"The World That the Shooter Left Us" by Cyrus Cassells

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend October 30, 2018   The World That the Shooter Left Us   Cyrus Cassells

(Stand Your Ground) In this one, ladies and gentlemen, Beware, be clear: the brown man, The able lawyer, the paterfamilias, Never makes it out of the poem alive: The rash, all-too-daily report, The out of the blue bullet Blithely shatters our treasured Legal eagle's bones and flesh— In the brusque spectacle of point-blank force, On a crimsoned street, Where a revered immigrant plummets Over a contested parking spot, And the far-seeing sages insist, Amid strident maenads Of at-the-ready patrol car sirens, Clockwork salvos, The charismatic Latino lawyer's soul Is banished, elsewhere, without a shred Of eloquence in the matter— And the brute, churning Surfaces of the world, They bear our beloved citizen away— Which means, austere saints And all-seeing masters, If I grasp your bracing challenge: At our lives' most brackish hour, Our highest mission isn't just to bawl, But to turn the soul-shaking planet Of the desecrated parking lot (The anti-miracle), The blunt, irascible white man's Unnecessary weapon, And the ruse of self-defense Into justice-cries and ballots? Into newfound pledges and particles of light?   in memory of J. Garza, 1949-2017                Copyright © 2018 Cyrus Cassells. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "It took a year before I could summon any language at all in response to the 'stand-your-ground' shooting and death of my close friend's father, a highly revered lawyer, over a contested accessible parking spot, but a similar incident in Florida this past July compelled me to finish and share this elegiac testimony." —Cyrus Cassells   Cyrus Cassells is the author six poetry collections, including The Gospel According to Wild Indigo (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018), and the translator of Still Life with Children: Selected Poems of Francesc Parcerisas, forthcoming in the spring of 2019 from Stephen F. Austin State University Press. He teaches at Texas State University and lives in Austin, Texas. Photo credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths Poetry by Cassells   The Gospel Assording to Wild Indigo (Southern Illinois University Press, 2018) "Catechism for the Missing" by Rodney Gomez "Beyond Bruegel's Shore" by William Archila "from Forgetting Willie James Jones" by David Tomas Martinez October Guest Editor: Ross Gay   Thanks to Ross Gay, author of Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Gay and our guest editors for the year. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038