PREAMBLE

by Lucille Gang Shulklapper

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, open our floodgates to end political confusion, we are neither props nor emotional blackmailers, we are citizen cops, and justice nailers, we are the ones who know, you can’t easily track bombs that blow, limbs and lives apart, without a heart, that the NRA has erased, by not allowing taggits in gunpowder to be traced,  that one of us found the tarp bloodied, one of us found Congress studied a poll and a vote, not the body in a boat, who represents our collective desire to demand,  in this our democratic hallowed land, our voice to be respected, from the officials we elected.

Lucille Gang Shulklapper writes poetry and fiction.  She has been published in many journals and anthologies, as well as in four poetry chapbooks.

GUN RUNNERS

by Frederick Shiels

We blame the NRA and we are right
We blame the senators who promised and who fled
We blame those deaf to Gabby Giffords' words
We blame the treason to the Newtown dead,

Children who might have grown to shoot a gun
With 10, 20, 30-round clips at firing ranges
Or much more likely so our pollsters say
Joined generations in demanding changes,

We’re told that frontier heritage floods the veins
Of hunters bred from generations shooting game
To feed their families, or to settle scores, or
Amendment Two invoked to silence 'Shame'!

Cried out by families of the dead and maimed
And those who stand With them, asking why
Their Congress fears those background checks and more
The voters who will end their time upon the Hill,

The NRA ‘knows’ it’s people and not guns that kill
And more, that offense is the best defense
And so it falls to Bloomberg, you and me
To jettison sweet reason for sweet cash,

To target at election time not just
Those who caved to those who swore to stand
Against the firearms absolutists, but those
Who never gave a thought to voting Yes,

Yes to sane measures-- these must be made to sweat
Offense best defense indeed and yet,
At last only more educated wrath will win
Souls at the polls to redefine what’s Sin.

Sin is allowing the likes of Wayne Pierre
To frame the debate year after year after year.


Frederick Shiels is an aspiring poet and Prof. Emeritus of Politics and History at Mercy College. A few of his longtime friends are Second Amendment nuts.

A DREAM ACT

by Sandra Larson

        In memory of Joaquin Luna Jr.

18-year-old Joaquin Luna Jr. took his own life in November 2011 in his home in Mission, Texas. His parents reported he was depressed because, although a very good student, he was receiving only rejection letters from colleges and was also disappointed when the Dream Act failed to pass through the US Congress.  He did receive one acceptance letter after his death. 

Image source: Tucson Citizen

 

He pressed the revolver

underneath his chin

and fired.  

Its force

toppling

his forest

of feeling,

a wind storm

sapping his life

pieces now

splattered

on the bathroom tiles.

Quiet,

hear the dripping

of hope, the draining

of dreams for college,

a career in engineering.  Blue-

prints on the floor.

His desk is neat.

Letters stacked

upon it ask,

Are you a citizen?

The steely word –illegal?

Illegal, illegal

echoes

through the rooms

ricocheting

off his parents,

brothers’ grief.

The only response,

of puffed-up politicians,

Build a wall, build a wall, a wall!

America shoots another one.

A native of New Jersey, Sandra Sidman Larson is a retired manager and leader from the nonprofit world in the Twin Cities of Minnesota who has lived and traveled coast to coast and across the seven continents for work and for adventure. She’s been writing poetry for a quarter century and most recently she was selected for the Foreword Program at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, a program established to assist promising writers produce a manuscript for publication. Along the way she has seen her poems appear in magazines and journals and she also has three published chapbooks.  In 1996 poet Naomi Shihab Nye nominated her for a Pushcart Prize.

HAIKU IN THE MODERN ERA

by Sandra Eisdorfer

(Photo: NASA Goddard)

    initiatives:
    immigration  gun control
    onto mindfulness

    choice: Roe at 40
    diplomacy  not bullets
    meditation soon

    Arab spring winters
    climate  changes coastlines now
    await inner peace


Sandra Eisdorfer was a university press editor (Duke, University of North Carolina Press, Oxford), now teaches writing classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke University.

GUN CONTROL

by Jonathan Flike



Revolution dreams every policy
opposed to red elephant values
Southern successions revisited
saving colors that don’t run
from freedom hating Kenyans,
change witch doctor huts to prefabs
justifying semi-auto ownership
and mass killing violence with
discount T-shirt slogans,
“guns don’t kill people
people kill people.”
Simple facts that baseball bats
murder less than quickly changed clips
on unsuspecting movie goers
temporary burdens on six
pallbearers carrying bodies
safe to the grave
the only safety guaranteed
soon forgotten by the masses.
Public discourse talks of
policy’s failure to divert death
in totality never touching
the golden cow with a
butt branded number two,
refuse the compromise saying
one life saved is worth more
than circular retorts
clouded necessity for
exploding shells
stashes of bullets
caches of guns
simply to hoard
till the day the Democrats
come to take it all away
failing to confirm America
lacks any form of
self-control.


Jonathan Flike is a writer, artist, and starving student. His poems have appeared in Viewpoints and Wilde Magazine. Jonathan’s first major collection of poetry, Tales from Room 225, was published in June, 2011. His second collection, It Gets Worse, is set for a February 2013 release date.

CLIMATE CHANGE

by David Chorlton

 

Image source: The Climate Reality Project

 

After the recorded message

came a living voice

asking for help in stopping the president

weeks before his inauguration.

Which of these issues do you think

is most important?

I said Climate change,

she spoke right over me, beginning with

Voter fraud, and I repeated myself.

Then she suggested the assault

on second amendment rights.

Climate change.

She pretended not to hear, and went on

to repealing Obamacare.

I told her nothing else would matter

when the planet gasps for breath.

She named the candidate

who would lead the way

and asked if I’d help.

Why did you call this number?

She told me I must have supported the cause

in the past. I told her

What matters is Climate change.

She assured me it isn’t too early

to begin sending money.

Let me get this right; we’re heading

into the future fully armed

with God’s love to guide us,

the stars and stripes flying, marching to Souza

and glory bound. She paused a few seconds

before saying

Yes, and I could tell right then

that in politics, the climate

will never change.

 

 

David Chorlton has lived in Phoenix since 1978, and still sees his surroundings with an outsider's eye. This helps his writing projects, which include a new poetry collection, "The Devil's Sonata," from FutureCycle Press.

TO THE DEAD

by Sarah Edwards

They say

you died for something noble

flag

cause

defense

revolution

greater good

They say

you died for something gained.

​ground

​territory

​respect

​equality

​justice

But if you are a child…

they say

this time you died for nothing

except my right to kill you

before you learn nobility and gain,

before you get a chance to choose

what is worth dying for

Rev. Sarah Edwards is a retired clergyperson in the United Church of Christ.  She is active in the North Carolina Poetry Society, is a student of poetry at Duke University and the poetry of life.

TROJAN

by J. Bradley

With Friday’s school shooting in Connecticut reviving the national debate over gun control, some Louisville gun shops said Saturday they were already seeing an uptick in customers concerned that the shootings could lead to stricter gun regulations.
“There is an increase in calls and sales,” said Steve Hixenbaugh, owner of Oakwood Guns in Middletown. “Any time a tragedy like this happens, people do worry some type of legislation will go through.” --CourierJournal.com

In my country, we use bullets
as birth control.

Yet the parking lots of gun factories,
the sidewalks parallel to gun shops,
the stalls of shooting ranges remain
clean of poster board outrage.

The cycle whirs; we’ll always
keep the axle greased.

J. Bradley is a contributing writer for Specter Magazine and the Interviews Editor of PANK Magazine. He lives at iheartfailure.net.