COST ANALYSIS

by Ed Bennett

When the Senate passed an expensive border-security measure two weeks ago, the fate of immigration reform in that chamber was all but sealed. The amendment made the overhaul easier to swallow for some Senate Republicans, paving the way for its passage last week. But the added measures also mean the government won't be saving as much money as first thought, according to a new Congressional Budget Office estimate. --Niraj Chokshi, National Journal, July 3, 2013

It’s all over, as they say,
except for the shouting.

Sixty votes obtained
on the contrails of the last election, the promise of presidents to come;

but shout they will
with every word and sentiment
aimed at brown skins and accents, that brave new world of inclusion.

Lets do the math:
six billion to open the door,
forty five thousand per head
to keep out the rest,
twelve million votes, give or take,
new to this canvas of electoral politics.

If you cannot stop the rush of history
or the perfidy of the Upper House,
do the math,
run the numbers,
call the count until the figures
roll up against a frail economy
to ask the question:
“Can we afford?”
“Dare we spend?”

Then we will digitize them,
distill their humanity into dollars and cents,
(they will be easier to ignore that way)
and our knock about faith
will be justified with numbers
as smooth as the cash count
at a teller’s window,

as empty as a hypocrite heaven
on an unexpected judgement day.


Ed Bennett is a poet and reviewer living in Las Vegas, NV. His works have appeared in The Externalist, Touch: The Journal of Healing, The Lavender Review, Quill and Parchment and Lilipo. He is a staff editor for Quill and Parchment Magazine, the recipient of a Pushcart Nomination and the author of “A Transit of Venus”.

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.

THE BEN NELSON

by Llyn Clague

"Former Sen. Ben Nelson . . . the holdout who eventually provided the key vote for President Barack Obama’s health care law, will head up the nonpartisan National Association of Insurance Commissioners . . . As CEO, earning nearly $1 million a year, Nelson will be a leading intermediary between the states and Washington." -- Politico, January 23, 2012

Image source: Mario Piperni dot Com

In wrestling, a full nelson is against the rules
because you could break the fucker’s neck.
When I competed, back in middle school,
the rules, applied to all, kept us in check.

In politics, we now have the “ben nelson,”
which says, there is one rule for me and mine,
and a different one for every one else:
a plum for my state, but not the other 49.

The deal that Ben Nelson struck was a bear:               
in return for his vote on the Senate floor
he demanded the Feds pay Nebraska ’s share
of Medicaid – costs all states bear for the poor.

That morsel was not as-usual earmark stew –
a military base for him, a prison for her,
a highway for me, maybe a bridge for you –
swaps, trade-offs, a bite for every cur.            

Nor was it made on principle or conscience,
like opposition to taxes or abortion,
or deeply held personal values: it shunts
all that aside:  it was naked extortion.

In curt terms, it was a raw grab,
taking me-ism to a new level,  
and part of what made it so bad –
it was to go on forever,

leaving every single other state
paying its own, plus Nebraska’s, aid
“in perpetuity.”  Oh, there is so much to hate
with yet another tranche of trust betrayed.
                                  
But it takes two to do dirty deals,
one to sell, and the other to buy.
Men from his own party concocted this sleaze,
using “historic ends” as their alibi.

Will the ben nelson itself break the neck
of the body politic?  No, probably not.
This particular piece of dreck
is only one year’s stink in the overall rot.

Yet ben nelson does deserve a special place
in the long, checkered history of public service.
It imagined a wholly new hold to debase
wrestling, making our life distinctly worse,

and his name, Ben Nelson, shall forever stand
as the utter opposite of Nathan Hale,
who gave his young life for our young land –
for a man, body and soul, up for sale.


Llyn Clague’s poems have been published widely, including in Atlanta Review, Wisconsin Review, California Quarterly, Main Street Rag, New York Quarterly, Ibbetson Street.  His sixth book, The I in India and US, was published by Main Street Rag in 2012.

PACKING HEAT IN THE PEW

by Earl J. Wilcox

Image source: HotDogma

Arkansas Senate OKs concealed weapons in church --USA TODAY, January 29, 2013

If you don’t like the preacher calling you out---
sinners, fornicators, back sliders, whoremongers,
two timers, lukewarm Christians, dead beat dads---
responding to the Word is an altar call to arms.
Say Amen like the NRA and gun-toting patriots.
Answer the call with a bullet in the barrel,
blow the messenger to kingdom come.


Earl J. Wilcox writes about aging, baseball, literary icons, politics, and southern culture. His work appears in more than two dozen journals; he is a regular contributor to The New Verse News. More of Earl's poetry appears at his blog, Writing by Earl.

GOING OVER

by Marjorie Maddox





not the white cliffs of Dover, but our own steep igneous face,
weathered to the core, all fossilized
values chipped away—with pick, with chisel—
while the granite-grey sledgehammer in the room
of House and Senate smashes three hundred million
blue-collar manufactured piggy banks
into bipartisan shards, and the coins, their faces
likewise eroded, cascade like water-
                                                                   falls.


Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 8 poetry collections, 2 children's books, and over 400 poems, stories, and essays in journals and anthologies. Co-editor of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, she is the recipient of numerous awards.