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.

OPEN CARRY

by Michael L. Ruffin

“‘I Need People to Hear My Voice’: Teens Protest Racism.” High school students have organized protests in California, Maryland and Michigan. In one Texas suburb, three teenagers led hundreds of people in a march, and they say they aren’t done organizing. —The New York Times, June 23, 2020

My sisters and brothers,
I declare to you that we
have practiced concealed
carry for too long. The
time to practice open
carry has arrived.

Henceforth, let us openly
carry our right to speak
freely, our right to assemble
peaceably, and our right to
petition the government for
a redress of grievances.

A suggestion: this time,
when our grievances seem
to have been resolved, let’s
not conceal our rights of speech,
assembly, and petition again.

Not ever. Never.


Michael L. Ruffin is a writer, editor, preacher, and teacher living and working in Georgia. He posts poems on Instagram (@michaell.ruffin) and prose opinions at On the Jericho Road. He is author of Fifty-Seven: A Memoir of Death and Life and  of the forthcoming Praying with Matthew. His poetry has appeared at TheNewVerse.News and is forthcoming in 3 Moon Magazine and Rat's Ass Review.

RED ALERT

by Lynn White

TheBrexitComic

It’s not enough to take to the streets
one million
two million
it still needs more.

It’s not enough to sign your name
three million
four million
it still needs more.

It’s not enough to cast your vote
five million
six million
it still needs more.

It’s not enough
the clowns still have more.

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. Facebook: LynnWhitePoetry.

THE INDICTMENT OF THE MAD KING

by Mickey J. Corrigan

"There are cases which cannot be overdone by language,
and this is one."

—Thomas Paine, "The Crisis," December 23, 1776

Our Petition as it stands now:

He has refused the rule of law,
which is most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.

He has forbidden governance
of pressing importance,
and when so suspended,
has utterly neglected to attend to it.

He has refused to move forward
for the accommodation of large districts of people.
He has endeavored to prevent the population
of the states,
obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners,
refusing to encourage migrations here.

He has made judges dependent on his will
alone,
slandering and calling out publicly
or selecting them by loyalty.

He has erected a multitude of new offices,
and sent away swarms of officers
to far locations, away from governance.

He has kept among us
in times of peace
standing armies
rabble-rousers and tweeters
firing on the masses
without the consent of our legislatures.

He has combined with others to subject us
to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution
and unacknowledged by our laws,
giving his assent to their acts
of interference in our elections.

He is known for
cutting off trade
with other parts of the world,
destroying alliances
cozying with despots.

He has abducted real governance
by declaring the media
enemies of the people and
out of his protection,
waging war on journalists.

His rollbacks have plundered our seas,
ravaged our coasts,
flooded our cities,
burnt our towns,
and destroyed the lives of our people.

He has excited domestic insurrections
amongst us.

In every stage of these oppressions
we have petitioned for redress
in the most humble terms:
our repeated petitions
have been answered
by repeated injury.

A mad king, whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a tyrant
is unfit
to be the leader
of a free people.

Our Petition is clear:

The words like bombs
exploding in our faces,
we must all
reread our Constitution.
uphold the laws therein.

Author's Note: Adapted from "The Declaration of Independence" in which King George is indicted for his "injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States."

Originally from Boston, Mickey J. Corrigan writes Florida noir with a dark humor. Project XX, a satirical novel about a school shooting, was released in 2017 by Salt Publishing in the UK. Newest release is What I Did for Love, a spoof of Lolita (Bloodhound Books, October, 2019).

THE PETITION TO END THE RUSSIAN DANCING BEAR ACT

by Tricia Knoll

Statues of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus are shown in a cage of chain-link fencing on the lawn of Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Indianapolis on July 3. The statues were placed there to protest the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. (Ebony Cox/The Indianapolis Star/AP via The Washington Post, July 3, 2018)

A signature is one wave in the ocean of sound
that may wash up on shore with a sigh.
Tired cursive words that feel like twigs
scratching recycled paper to beg for ending
the torture of whales with sonar blasts
during naval exercises. Exercises … those acts
of the puissant against those under the club
who are forced to dance. Without needing
words or even a name, a rector hauls
a nativity scene out of storage
and locks Joseph, Mary and her baby
behind chain link on a lawn in downtown.
Urgent, visible truth. Images of right whale dolphins
torn apart from blood in their ear canals
lined up on the beach. Isn’t that how
panic rises fast under pressure?
Trying to do something even if it feels
like rushing to scrawl your name in sand
before the next wave erases it.


Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet who necessity drives to sign petitions. Her recent collection of poetry is How I Learned To Be White (Antrim House, 2018).

THE DAY THE POLKAS CRIED

by Laura Rodley






For thirty-seven years
Billy Belina drove in early morning light
or total dark to spin the polkas
on WMUA on Saturday,
not for the love of money
because he wasn’t paid
but for the love of the polkas.
Joined by Mitch Moskal and friends,
Polka Celebration ended
this morning with little warning,
cut by the powers that be
from UMass University.
Petitions are being signed
and voices raised but polkas
have been out-phased,
though folks listen on line
and twenty seven hundred
have signed from Japan
to Australia, to Chicago, polka land.
So many musicians, so many bands,
fifteen thousand shows
spurring polka music on,
but as of 11:45, that’s all gone.      


Laura Rodley’s New Verse News poem “Resurrection” appears in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses (2013 edition). She was nominated twice before for the Prize as well as for Best of the Net. Her chapbook Rappelling Blue Light, a Mass Book Award nominee,  won honorable mention for the New England Poetry Society Jean Pedrick Award. Her second chapbook Your Left Front Wheel is Coming Loose was also nominated for a Mass Book Award and a L.L.Winship/Penn New England Award. Both were published by Finishing Line Press.  Co-curator of the Collected Poets Series, she teaches creative writing and works as contributing writer and photographer for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  She edited As You Write It, A Franklin County Anthology, Volume I and Volume II.