I wrote this after seeing Anti-Flag in 2021, based off an a moment I witnessed during the show.
Band of Brothers
Four shows in
after 15 months
off the road,
off of the stage.
In the middle of a song
the bass player
rests his head
on his guitarist’s shoulder.
A quick few seconds
that seemed to last
an eternal moment.
*****
I wrote this after a Koffin Kats' show earlier in 2022.
Community
Last night I was among friends
in a crowd of strangers.
We enter into the venue
dressed in various garments of black.
We get our drinks,
jest with the bartenders.
We stand in our own groups
around hightop tables
or leaning against the bar.
A one-man-bad takes the stage,
some of us gather around
some of us stay put.
But we all watch, listen, revel in
this musician who is honest about life,
and we understand him.
The headlining band takes the stage
and most of us gather up front.
The music starts and we all move in rhythm
bouncing off of each other, laughing,
falling, and getting back up again.
We are lost in the moment
of another night of music
and the comradery that comes with it.
*****
Springfield, MO, where people wear
“Let’s Go Brandon” shirts to their doctor’s office,
where an anti-Vicky Hartzler ad tries
to paint her as too left to represent her district.
Our square, which has a sordid past itself,
was filled with Abortion Rights activists
on a sun-filled Saturday morning.
After not one person showed up at 5pm
outside our courtroom
the day after that supreme court leak.
I show up early,
find a shady spot of grass
and read a book of poetry
not far from an older woman
who had the same idea,
the square fills up around us.
Through the crowd I spot
an elderly woman sitting in her lawn chair,
a white sign with black block lettering
propped up by her chair,
I Remember
A trio of young women fill in beside me.
One holds a white sign,
My Rights As A Woman > Studying For Finals
I drive home choosing the route
that would take me by our local
Planned Parenthood,
where you cannot obtain an abortion, now adorned
with a baby blue sign and white lettering,
Still Here
Again & Again & Again & So On
Ten years ago I wrote a poem
about elementary school children slaughtered
in their classroom.
Today I am writing the same poem.
Anytime I hear of death by bullets
I imagine a bullet ripping through a thick layer of flesh,
barreling through tough muscle,
hitting a sturdy bone.
That’s not what happened
in that, excuse me, those schools.
I can’t write the words,
my brain won’t let me imagine
those bullets anywhere near those small bodies.
All that’s in my mind,
all that has been since we learned the detail,
are families who had to supply their DNA
to match one of those small bodies
unidentifiable from the barrage of bullets
from a gun designed only to kill humans.
In the USA, the NRA reigns supreme
above the lives of citizens
no matter what age,
above decency and logical thinking,
above the dignity of a nation.
