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.

TEXAS IN HELL

by Robert Knox

The eyes of the others,

les autres

 

Hate mongering

Closed doors of the mind in self-panic

Race-pandering Congressional creeps

stalk the Halls of Hades

When? in God’s name?

 

A universal set of trigger-fingers

in circular execution

A lake of burning fire

Armed to the teeth = utterly unprotected

Gehenna on the dusty plain

 

Looking into the eyes

of the lost

No consolation in the knowing

 

Self-slaying America

Compelled to repeat the same self-torture

endlessly: forever

Infinite self-slaughter

 

An underworld of hate,

unholy perdition

Robert Knox is a poet, fiction writer, Boston Globe correspondent, and the author of the recently published collection of linked short stories, titled House Stories. As a contributing editor for the online poetry journal Verse-Virtual, his poems appear regularly on that site. 

RESPECTING BELIEFS

by F.I. Goldhaber

Ad created by AML

If your beliefs include marginalizing other people
because of their skin color, their religious faith, their gender,
their sexual orientation, their origin, their age;
If your beliefs allow justification for depriving
other people of their civil rights to life, liberty, and
happiness pursuits declared in seventeen seventy-six;
If your beliefs condone slaughter, rape, assault, subjugation,
imprisonment, execution of those you see as "others";
If your beliefs create stigmas to prevent those who appear,
think, love, or speak differently than you from making a living,
feeding their families, buying a home, earning retirement;
If your beliefs allow children to go to bed hungry, the
sick to go bankrupt, the disabled to struggle to survive,
the mentally ill to wander homeless, the store clerks to need
welfare benefits, the elderly to freeze through the winter;
If your beliefs prevent access to reproductive health care
while keeping young people ignorant about the facts of life
and the realities of sexual health, choices, and pleasure;
Then I'm under no obligation to respect your beliefs.
Keep your hate to yourself. Keep it out of our country, state, and
city laws, our schools, parks, stores workplaces, and public restrooms.

As a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, F.I. Goldhaber produced news stories, feature articles, essays, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states. Now, her poems, short stories, novelettes, essays, and reviews appear in paper, electronic, and audio magazines, ezines, newspapers, calendars, and anthologies.