Search Results for: Paul Brookes

Hummingbird, Flowers | Paul Brookes

Hummingbird

Country people say when a hummingbird
flies in at your window it brings a love 
message to someone in your home. Unheard
Love quivers against the ceiling, ‘til love

stunned and exhausted, unless caught, released,
is found dead in rooms little used, entered 
unperceived. Outside love defends cities 
of nectar flowers when found invaded.

Increases intensity and the speed
of its song to ward off intruders. Knocked
Down it revives and returns to succeed,
Keep its territory, invaders stopped.

Bold and fearless tiny love makes very
Good battle when it is necessary.

      Extrapolated from a passage in “Rural Hours” by Susan Fennimore Cooper
Ukraine Flowers
©2022 Vera Shanti Giles

Flowers

Amongst the ruins where some are cut down.
Sunflowers grow in their soil, where others
fall, Chamomile grows. In between fired rounds
We harvest the dead, as oilseed croppers.

Make tea from our enemies, helps us sleep.
Carve sunflowers into wood furniture,
weave them into girls celebration wreaths.
They protect us from evil, provide cures.

Bullets, missiles and bombs are seeds blasted
Into one another. Skin is good earth.
Violent kernels kill targets planted
in soil amongst ruins that hold their worth.

Victims of war always nation’s flowers.
Memorialise in time’s quiet hours.

©2021 Paul Brookes
All rights reserved

Paul Brookes…

…is a shop asst. Lives in a cat house full of teddy bears. First play performed at The Gulbenkian Theatre, Hull. His chapbooks include The Fabulous Invention Of Barnsley, (Dearne Community Arts, 1993). A World Where and She Needs That Edge (Nixes Mate Press, 2017, 2018) The Spermbot Blues (OpPRESS, 2017), Please Take Change (Cyberwit.net, 2018), As Folk Over Yonder ( Afterworld Books, 2019). He is a contributing writer of Literati Magazine and Editor of Wombwell Rainbow Interviews, book reviews and challenges. Had work broadcast on BBC Radio 3 The Verb and, videos of his Self Isolation sonnet sequence featured by Barnsley Museums and Hear My Voice Barnsley. He also does photography commissions. Most recent is a poetry collaboration with artworker Jane Cornwell: “Wonderland in Alice, plus other ways of seeing”, (JCStudio Press, 2021)

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Orange Flower by Misoslave Panayotova
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Table of Contents

Kept Promises | Paul Brookes

 

day is summer’s horse, called Skin
whose smooth mane shines bright
over my spiral horned cows
and black faced sheep chewing cud,

drags their shadows over fresh
grass like a dark memory,
ahead of cold night’s black mane,
nuzzle foam flecks fall as dew

as I recall yonks ago
a promise I makes to boss
of these riches and a blue
dun stallion gallops pasture.

My promise that if any
other man than me or Boss
rides this horse called Boss’s Mane,
I’ll know, find them and kill them.

I hires Lone Soldier, eldest
son of my neighbour, who makes
promise lad is hard worker
and no flibbity gibbit.

Everyday Lone takes my
black faced sheep to safe pasture
returns them come that evening,
cuts fire wood, looks after Boss’s

Mane and his 12 mares, I tell
him about my promise, that
he can use other horses
for whatever, whenever.

Lone agrees ” Very fair deal.”
and promises to do his
best, and pulls his rag out
for whole of sweated summer,

but one day, some sheep flit off
he can’t find them anywhere,
he scours fields for entire week,
so ragged, he goes to the mares,

to ride one to search yonder
fields, but when he turns up, all
mares scatter, only Boss’s
Mare stand stock still as a stone.

If he rides it his promise
not to will be broken, if
he decides not to, his vow
to care for farm is broken.

Lone ponders that to keep one
promise must break another,
reckons as sheep more valued
and only way to find sheep

is on Boss’s Mane, judges
as riding him back in time
I’ll never know about this.
On Boss’s he finds lost sheep.

returns all sheep to their place,
doing his job as always.
And as not needed Boss’s
gallops all way home to me,

till near my farm, I see him
sodden with sweat, steam rises
off his flanks like mist off a
morning lake, muddy, panting,

so I know someone has ridden him
and it weren’t Boss, so I goes
with an axe in search of Lone,
and after long chat, I asks

“Did you ride Boss’s Mane?” He
couldn’t deny it, so tells
me the truth. “Thas done well in
telling truth. I would forgive

thee but I’m bound by promise,
and when promises are made,
bound to be kept, as you know.”
so I kills him with my axe

make a decent grave for him.
Lone’s father weren’t happy.
Tha can’t break thee promises,
no matter hassle tha has.

night is winter’s horse, called Frost
who’s rime mane darkens more
over my spiral horned cows
and black faced sheep chewing cud.

© Paul Brookes

Unpalatable Truths | Paul Brookes

 

are those you cannot hold
in your mouth
make you want to retch
to clear your gob

and then eat something sweet
to take the taste away.

And knowing you need
to tell another a truth
they do not want to hear
makes you want to delay
the fetch, makes you consider
the depth of sweetness
you need to take the feeling

away

© Paul Brookes

Post Factual Poem | Paul Brookes

 

Whatever you say
whatever you do
is wrong, wrong, wrong.

I have facts that directly contradict
your facts, because your facts are wrong.
If you can’t believe the facts
believe the truth.

© Paul Brookes

Three Poems by Paul Brookes

Path Of Seeds

O, Lady of the breath,
selfish and in control

you decide the path of seeds
you carry and drop in my grove.

Landscape architect place
an acorn here, a daisy here,
chestnut over there. No negotiation.

Blow my intricate clocks into half spheres,
my Sycamore immigrants spin
through your gusts.

Shoot moss into these worn mortared walls.
Broadcast grass between thess carefully
laid pavements.

With you I have no choice
you deliver into me
whatever you hold.

I welcome your unexpected gifts.

A Dawn Chorus

O, Lady of the Breath.
how to arc in your air?

A dozen or more tiny caves
sing you into the world

from the trillbudded barkskin
volume and delivery

a root that connects with
its origin tree,

broadcasts to my ears,
territory songs,

and chat up lines, a Saturday
night on the town played out

on a morning before the wormshop,
home repair, teach bairns how to fly.

My Shape

of saying took time
for us to practice.

for me to know how much
of you is needed for each word,

or phrase, how I must shape
Your entry and exit for you

To carry my meaning out
clearly and audibly and your

vibrations welcomed in the ears
of others. At a start without confidence,

I manhandled your curves, mumbled
and fumbled our airy pattern,

apprentice to your greater experience
that gently taught me not to be so rough,

to be considerate of my delivery, conduct
a gentle assault on my hearers.

© 2017, Paul Brookes

Posted in General Interest

CELEBRATING MOTHERS EVERYWHERE: A Special Mini Edition of The BeZine

Posted on by Jamie Dedes

“My mother: She is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.” Judi Picoult

Dedicated  to moms everywhere and in every time

I live in the United States where we traditionally celebrate Mothers’ Day in May, but the acknowledgment of mothers, mothering, and maternal bonds is not unique to this time and place. Simply put, Mothers’ Day in the U.S. reminds me to do something special and always this recognition includes all those fathers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, older siblings and family friends … sometimes even teachers or neighbors … who fulfill the role of mother for those children who have lost theirs.

Truth to tell, this is an accidental edition of The BeZine, totally spontaneous. I asked our core team if anyone had mom material at the ready. I was thinking in terms of one or two blog posts. Some did and, as though my mind was read, a couple of writers coincidentally contacted me asking if I would publish a poem they’d written for their mother or for Mothers’ Day.  Why not? I put out a call to a few other gracious people and voilà! … an unexpected delight.

These are largely poems of love and gratitude (grab a hankie) including a sweet and well-written poem from Kennedy Stewart, our youngest contributor yet. Please enjoy this charming and thoughtful compilation and forgive me for making a quick and casual job of it.

Thanks to all our devoted, generous, and prescient contributors.

Illustration courtesy of Mohamed Mohamed Mahmoud Hassan, Public Domain Pictures.net

On behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines,
and in the spirit of love (respect) and community,
Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor

TABLE OF CONTENTS

How to read this issue of THE BeZINE:You can read each piece individually by clicking the links in the Table of Contents or you can click HERE and scroll through the entire zine.

The Ballad of Stabat Mater, John Anstie

His Mother Bellows, Paul Brookes

Magnum Opus, Naomi Baltuck

Disjunction (in English and Albanian), Frank Buzhala

Your Magic, Loving, Linda Chown

Out of the Womb of Time, Jamie Dedes

A Separate Peace, Jamie Dedes

Your Mother Is Always with You, Isadora de la Vega

Tribute, Sharon Frye

Those Before Me, Sharon Frye

Letter to My Mother: The Only Inhabitant of Heaven, Iulia Gherghei

Conflict, Silva Zanoyan Merjanian

“Broken Homes” … Single Moms, Remarkable Son, Gil Scott-Heron

My Mother’s, bogpan (Bozhidar Pangelov)

The Apple and the Tree, Kennedy Stewart

Mothers’ Day, Different Thoughts, Anjum Wasim Dar

The BeZine: Be Inspired, Be Creative, Be Peace, Be (the subscription feature is below and to your left.)

Daily Spiritual Practice: Beguine Again, a community of Like-Minded People

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SUBMISSIONS:

Read Info/Missions Statement, Submission Guidelines, and at least one issue before you submit. Updates on Calls for Submissions and other activities are posted on the Zine blog and The Poet by Day.

His Mother Bellows

“Jack, no.” as he bursts out their open

kitchen door past his garden toys

 

boy let’s a tiny plastic bag he clutches go

so it balloons with summer air

 

where it floats amongst lion’s teeth wends

bends a way above cut grass

 

fast up and over his red and yellow plastic slide,

glides Into his neighbours garden,

 

kitchen calls his feet back to fetch another

mother bellows again “Jack, no!”

© 2019, Paul Brookes

Posted in The BeZine, The BeZine Table of Contents

The BeZine, March 2019, Vol. 6, Issue 1, Waging Peace

Posted on by Jamie Dedes

The Mass of Humanity from the Fountain of Time Sculpture by Lorado Taft

“May there be peace in the heavens, peace in the atmosphere, peace on the earth. Let there be coolness in the water, healing in the herbs and peace radiating from the trees. Let there be harmony in the planets and in the stars, and perfection in eternal knowledge. May everything in the universe be at peace. Let peace pervade everywhere, at all times. May I experience that peace within my own heart.” Yajur Veda 36.17)

At The BeZine when we discuss Waging Peace, we mean radical peace. We mean putting down weapons and using words. We are realists. We don’t envision a utopia. We do envision compromise, an imperfect peace but peace non-the-less.

Some of our contributors rightfully see Waging Peace as a path that starts with inner peace. Others were moved to bear witness, to raise consciousness, or to imagine a world at peace and some are inspired to suggest potential solutions.

It’s quite a package we gift you with today from poets and writers representing several of the world’s wisdom traditions and about ten countries including those of the U.K., Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Indian Subcontinent, Africa, and the U.S.. Soul stirring. Thought provoking.  Satisfying.

Thanks to all our contributors, to our core team members, and to the readers who are an important part of this effort. Please read, “like”, and comment. You – and your thoughts – are valued.

On behalf of The Bardo Group Begines
and in the spirit of love (respect) and community,
Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor

Photo credit: Fountain of Time courtesy of Johntb17  (Wikipedia) under CC BY-SA 3.0

TABLE OF CONTENTS

How to read this issue of THE BeZINE:You can read each piece individually by clicking the links in the Table of Contents or you can click HERE and scroll through the entire zine.

BeAtitudes

Keeping Quiet, Pablo Neruda

Peace Rocks and Peace Roles, Corina Ravenscraft

Insecurity …, John Anstie

Pity the Nation and Let Us Be Poets, Voices of the Poet Prophets, Khalil Gibran & Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Poems

There’s a Chance, Johannes Beilharz

The Love in the Heart, Faruk Buzhala

The Way of Blessing, Wendy Bourke
Righteous Path, Wendy Bourke

Ethnic Cleanser, Paul Brooks
A Wealth, Paul Brookes
On Innocence, Paul Brookes
I’m Just About, Paul Brookes
Warlord, Paul Brookes
Two Tied, Paul Brookes
She Says, Paul Brookes

Ancient Messenger, Judy Capurso

At the End of War, DeWitt Clinton

Under Siege, Mahmoud Darwish

The Flautist Wears a Shaman’s Headdress, Jamie Dedes
The Plotting of a Story, Jamie Dedes
The Razor’s Edge, Jamie Dedes

Peace Alphabet, Michael Dickel
Here I Stand, Michael Dickel

Picket Fences, Irma Do
Tundra, Irma Do
Recycling Shakespeare for a Better World, Irma Do

Why You Came to Earth, Tikvah Feinstein

Boats on Blue, Joan Leotta
Damascus Cloak, Joan Leotta

the rock tumbler, Charles W. Martin

My Five-Five Fingers, Tomisin Olusala Martins
Flowers of Embers, Tomisin Olusala Martins

Only Collaboration, Carolyn O’Connell

Totem Stump, Myra Schneider

Open Door, Moe Seager

The Irony of Plowshares, Mike Stone

Drop the Guns and Let Us Be Poets, Anjum Wasim Dar

CONNECT WITH US

The BeZine: Be Inspired, Be Creative, Be Peace, Be (the subscription feature is below and to your left.)

Daily Spiritual Practice: Beguine Again, a community of Like-Minded People

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Twitter, The Bardo Group Beguines

SUBMISSIONS:

Read Info/Missions Statement, Submission Guidelines, and at least one issue before you submit. Updates on Calls for Submissions and other activities are posted on the Zine blog and The Poet by Day.

Ethnic Cleanser

Removes unsightly
grease and dirt of people
who spoil your landscape.

Cleans as it polishes, replaces
their awful smell with fresh fragrances.
Their profane beliefs with fresh air.
Their noisy children with heavenly quiet.
Our history with revised pages.
Preserves our pure culture.

They are an infection that will be eradicated.
Their unmarked graves forgotten.

Ethnic cleanser for a cleaner society.
Buy into this great product.
Popularly known as genocide.

© 2019, Paul Brookes

A Wealth

 of mankind

in a pile of naked emaciated bodies

flopped over one another,

People as things

rugs, blankets on a market stall

elaborate designs or plain

to put beside a fireplace.

 

Riches beyond avarice

in faces pinched into skulls.

Concave stomachs, prominent ribs

I had only ever seen in Christian Aid

adverts, famine victims.

 

Beneath quiet fields and woodland

their bones move years after

the weight of soil thrown over them.

the dead and disappeared move

towards their discovery

in shallower ground. Time

walks over their graves

building motorways and railways.

Grief takes time in small steps,

one softly after another.

We walk on unremembered bones.

A forgotten treasure.

© 2019, Paul Brookes

On Innocence

Below the infant school and nursery
we work on chemical weapons.

Every child is a bomb.
Parents hold the trigger button.

Our hospital is a munitions factory,
Our churches are suicide training centres.

All our official military installations are fake.
Beneath family holiday centres we are nuclear.

© 2019, Paul Brookes

I’m Just About

I’m just about

managing between the barricades

My kids play between sniper targets.

I fetch the shop through broken
buildings perforated by gunshot,

past cars jammed across streets.

I’m just about managing between regimes.

Previously published in I Am Not A Silent Poet.

© 2019, Paul Brookes

Warlord

loves to be entertained.
After a battle where skulls are blown apart
he loves to sit and laugh at Anthem For Doomed Youth.

After a skirmish in which men are screaming
with half a leg or arm bone shattered
by shrapnel, he guffaws at Dulce Decorum Est.

The more graphic, the more comic to him.
He says if you don’t laugh you’ll cry.
Laughter is healthy. Laughter is human.

Laughter affirms life, essential before
a fight amidst bullets, stabs and snipers.

“Oh What A Lovely War”, is his favourite film.
“All Quiet On The Western Front” a comic classic.

He knows we laugh at what we fear most.
War is like great stand up when you can barely

breathe for laughter, your sides hurt
as if they need stiches. War is medicinal.

From Paul’s collection, Port Of Souls, Alien Buddha Press, 2017

© 2019, Paul Brookes

Two Tied

Two Tied

Fishtails. Mam and me,
Swim away from his slaughter

Of friends and neighbours,
Fall of Ash and mortar,

Taste of burning skin.
Not sure who me father is,

As me mam goes with owt
In trousers. Her first names

Promiscuous but folk, ‘specially men
call her Promise. She calls me Lust.

Me Dad could be Chaos or War.
Me mam’s been with both.

We’ve scarpered from Destruction
who clamours atta end on us all.

Mam and me lept into watta,
as fish tied together wi ship rope

So as we can’t drift apart,
tho ad be glad if we could

as ad like a life a me own
not chained to her,

and how can I tell her
am getting younger by the day.

Soon al be a bairn with a bow and arra
and tiny wings shooting me

arras off not bothered who they hit,
an consequences of giving folk

bits of mesen, so their bodies hanker
like me mam after owt with a pulse.

From forthcoming collection “Fish Strawberries”, Alien Buddha Press, 2019

© 2019, Paul Brookes

She Says

whilst her fingers make an unbroken
run over the walls of our home:

You live in a strange world.
No bullet holes for my fingers
to play with. No blasted
holes to climb through
when playing hide and seek.

I say You get used to it.
My Grandad played on bombsites
In the fifties. The demolished
a lot.

She says, I love ruins.
Everything should be ruins.

© 2019, Paul Brookes

Posted in The BeZine, The BeZine Table of Contents

The BeZine, Vol. 5, Issue 1, March 2018—Waging Peace

Posted on by The Bardo Group Beguines

“We carry the world in our hearts: the oppression of all peoples, the suffering of our friends, the burdens of our enemies, the raping of the Earth, the hunger of the starving, the joy of every laughing child.”
—Sister Joan D. Chittister, O.S.B (b. 1936), Benedictine nun, author, and speaker

As we wage peace in this quarter’s The BeZine you’ll find exquisitely confirmed what you already know: that while the psychopaths and sociopaths will always be with us, so will the sane and sensible who are able to sit in contemplation, to recognize insanity and injustice, to frame the questions and outline issues, to open dialog and take action that will help to keep or generate the calm and rational, all first steps to a more peaceable H. sapiens kingdom.

Thank you to the contributors to this edition of The BeZine and to the twelve-member  Bardo Group Beguines core team. Special thanks also to Mike Stone and Terri Stewart for writing introductions to this quarter’s two subsections: Migration (Mike) and March on Guns (Terri).  Much much appreciation to Michael Dickel for his technical assistance and innovation.  And always, thanks to readers for their time, energy, comments and shares. You are an important part of this peace-loving collective.

“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.
All things break. And all things can be mended.
Not with time, as they say, but with intention.
So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”
—Author and counselor, L.R. Knost

On behalf of The Bardo Group Beguines
and in the spirit of peace, love (respect) and community,

—Jamie Dedes
Founding and Managing Editor
The BeZine

TABLE OF CONTENTS

How to read this issue of THE BeZINE:

Click HERE to read the entire magazine by scrolling, or
You can read each piece individually by clicking the links in the Table of Contents.
To learn more about our guests contributors, please link HERE.
To learn more about our core team members, please link HERE.

WAGING  PEACE

BeAtitudes

This Much I Know | Vandana Shiva
The Roots of Bombs | Thich Nhát Hanh
Something Helpless | Rainer Maria Rilke
Jung Drops in for Tea | Michael Watson

Photo-Story

Flowers (are like people) | Naomi Baltuck

Special Feature

A Defense of Activist Poetry | Michael Dickel

Poetry

Moon Child | John Anstie
Sunday | John Anstie

Obligations | Wendy Brown-Baez
A Taste of Honey | Wendy Brown-Baez
A Poem for Oliver | Wendy Brown-Baez

Finding | Paul Brookes
Luck, Blind and Veiled | Paul Brookes
Yon Dream Cross Had | Paul Brookes

time for the temple whores to sleep with insanity | Jamie Dedes

Peace in the House | Michael Dickel
Peace Conceit | Michael Dickel

A Friend Speaks of Tibet | Sam Hamill

She Was So Pretty When We Were Young | Joseph Hesch
Dreams of Wolf Creek, Kansas | Joseph Hesch

Why Do You Love to Hate Me | Agufa Kivuya

Rest Now, Rest | Edward Lee
The Never Ending Fall | Edward Lee
We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programing | Edward Lee

catalyst | Charles W. Martin
anthem | Charles W. Martin

A Regiment of Leaves | Osama Massarwa

Bloody Revolutions | Joshua Medsker

The Edge After | Corina Ravenscraft

Peace | Sravani Singampalli

Gesture | Phillip T. Stephens

III | Pleasant Street

A Tale of Two Cities | Mike Stone
On a Passage from the Mishna | Mike Stone

News from the Front: Guernica is Drapped | John Sullivan

A Taste for Juicy Zobo-Blood | Martins Tomisin
Steal a Glance at the Sky | Martins Tomisin

MIGRATION

by Mike Stone

I’m both a third-generation American and a first-generation Israeli. My immediate roots are English-Scotch-Irish and Russian. That said, except those born in a narrow region of Africa, we are all immigrants who came from Africa (and most Africans probably are immigrants within Africa), our motherland, and we come from all men (and women) and our descendants will go to all men and women.

We have all tasted the double-edged sword of fear and hope upon entering a new land, a new life, carrying our hungry children and our infirm parents on our backs, only some of us have forgotten or cannot see through the thick mists of time. When we think about it, we must realize just how lucky we are to be immigrants and to be able to contemplate our roots.

Being an immigrant confers on us huge advantages, like those of being able to speak two or more languages or to be able to consider two or more points of view. I’m reminded of the well-known lines of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, “O wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us!” Immigrants carry their homes on their backs. They never quite leave the homes of their old country but, as soon as they set foot on new shores, they must build new homes and new lives, because they can no longer live in the old ones.

When an immigrant walks alone in a strange new land, he walks with the ghosts of friends and loved ones he left behind. If you came to this land before the newly arrived immigrant, it’s not enough to welcome him. You should also show him empathy by listening to the stories and the ghosts he carries on his back. Yes, an immigrant might need your help, especially in the beginning when everything is brand spanking new to him. Yes, in an attempt to provide for his family and be less dependent on your charity, he may be willing to work for less than you’d be willing to work for, just to get out from under the guillotine of abject poverty. Yes, if he works beside you, he may work longer hours or do better work than you, but consider whether you would rather pull him down or have him lift you up, which he would gladly do to return your generosity.

It’s been said that new immigrants, like new religious converts, see their new country through rose-colored glasses. That’s not completely true. They see through eyes of hope. They want to see the good. The not-so-good frightens and pains them, but being an immigrant doesn’t mean they see their adopted motherland only through rose-colored glasses, as though all is great when it isn’t so great. Sometimes, when you love something so much and you see it coming to harm, you lash out at the thing harming it and want to protect what is innocent and good in your new country with your body and soul. If you want to feel what it’s like to be an immigrant in a new country like yours, to be a stranger in a strange land, read the poems and a story by Anjum Wasim Dar (links below, in the Table of Contents).

—Mike Stone  (Uncollected Works)

Special Feature

Song of Kashmir | Anjum Wasim Dar

Poetry

Reluctant Immigrant | Lisa Ashley

Refugee | Paul Brookes
Refugees Rule Each | Paul Brookes
Our Edge | Paul Brookes
My Daddy | Paul Brookes

..wouldst thou be pm, an abbreviation.. | Sonja Benskin Mesher
#russian | Sonja Benskin Mesher
.shopping in town. | Sonja Benskin Mesher
.the questionnaire. | Sonja Benskin Mesher
.another country. | Sonja Benskin Mesher

The Visitor | Mike Stone
Call of the Whippoorwill | Mike Stone
The Old Colossus | Mike Stone

The Partition | Anjum Wasim Dar

MARCH ON GUNS

by Terri Stewart

Gun violence is at the center of our attention for the current moment. The shooting in Parkland, Florida where seventeen people were killed by a mass shooting. [I am intentionally leaving the shooter’s name out of the conversation.] We have been riveted by this moment since 2013, that is in the last five years, 291 times. 291 times. And we have not taken meaningful action. Granted, some shootings are more grandiose than other school shootings. But does the number of people killed make a difference? Is there a magical tipping point of the number of folks murdered that will suddenly create a call to action?

I don’t think so. The United States embodies a culture of violence that is rooted in our inability to create meaningful reform. What may be different this time is that the youth are rising up with a clear and steady message:

Sensible reform now.

Republican or Democrat, if you take money from the NRA, we will hold you accountable.

We are registering to vote.

This is #NotJustParkland.

This has spread across the United States. Here, in Washington state, nearly as far away from Parkland as possible, students are organizing. Adults are joining in. There is a forming March For Our Lives (or March on Guns) movement. The dates of marches are:

It is not enough that we sit in our safety and support others to do the hard work of creating change. It is time for action.

I teach Bystander Intervention Training. In that training, I talk about discernment as part of the process of knowing what to do. What to risk. Can you put your body on the line? Do it! Can you risk arrest? Do it! Can you write persuasive testimony? Do it! Can you talk to your neighbor about common sense gun reform? Do it! Do what you can do. Risk what you can risk.

In many ways, there are two things that I think are very important. Showing up and being thoughtful. If you can show up to one of the walkouts or marches, then please do. The more our bodies are counted as standing against the culture of violence, the better. Numbers matter.

Second, have that difficult conversation. Do not descend into a shouting match. Here’s your task before you have a real dialogue with that person in your life who is wedded to the idea of no need for gun reform.

1-Reflect on your position. Become informed. Know what a bump stock is. Use the internet to help you.

2-Encounter the skeptic and ask some questions. Be curious not judgmental. Listen to their story.

3-Here’s the hard part. Find a place in their story to connect. Relate a personal story that connects in some way to their story. Maybe it is a concern about safety – For example, “I understand that protecting your family is important. My house was burglarized. I lived with fear of other people for a while after that happened.” Empathy is important.

4-Find a way to expand their thinking. Finish the story. Use different language – this isn’t about gun control but about gun reform. We put limits on most of our rights, such as limits on a free press, limits on free speech.

  • We definitely need mental health reform in the United States. Currently our best mental health treatment is prisons. That is unhelpful for all of us!
  • We know that there is a correlation between domestic violence and mass shooters. Tightening up access to guns for known domestic violence offenders would be a big step.
  • We know that people start out with a regular gun and buy bits and pieces, like bump stocks, that enable them to be created into killing machines. We can regulate bump stocks.
  • We need to study violence with guns in order to really know what the problem is. We can fund the CDC doing research rather than blindly shooting at unknown targets. (see what I did there?!)
  • We need to make sure our databases that do background checks are fully operational and work at capacity.
  • And we need to make sure every person that buys a gun should have a gun. Keeping guns in the hands of legal, careful gun owners.

If you can get one person to move towards one of these positions, you will have succeeded. But you must keep calm and keep curious and not take up too much space in your own opinion.

I hope that you are successful in creating a space where you can move into doing what is right for you as we march together in response to violence with guns.

Peace,

—Rev. Terri Stewart (Beguine Again, The BeZine, Youth Chaplaincy Coalition)

PS: I want to recognize Dr. David Campt for the outline of the method of communication above.

Eds. Note: Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion, founders of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change (100TPC) organization, have been working with poet-activists to organize 100TPC anti-gun / memorial readings throughout Florida for March and April. More information here.

Please scroll down for features and poems on this topic.

we can be heroes

  

Features

From the Desk of a Gunshot Survivor | Evelyn Augusto

Sex and the Second Amendment | James R. Cowles

A Moral Failure | Jamie Dedes

A Letter from Vermont: A Near Miss | Michael Watson

Poetry

Two Lamentations | Michael Dickel

The No Peace Piece | Corina Ravenscraft

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ALL WORKS IN “THE BEZINE” ©2018 BY THE AUTHOR / CREATOR

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Finding

“Where can I find peace and happiness?
It’s not where it was last time.”

And

“I found this empty can of loneliness
Buried among the full cans of energy.
Somebody must have supped it
Then put it back.”

And

“I want the fresh bread of life but all you’ve got are out of date.”
“It’s still ok to eat, Sir. This is “best before”.

And

“This crisp packet of comfort just split open.”
“I’ll put that here, love. Go and get another one.”

© 2018, Paul Brookes

Luck, Blind and Veiled

with mocking hand,
to danger and doubt
tha sets up the overpraised.

Never have prizes
obtained calm peace,
care on care weighs
them down, an

fresh storms vex their souls.
Great kingdoms drahn
by their own weight,
an luck gives way ‘neath
burden of herself.

Sails preggers with favouring breezes
fear blasts too strongly;
tower which rears its head
in the clouds is brayed by rain.

Whatever Luck raises up,
she lifts but to bring down.
Modest outlook has longer life.

Happy them as is content
with common lot,
with safe breeze
hug shore, and, afeard

to trust their skiff
to bigger sea,
with modest oar

© 2018, Paul Brookes