SOUND BITES

A Found Poem Pantoum of Shit I Read in the News
by Brady Riddle

More Shit found from #TRE45ON

One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.
We inherited a broken test, a dead system
that didn’t work. One of the worst things that didn’t work.
Great marks for handling the infectious source!

We inherited a broken test, a dead system:
You got it wrong! They didn't use tear gas.
Great marks for handling protesters there!
Pepper spray is not a chemical irritant. 

You got it wrong! They didn't use tear gas—
riot control agents make people unable.
Pepper spray is not a chemical irritant. 
These THUGS dishonor Peace, on his knees, hands up.

Riot control agents make people unable
to rally against the death, the outrage.
These THUGS dishonor Peace, on his knees, hands up.
False and misleading claims, most of them from the past

rally death, outrage, control, downplay the situation—
that didn’t work. None of the things even worked.
False and misleading claims, most of them from the past
one day, like a miracle, will disappear.

Brady Riddle currently resides in Shanghai, China where he teaches secondary English at Shanghai American School. His poems can  be found in Lean Seed (San Jacinto College, Houston, TX), Ottawa Arts Review (University of Ottawa Press),  Spittoon Collective (Beijing, China), and most recently A Shanghai Poetry Zine.

CONDOLENCES ON THE PASSING OF YOUR CONFEDERATE MONUMENT

by MEH

Sunday night at Linn Park in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, a crowd took down the city of Birmingham's Confederate monument. Photo tweeted by Daniel Uhlfelder.

our deepest thoughts and prayers are with you
for the terrible loss you must be feeling. but
what was it doing in that part of town, so far away
from its own kind? didn’t it know, wasn’t it raised
better? (poor thing probably had a father in prison,
a mother on welfare, like so many of your people).
honestly though, it should have just followed the law,
not been out there on the street corner, glorifying thugs
of a bygone era (with all their violent music and chanting).
it’s un-American. it should have known its place,
known when to keep its mouth shut. but it wouldn’t stop
resisting. and I heard it had a weapon. it only got
what was coming to it. they had no choice, were only
doing their jobs. we should consider how they feel:
all lives matter. but it is a tragedy—no community
should watch a thing crushed to death like that while
children looked on. but the sad truth is it was well
past its prime and had an underlying health condition.

MEH is Matthew E. Henry, a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominated poet. The author of Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020), his recent works are appearing or forthcoming in Baltimore Review, Bryant Literary Review, Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, Poemeleon, The Radical Teacher, Rejection Lit, The Revolution (Relaunch), Solstice, and Spiritus. MEH is an educator who received his MFA from Seattle Pacific University, yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education.

WHITTLED LIES

by Jan D. Hodge

Faith leaders pray with President Donald Trump during a rally for evangelical supporters at the King Jesus International Ministry church, Friday, Jan. 3, 2020, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

When
Sir
Impresario rose for the vacuous ritual discharge of pomp
      In that dismal political swamp,
Insulting and faulting those who dared to oppose him
      (Sneering and jeering at them),
Meeting their protests with humbug and shrugs
Amid the capuchin clicking and whining
Of cameras, his answers were dreary as verses on Stalin,
Then echoed in turn by a toadying chorus of dim-
Witted grim apparatchiks routinely intoning:
O leader of peoples, our nation spearheading,
Great One, our Sun, applauded by millions of hearts
      (Chanting in classical metres).
Like Vergil recited from packets of cue cards, they
Hailed and regaled him.  Not one of the thugs
Had conscience or courage enough to consider resigning
               . . . Preferring fine dining!


Author’s note: The situation, alas, is all too recognizable.  For those not familiar with the model for this verse, I refer you to Edith Sitwell’s “Sir Beelzebub.”  (My title, incidentally, is an anagram of "Edith Sitwell.")
     To explain the allusion to verses on Stalin, consider these lines by A. O. Avdienko:
           When the woman I love presents me with a child
           the first word it shall utter will be: Stalin. . . .
           O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
           Thou who broughtest man to birth . . .
           Thou who makest bloom the spring,
           Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords . . .
           Thou, splendour of my spring, O thou,
           Sun reflected by millions of hearts.

Jan D. Hodge's poems have appeared in many print and online journals. Two of his books, Taking Shape (a collection of carmina figurata) and The Bard & Scheherazade Keep Company (double-dactyl renderings of Shakespeare, tales from the Arabian Nights, and Reynard the Fox) have been published by Able Muse Press.

WILL: THE

by Gil Hoy

At Freddie Gray's funeral. Image source: CNN



Raw naked truth of
Cell phone videos,

Funeral, funeral,
Police brutality: The
Police murders: The
Play of unjust death,

Rioting in the streets: The
Wrath of young black thugs
Raining down, in reckless disregard,
For authority: The

RapidRingingRagingGunfire: The


Collapsing broken
     Bodies: The
News ritual: The
Speed of the internet: The

Red of blood,

  Pain cries
      At:  The resiliency
         Of Prejudice,

  CHANGE: The

Way things are: The
Way things have always been: The
Way things might otherwise be?


Gil Hoy is a regular contributor to The New Verse News.  He is a Boston trial lawyer and studied poetry at Boston University, majoring in philosophy. Gil started writing his own poetry and fiction a year ago.  Since then, his poems and fiction have been published in multiple journals, most recently in Third Wednesday, Stepping Stones Magazine, The Potomac and The Zodiac Review.