Letter to Amanda Gorman
By Craig R. Kirchner
We are being told daily of our incredible freedom
here in the Sunshine state,
where the sun is experiencing the freedom to be hotter
than it has ever been in recorded times.
We are free, as James Madison obviously envisioned,
to openly carry our beloved firearms,
in case we experience a need to defend ourselves during a road rage,
or in case our children are being groomed by lesser than ourselves.
We can carry our assault rifles in the trunk,
in case a particularly bad case of frustration crawls upon us
and we are near the elementary school that scorned us,
as the second amendment suggests.
We are free to help pay for the shipping of refugees
to places that need to experience the expense and the depravity
of empathy, for those illegals seeking asylum.
It is such a privilege to be free
to determine the destinies of women we don’t know
and control their most intimate decisions.
But probably the most important of our newfound freedoms,
is our ability to protect our children from history, reality, truth,
and young black poets.
We here in the Sunshine state
are just beginning to realize how underrated our freedom has been,
and how important it is not to have to acknowledge those
who don’t sleep on our side of the bed,
or believe the planet is getting hotter and it’s our fault.
On a higher level of enlightenment our children are finally
being taught the benefits of slavery.
Editor’s note: We asked Craig why he titled it Letter to Amanda Gorman. He sent us this link from the New York Times.
Craig Kirchner is retired and thinks of poetry as hobo art. He loves storytelling and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. He has had two poems nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems in a folder on a laptop. These words tend to keep him straight. After a writing hiatus he was recently published in Poetry Quarterly, Decadent Review, New World Writing, WordSwell, 7th Circle Pyrite, Edge of Humanity, Fairfield Scribe, Fixator, Flora Fiction, Globe Review, Hamilton Stone Review, Ink in Thirds, Spillwords, Sybil, The Argyle, The Lake, Timada’s Diary, Unbroken, Unlikely Stories, Valiant Scribe, Variety Pack, Versification, Wild Violet, Wise Owl, Yellow Mama, Young Ravens, Arlington Literary, Glacial Hills Review, Your Impossible Voice, Mad Swirl, Oddball Mag, Zin Daily, Poetry Breakfast, One Art, The Main Street Rag and several dozen others.