TORN

by Thomas R. Smith

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

Though our little lives go on, we’re aware
of a massive tearing—a fabric
we’d thought sturdy is being ripped by
unseen hands, cruel, immensely powerful.
This was not supposed to happen in our
country. The rent is pulling apart
the graves of those who died for a proud
ideal. My high school Memorial Days
in the band playing trombone at the cemetery
are torn down the middle, every
school morning that began with the Pledge
of Allegiance in shreds, and the history
book pages of our defeat of fascism
fallen to the ground like shotgunned birds.
Sit with it a moment and you’ll hear it
loud and close, a chainsaw biting into
our soul. Where are our old Scout masters,
our civics teachers who elevated
the virtues of our form of government? 
Where are the leaders we were taught to respect?
Where are the generals sworn to uphold
the Constitution while the demented
king wages war on his own people? Where
is Betsy Ross with her needle to drive
into the hole in our nation’s heart
and stitch back together this wounded cloth?

Thomas R. Smith’s recent books are a poetry collection Medicine Year (Paris Morning Publications) and a prose work Poetry on the Side of Nature: Writing the Nature Poem as an Act of Survival (Red Dragonfly Press). He lives in western Wisconsin near the Kinnickinnic River.

THERE IS A SOUND

by James Bettendorf 

There is a sound in Minneapolis
Like the tearing of heavy cloth
Where laws favor groups, that oppress
Others to their knees, that rip
Opportunities from small hands,
That flatten hopes, crush
Dreams under their heels
Red tipped white canes are broken
Pieces thrown in the gutter

There is a sound in Minnesota
Like the tearing of heavy cloth
Where angry men and women are bent
Their backs used as stepping stones
Feeling powerless in the face of money
Neighbors denied rights
Darkness isn’t dispelled
By the light of reason

There is a sound in America
Like the tearing of heavy cloth
Eyes of honest people
Covered with blindfolds
Made from the flag
Tower babbling deafens
Knees and backs
Bent by heavy wooden crosses
And more coal is shoveled
Into the furnaces of the wealthy

There is a sound in the world
Like the tearing of heavy cloth

James Bettendorf taught math for 34 years at various levels and in his retirement begin writing classes at the Loft in Minneapolis, MN.  He was accepted for a two year poetry internship in the Loft Master Track program in 2006 and has been working on a manuscript with his mentor/advisor, Thomas R. Smith.  He has had poems published in TheNewVerse.News. Rockhurst Review, Light Quarterly, Ottertail Review, Talking Stick Vols. 18 - 23, and Free Verse.