

executing their coup

Rémy Dambron is an English teacher, proud husband, and activist whose poetry focuses primarily on advocating for social justice and denouncing political corruption. His work has been featured on What Rough Beast, Writer’s Resist, Poets Reading the News, and The New Verse News.

WEIGHT

by Judith Terzi

Emmett Louis Till was kidnapped, lynched and brutally murdered at age 14 on August 28, 1955.

"Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor."—John Lewis, New York Times, July 30, 2020

Emmett Till shot dead at fourteen. Two men go free.
George Floyd suffocated at forty-six. By a brutal knee.

          George ran out of breath. Suffocated at age forty-six.
          They sank Emmett, strapped him to a cotton gin fan.

No gun to sink George. No river, no machine, no tree.
Simeon Wright saw the men point the gun at Emmett.

          Saw the men point the gun, pull his cousin from bed.
          His words weightless against the two men's. No video

then. The world saw the cop's knee press into George.
Saw three more cops. Over eight minutes of complicity.

          Four cops. Eight ears sealed shut for over eight minutes.
          Sixty-five years gone by since Emmett lost his breath.

Three months passed since George no longer breathes.
Emmett Till shot dead at fourteen. Two men go free.


Author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay), as well as of five chapbooks, including Casbah and If You Spot Your Brother Floating By (Kattywompus), Judith Terzi's poems have received Pushcart and Best of the Web and Net nominations and have been read on Radio 3 of the BBC. She holds an M.A. in French Literature and taught high school French for many years as well as English and French at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria.

MOURNING IN AMERICA

by Joanne Kennedy Frazer

I.
no vaccine for this condition

ever present     sucks out life
      soul      erases biographies

one knee
8 minutes, 46 seconds
   Momma, I love you

II.
lifeless daughters, sons of God

our grief       anger
   guilt       emptiness

ache    
to resurrect
     to re-breathe you

Joanne Kennedy Frazer is a retired peace and justice director and educator for faith-based organizations at state, diocesan and national levels. Her work has appeared in several Old Mountain Press anthologies, Poetic Portions anthology, Soul-lit Spiritual Poetry, Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine, Panoply Literary Zine, Snapdragon Journal, Whirlwind Magazine, Kakalak, Red Clay Review and Gyroscope Review. Five poems were turned into a song cycle, Resistance, by composer Steven Luksan, and performed in Seattle and Durham.  Her chapbook Being Kin (CreationRising Press) was published in 2019.  She lives in Durham, NC.

WHAT YOU CAN DO IN EIGHT MINUTES & FORTY-SIX SECONDS

by Neil Silberblatt




Listen to a performance of the first movement—
marked Allegro vivo appassionato—
of the String Quartet No. 1 in E minor,
by Czech composer Bedrich Smetana.
The quartet known as "From My Life",
due to the sustained harmonic E on the first violin
in the last movement, which represents the ringing,
the constant ringing,
the incessant ringing,
the maddening ringing,
in his ears that presaged Smetana's deafness.
I would recommend the recording
by the Pavel Haas Quartet,
which would leave you 23 seconds
to contemplate what deafness sounds like.
Or, alternatively,
place your knee ever so delicately
on another man's windpipe
and fail to hear his screams as his
life slips away.

Neil Silberblatt is the founder / director of Voices of Poetry, which has presented a series of more than 400 poetry events at various venues in MA, CT, NY & NJ, including The Rubin Museum of Art and Jefferson Market Library in NYC; The Mount / Edith Wharton's home in Lenox, MA; and Ike & Randy's Boxing Gym in Paterson, NJ. His poems have appeared in several literary journals and anthologies, including Plume Poetry Journal, Tiferet Journal and Tikkun Daily. His most recent poetry collection Past Imperfect (Nixes Mate Books, 2018) was nominated for the Mass. Book Award in Poetry; and Neil has been nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize.

DOWN ON BENDED KNEE

by Sari Grandstaff

Sari Grandstaff is a high school librarian in the Catskill Mountains/Mid-Hudson Valley of New York State. Her poetry has appeared in many print and online journals such as TheNewVerse.News, Eastern Structures, and Chronogram. During National Poetry Month 2020 her haiku was chosen to be featured by poets Danez Smith and Jane Hirshfield on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.

CAN'T BREATHE

by Lynn White

A protester is seen at the area where George Floyd, an unarmed black man, was pinned down by a police officer kneeling on his neck before later dying in hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. May 26, 2020. Credit: REUTERS/Eric Miller

We are being suffocated
in this society
of masks and
miasmas,
of family connections
and corporate interests
smothering us
with hidden pillows of power
and corruption,
of prejudice
hardly hidden
in institutions
we thought would protect us all.

We are all George Floyd potentially
behind the mask.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal and So It Goes.