THE BANALITY OF MASS SHOOTINGS

by Julie A. Dickson

Photo from “Terror on Repeat: A rare look at the devastation caused by AR-15 shootings” in The Washington Post, November 16, 2023. WaPo Editor’s note: The photos, videos and personal accounts [in the report] are extremely disturbing and may be too upsetting for some people.

Repetition in media, another shooting
should sound as old news, except that
tragic loss of life keeps occurring, 
 
more automatic weapons in the hands
of unstable, unhappy humans;
we should have realized, they say
 
each time,  the signs were all there,
an uprising follows: gun rights for some,
while others weep redundantly each time
 
more are shot. The banality of killings,
mass slaughter should lead to change,
not complacency and resignation.

Julie A. Dickson regularly submits to online and printed journals. Her poetry is seen in over 70 journals, including Blue Heron Review, Hotel of Broken Hearts, Ekphrastic Review, and The New Verse News. She writes from art prompts, current events, nature and environment. Her elephant poems help to advocate for captive zoo and circus elephants to be sent to sanctuaries. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science and shares her home with two rescued feral cats.

WHAT (KIND OF) COUNTRY

by Jen Schneider

Adam Maida / The Atlantic ; Getty

what (kind of) country / ‘tis of thee
hosts parents on video streams 
to plead for safety of schools & children
/ amidst stains & stained solutions / full

of propositions & prepositions
 

to paint / not of 
            watercolors / of blood

to stay quiet / not to 
            nap / to survive

            to arm teachers / not of 
            books / with bullets

            to dial 911 / not as 

            a drill / as a final word

 

to dodge rocks turned rounds
to climbs hills turned mountains
to fight – against & again  

for their lives / before men
            in suits / in primetime
 
what (kind of) country / ‘tis of thee
values weapons more than life
counts more guns than people 
hosts rallies alongside funerals
for primetime performance 

what (kind of) country / ’tis of thee
identifies children by sneaker color
normalizes imbalance / numbers
of mass shootings & days in a year
with guns the leading cause 
of death of children / primed
for primetime performance  

what (kind of) country / ‘tis of thee
invokes names & images 
of emmett till / napalm girl
on primetime to debate / the value of life

scales forever tilted against the innocent
a country stained & forever shamed

my country / ‘tis of thee
            / of thee i weep

Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.

NO JUSTICE

by Mary Saracino 

Source: Pinterest

In what pocket of my heart do I shove my grief  

over vigilante white boys being exonerated?

In this land of justice, justice was not served.

The scales of Lady Justice have been upended. 

The blindfold covering her eyes has been torn asunder.

She weeps with outrage.

She wails with sorrow.

She sees the abuse of power.

She calls us to resist.

And for the preservation of humankind

we must act

for love is a verb

and resistance is the antidote

to evil, to fear, to hatred,

the only medicine that

can heal

what festers deepest in the wounds of America's inglorious story.

No shining city on the hill,

a nation founded on unspeakable atrocities

must tourniquet its bleeding limbs

suture its oozing lesions 

nurse its traumatized people back to wholeness.

Together we must embark on this  

beautiful and necessary mending.

Or die trying. 

Mary Saracino is a novelist, memoir writer, and poet. Her most recent novel Heretics: A Love Story (2014) was published by Pearlsong Press. Her novel The Singing of Swans (Pearlsong Press 2006) was named a 2007 Lambda Literary Awards finalist in the Spirituality category.