Alabama Exercise

Stand on one leg

stretch out your arms

balance the weight

of an idea of life

in one fist

with the weight

of an ideal life

in the other

while the scales 

are resting

on the shoulders

of a woman whose

neck is bent

from the weight

of your boot

on her head

© Lianne Kamp

Alabama governor signs nation's most restrictive anti-abortion bill into law

Lianne Kamp

Lianne resides in Boston, Massachusetts. Her poems and short stories appear in assorted print journals and on-line publications including: Poets Reading the News, Tuck Magazine, Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Dime Show Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, Poetry Quarterly, Dual Coast Magazine, and a number of Prolific Press anthologies. She writes poetry to make her world-view more panoramic by examining it more closely.

Believe Me

The President said,
wait a minute,
was it the President
or Governor Brown?
He was there after all.
But no, the President I think…
that we need to rake
the immigrant problem
from the ground,
clear it all out from the floor
like they do in Finland.
That was Finland, right?
Oh shit - that was the whole
forest fire thing that
happened in Pleasure!
What a name, right?
Not so pleasurable now, is it?
No, not Pleasure?
Paradise?
Ok, Paradise!
Well, same thing.
Anyway, it won’t ever
happen again so,
whatever.
He’s knows
what he’s talking about.

© Lianne Kamp

Trump Just Called Fire-Ravaged Town 'Pleasure' Instead Of Paradise By Accident

Trump Blames Forest Management For Wildfires Again During California Visit

Lianne Kamp resides in Boston, Massachusetts. Her poems and short stories appear in assorted print journals and on-line publications including: Poets Reading the News, Tuck Magazine, Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Dime Show Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, Poetry Quarterly, Dual Coast Magazine, and a number of Prolific Press anthologies. She writes poetry to make her world-view more panoramic by examining it more closely.

It Is Always About Placement

I prefer the newspaper
over the newsfeed,

I remain fascinated by the placement
of articles, finding revelations in the margins,
the empty spaces that outline the view

today, side by side, an artist staged a surprise
shredding of his painting that sold for
$1.4 million at a Sotheby’s auction,

while next door, in the Congo, 50 villagers burned 

to death, hoping to salvage leaking fuel from an
over-turned tanker truck before it burst into flames –

the Sotheby article took up
considerably more space

© Lianne Kamp

A Banksy painting sold at auction for $1.4 million — then automatically shredded itself

Oil tanker explosion leaves at least 50 dead, 100 burned in Congo

Lianne Kamp resides in Boston, Massachusetts. Her poems and short stories appear in assorted print journals and on-line publications including: Poets Reading the News, Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Dime Show Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, Poetry Quarterly, Dual Coast Magazine, and a number of Prolific Press anthologies. She writes poetry to make her world-view more panoramic by examining it more closely.

Come Children

come children, gently down the corridors

careful not to rattle a door, set off

an alarm, or draw undue suspicion

best to keep both your hands up in the air

come children, silently into your chairs

tuck your head between your knees

and worry not that you don’t comprehend

the unspoken in these exercises

your teacher has been well trained to look past

your desks, past the question marks on your face

to the windows and doors, to the echoes

in the hall and the strains of danger, with

one hand in the drawer and a finger on the trigger

© Lianne Kamp

Betsy DeVos Eyes Federal Education Grants to Put Guns in Schools

DeVos may let schools buy guns with federal money

Lianne Kamp resides in Boston, Massachusetts. Her poems and short stories appear in assorted print journals and on-line publications including: Poets Reading the News, Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Scarlet Leaf Review, Poetry Quarterly, Dual Coast Magazine, and a number of Prolific Press anthologies. She writes poetry to make her world-view more panoramic by examining it more closely.

The Nation Today

(The police use stun gun on elder with knife)

It’s side-lined into a
narrow column – a small subtext,
the “also playing” beneath
the marquee

after 87 years of living
she was apt to wander,
in a bit of fog, no matter
the weather

Into a neighboring field,
a kitchen knife in hand
to collect dandelions in
a plastic bag

for tea, or a salad,
or to wilt, forgotten
on a kitchen counter

on this day, while she cut some
weeds with her knife, tucked them
into her bag, the police grew in
the clearing

they felt threatened by
this slow-moving Syrian
woman, short and stout
with the gray hair

under a brown scarf
who didn’t speak English,
who couldn’t understand
what they wanted from her

and so they acted in the
spirit of the day - in the
climate change that we have
grown accustomed to

tasered her with a blast to the chest –
where she fell among her weeds
certain she had been shot
certain she had made a terrible mistake

© Lianne Kamp

Police use Taser on 87-year-old woman cutting dandelions with a knife

Lianne Kamp resides in Boston, Massachusetts. Her poems and short stories appear in assorted print journals and on-line publications including: Poets Reading the News, Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, Scarlet Leaf Review, Poetry Quarterly, Dual Coast Magazine, and a number of Prolific Press anthologies. She writes poetry to make her world-view more panoramic by examining it more closely.