NVN Saturday: THE FIRST 100 DAYS

by Akua Lezli Hope

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

*

I rebuke calm voices sitting around tables 
decatastrophizing recontextualizing, 
explaining this inexplicable harm
incalculably mounting, betraying trusts, alarming allies
banishing wards, destroying safeties, conscripting civilities
this insanity this madness, this indifference that grabs
that disrupts, that destructs as if our prior state flawed
as it was somehow merited this manic monstrous mayhem
that peace we knew 100 days ago,
somehow called to be smashed and spat upon
as if any of what was wrong then,
called for the dismantling of all our frameworks
leaving us frail exposed unprotected unprotected,
this dire daily detonation of assistance, food banks,
literacies, the hows of how we made do, made it through,
assured ourselves our air would be clean and the hungry
could be fed and access gained and opinions expressed
and why are the town criers, these well-fed talking heads
not running screaming through the streets
with hair on fire and why are these transgressions
relayed piecemeal in calm tones
bit by disassociated incoherent bit
without anyone saying it’s all torn up
it’s all torn down, you may not see the whole
but it’s falling down yes yes the sky is falling
by eccentric emergency, executive fiat
by a rapacious, murdering, lying, orange clown
and now rush out dearies to hold the exploded
earth, the shattered reality, floating away in this
inverted gravity, hurry citizens to grapple with these
fragments and hold them, before all is lost, hold them
hold them down.

*

Akua Lezli Hope is a paraplegic wisdom seeker who uses sound, words, fiber, glass, metal, and wire to create poems, patterns, stories, music, sculpture, adornments, and peace whenever possible.