UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

by Michael Calvert

“The NRA at FedEx.” Cartoon by Nick Anderson, April 20, 2021.

“Even as National Rifle Association leaders are called to testify in the second week of a bankruptcy trial, the gun rights organization is launching plans to lobby Congress against gun-control measures backed by President Biden and leading Democrats.” —The Washington Post, April 22, 2021

Our founders, in their wisdom, did decree

That, to protect their sacred liberty

And keep their wives and sweethearts from all harm,

All had the right to own a firearm.

 

To own a flintlock musket, that is, so

When called, those brave and stalwart men could go

To form up a militia, march off, and

Defend their precious homes and native land.

 

However, there's been one annoying glitch,

A technicality, and it's a bitch,

In the amount of time that they allowed

To load one shot, some nut can kill a crowd.

 

So now we bleed, and more die every day

To make our land safe for the NRA.

 

Michael Calvert has worked as a teacher, writer and editor in the corporate world. His poems have appeared in Light and Writer’s Digest.

THE PRESIDENT ARRIVES IN OREGON

by Alejandro Escudé

Gary Shamblin of Winston, Ore., prepares to leave a parking lot in Roseburg in his truck displaying a sign he made reflecting his views on President Obama's planned visit to the area. (Michael Sullivan / The News-Review) via LA Times, October 9, 2015

To express the grief of a nation,
A ghost in imperial high heels.

I will not be taxed. Join or Die.
Franklin’s snake, let it fly.

Distrust trickles like water
Over the pebbles of legislation.

My musket fires hundreds
Of deadly rounds per minute.

One hears the sobbing of men
Who let the reptiles in.

Many of us believe the cross is
The cross in the crosshairs.

Here’s the split between free will
And determinism, still.

Take this box full of heads.
It is gift, from us to all of you.

The sun, in the yellow hue
Of light, over the earth treads.


Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems, My Earthbound Eye, in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.