Angel Zapata

GODWIN

Somewhere along the way,
a pic of a gastro pub lunch plate
is replaced by first degree murder.

Now a killer can upload
a vid of his vic in real time,
post it on his newsfeed— liked!

Used to be enough of a scare
for gunslingers to prop empty caskets
outside saloon or barber shop walls.

Today, we have the option to pause
the bullet frame by frame,
return after lunch for a hi-def replay.

Here I second-guess my motive
to promote a poem through social media:
dare I shed such precious blood?

And the man Steve Stephens
murdered— gun in one hand,
phone cam filming in the other—

will become a meme, another
exhausted trend, a hashtag scrolling
by much too quickly to follow.


Gerald So reads "Godwin":



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Angel confesses: "The random, senseless murder of seventy-four year-old, Robert Godwin, really upset me. Talk about wrong place, wrong time. It could have been any one of us. This poem was written to help me deal with my feelings on the subject."

ANGEL ZAPATA calls Augusta, Georgia his home. Born and raised in New York City, his award-winning fiction and poetry is a conglomeration of street smarts and Southern charm. His micro-poetry chapbook, Pearl Street, was recently published by Rinky Dink Press.