SO, GHISLAINE: A CANARY OR A HAWK?

by Catherine Harnett

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

are you melodious: a yellow-feathered thing, aloof
and loyal only to its keeper; from sunny Gran Canaria,
where nudists stroll along the bright blue seashore
and helicopters land and lift like damselflies
 
or a taloned bird of prey, a hunter of small mammals,
carnivorous and stealthy, sharp-eyed; with a spectacular loud
courtship: the female bares her claws, tempts a mate
attracted to her savagery, they stick together all their lives.
 
You play both roles with aplomb, content to charm,
perched in an unlocked cage; and hungry, swooping in
for the kill; but it comes down to this: both
are dangerous, a beak and claws, the chance you’ll
sing.

Catherine Harnett is a poet and fiction author from the DC area, the epicenter of corruption. She has published three books of poems and has completed another manuscript.

I'VE STOPPED COUNTING THE DEAD

by Jean L. Kreiling

She's not sure that she should suspend
her vigilance, but keeping track
has done no good, has brought no end
to savagery.  As she looks back,
it seems that nothing else has made
a difference either:  votes or signs
or marches or laws disobeyed
or protests sung.  So she resigns
herself to silent grief and guilt,
her anger now an exercise
in mute restraint.  The tomb she's built
from watchful tears and numbered sighs
commemorates too many shames.
Let someone else keep counting names.


Author’s Note: The title of the poem is a remark overheard from an elderly activist.

Jean L. Kreiling’s first collection of poems, The Truth in Dissonance (Kelsay Books), was published in 2014.  Her work has appeared widely in print and online journals, and she is a past winner of a New England Poetry Club Award, the Great Lakes Commonwealth of Letters Sonnet Contest, the String Poet Prize, and the Able Muse Write Prize.