A Moral Failure; poems by Michael Dickel and Jamie Dedes written in the aftermath of shootings; protests and resources

 

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“Cowardice asks the question – is it safe? Expediency asks the question – is it politic? Vanity asks the question – is it popular? But conscience asks the question – is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.” Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. from his speech, A Proper Sense of Priorities, February 6, 1968, Washington, D.C.

When we speak or write about gun control, the fingers point to second amendment rights, to the suggestion that a complex problem may resolve with the application of one strategy, or to the NRA position and lobby. Democracy is messy, but safety and citizen rights are the concerns rational people hold in common.

No matter the side on which we stand, we are guilty of a moral failure. Gun control is not going to be the entire answer. It’s a beginning and as the U.K., Australia, Japan and Germany have proven it’s a huge and rewarding beginning. I think that most who advocate gun control understand that the issues of violence in America are complex. Not the least of other initiatives would be mental health interventions, mitigating poverty and youth unemployment, creating more educational opportunities and subsidizing arts programs, revisioning our materialistic values, fostering the reimagination of masculinity, and honoring our stated religious convictions. Many of us understand gun ownership as the gateway drug to violence and murder, a contradiction to those convictions. The U.S. is predominantly a country of the Abrahamic traditions and the law we share: “Thou shalt not kill.”

– Jamie Dedes

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A Priest’s Lament

i

Starting from the outside,

the labyrinth’s path moves closer,

further, closer, as it takes a poet

deviously toward the center.

 

Mosaic patterns, partly broken

by frost, perpetually bloom there.

Gray, mossed-stones line the path—

they frame the wanderer’s flower.

 

ii

We wandered that desert

for forty years. All we had

for communication were

specially designed tents

 

built from detailed plans—

each folding floorboard

and floating nail exact—

a cellular plan from God.

 

iii

That lonely God longed for

our calls, the return of a gift

we could not understand.

We just turned on each other

 

instead. We hoarded words

into locked arks as though

we owned them or understood

what they meant. We didn’t.

 

iv

We meant to know more. Ever since,

with poor reception, a limited data plan,

we still pretend we can call God

whenever we want. We pray

 

for every child shot in school

as though words could unlock

such cruelty. We pray that we

will not long be held responsible.

 

v

I long for the days before

those instructions were given,

before we built the tabernacle,

before we transformed the tent

 

to stone on top of a mountain,

before we thought we knew

what God wanted us to do,

before we decided we were priests.

 

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Poem of separation (kodesh)

(vi)

A wandering God longs for us

from outside a forty-year labyrinth,

folding time, returning space, locked

into receiving words that cannot be given.

 

We thought we knew.

 

(vii)

On the seventh day, God rested.

We have not seen or heard

Creation since. Our language

overwhelms the world.

 

We thought we knew.

© 2018, poem, Michael Dickel (Meta/ Phor(e) /Play), All rights reserved (Written during the 100,000 Poets for Change 2018 Lake Jackson Poetry Residency Program)

February 23, 2018 — 7:00 pm

Poetry Reading with Michael Dickel
A Sublimatus / HamiltonSeen Production
The River Trading Company Bookstore
Facebook Page | Facebook Event
559 Barton St. East
Hamilton, ON L8L 2Z2  Canada

A note from Michael:

Stoneman High School students who survived the shooting are resisting. If you haven’t yet, see the widely shared video of one articulate student “calling” BS the excuses and people refusing to ban assault weapons through her tears. Facebook Page: March for Our Lives

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Collateral Damage

bullets
……….perforated

and were laid to rest in her
sterile room on steel tables
lined-up like school children
awaiting lessons

Math

counting wounds, counting dead

Biology

which the death-dealing injury

innocent life forms wept

….trees
……..birds
…………earth
…………….sky

children

in the stillness between breaths
she boxed and stored her tears
making way for scalpel and saw

best

yes, best

to keep her heart locked-down

until . . . until

a whiskey

a bed

oblivion

©  2018, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

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I AM NOT A SILENT POET

UK POET, REUBEN WOOLLEY hosts a zine, I Am Not a Silent Poet, and a Facebook Discussion Page. You may post to the later and submit to the zine.  There are already some anti-gun violence/pro-legislation pieces shared. Check them out.

“I am not a silent poet welcomes quality poems of protest. We have been seeing such increasing evidence of abuse recently that we felt it was time to do something. I am not a silent poet looks for poems about abuse in any of its forms: colour, gender, disability, the dismantlement of the care services, the privatisation of health services, the rape culture, FGM, our girls in Nigeria are just some of the examples that come to mind at the moment. It is not a site for rants.

“Please send all contributions for consideration to: reubenwoolley52@gmail.com. I would prefer attachments (especially for poems with unusual formatting and graphic material. You can add a brief biographical note and/or link to your website or blog.” Reuben Woolley

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