WHY I SHOW UP ON WEDNESDAY AT 4:30 PM ON THE CURB ACROSS FROM 188 HARVEST LANE IN MY HOMETOWN

by Tricia Knoll

Google Maps photo of 188 Harvest Lane, Williston. It houses the "Law Enforcement Support Center," ie the ICE national data collection facility.

Because I can carry a chair to sit in for one hour

Because I remember what sit in means

Because they will not let us be on their side of the street

Because workers inside need a gated parking lot 

Because the building has only mirror windows

Because we can’t see inside but know enough

Because workers inside can see out

Because they shuffle national data about who will be deported from where and when

Because they maneuver to disappear people 

Because they refuse to share information

Because on this side of the street, we are 13, a jury plus one

Because we vow silence, meditate, stare back at their mirror glass

Because fear brings me back 

Because where else will my tears go

Tricia Knoll lives not far from this ICE national data collection facility in Williston, Vermont. She has joined a group of people to sit across the street from this facility on Wednesday afternoons to remind ourselves and others driving by that the machinations of ICE are continuous, ongoing.

ANOTHER USELESS HEADLINE POEM

by Ed Werstein

"US Senate Response to Orlando: Nothing"

                     The Guardian, June 21, 2016

I’ve been thinking about flesh

and blood

and guts

and guns

and bullets

and assaults

on our sanity.

And I’ve been thinking about guts

and guns

and gold

and gilt

and guilt

and gullibility

and gushing blood

and the gumption

it might take

to change things.

And I’ve been thinking about how

we must not be

disgruntled enough

disgusted enough

about how we must not be

dis-gutted enough

to stop watching the news reports

to stop posting on Facebook

to stop writing ineffective

and useless poems

about it,

to finally rise up

and do something real

to change it. 

Ed Werstein spent years in manufacturing before his muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. In addition to NVN, his poems appear at Re/Verse and Your Daily Poem. He is East Region VP for the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. His chapbook Who Are We Then? was published by Partisan Press. His contact information can be found at the WFOP.