Craig Kirchner

WOUND US ALL

It’s there. It’s still there,
just under, seething, ready to explode,
to rise up, shed the ugly evil laminate
that has slimed over its soul like pond scum.
It wants to rid itself of the rot,
the spineless that represent it,
the inhumanity of the demons pulling the strings,
applying an agent ice that will traumatize for generations.

It’s there. It’s still there,
just below the surface of crassness,
waiting for the wind to blow away the ignorance of cult,
for time to heal the cancer of mindlessness of neighbors.
It will crack the veneer and surface
like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now,
rising from the Nung River covered in mud
and camouflage to get on with his mission.

It’s there, it’s still there,
hoping to win an existential fight with non-violence,
needing sanitizing, a purifying to begin soon,
the crowds to be big enough to win by overwhelming.
It will attempt to cleanse itself, and in so doing
realize you can’t wash away the leprosy of wicked,
it takes decades like chemical burns, to replace
the loss of credibility, allies, respect for one another.

It’s there. It’s still there.
It has a - wound one, you wound us all - attitude,
standing like sphinx in a sandstorm,
waiting for the killing to stop, the pharaohs to go to hell.
Millions will protest to celebrate that it is still there,
that marching, singing, voting, for a divine intervention
of cleansing that can bring us together
out of the muck and grift that is America.


Craig's YouTube reading of "Wound us all"


Craig confesses: "America was a republic with elected officials who cared about the oath they took to uphold the Constitution. That changed. We have a malignant narcissist bombing Iranian school children, a gestapo executing citizens in the streets, and a complicit Congress. America is still there; we need to find it."

Craig Kirchner lives in Florida because that is where his granddaughters are. He loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. Craig houses 500 books in his office and the same number of poems on a laptop; these words help keep him straight. He can be found at Bluesky.

Craig Kirchner

RIGHT

Liam will be back,
not because a judge ordered it,
but because it is right
that he be reunited with
all that he was taken from,
and right will win this war,
ultimately right will win,
and he will be home, happy.

I dreamt about Hell,
amazing since I don’t believe
in Heaven or Hell.
There were special wings,
named after the greats,
designated as to deviancy
murderers, wife beaters,
child molesters and ICE.

In the dream Putin dies,
massive heart attack.
Russians filled the streets of Moscow,
crowds in every major city
celebrated, rejoiced –
it seemed right.
The flag at the White House
was at half-staff.

Vlad was immediately directed
to the Hitler wing.
He asked the commandant
if any of his friends
would be coming here.
No, there are special cots for them
in the Epstein wing.
You will be better off here
and you can believe it.


Craig's YouTube reading of "Right"


Craig confesses: "To do anything to traumatize a five-year-old is not right, it’s not Christian, and anyone that thinks its American has something fundamentally wrong with them. The terrorists responsible, all of them, will find a special place reserved in hell."

CRAIG KIRCHNER loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels, and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart. He has been published in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, and dozens of others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop; these words help keep him straight. Craig has an interview up at Spillword and can be found on Bluesky.

Craig Kirchner

SATURDAY AT THE BEACH

I’m driving to the protest at the beach
thinking I’ve become that old man that
so many times I drove by and thought –
I never want to be like that.

I’m not on a walker or carrying a cane
but I hobble now instead of stride
and hunch over instead of strut -
and I realize I don’t have a sign.

I arrive early. A guy with ragged clothes
and scraggly beard has six signs on the ground
and without me asking says, Yeah, take one.
I choose – WE FIGHT FASCISM.

I ask him if he had been protesting long.
Since the sixties, he told me his age,
same as mine, and walked away when
I noticed his left leg was a prosthetic.

It stopped me – me driving here feeling
sorry for myself in my Banana Republic
button down, because I get shots in my knees,
and had out of pocket for cataracts.

After an hour of making friends, waving my sign,
I drag my sore knees back to the car,
turn on the radio to hear ICE killed an ICU nurse,
trying to help a woman avoid pepper spray.

Alex Pretti will not get to bitch about being
an old man, about his gel shots. His life stolen
by a cruelty normal in Nazi Germany,
but until recently not by an American agency.

I’ve become an old man, old enough
to be sure, to have the privilege, to die
as you are supposed to, maybe in your sleep,
hopefully surrounded by family.

I shuffled my bad knees out of the car, threw up
on the parking lot, cried, not much. I haven’t cried
since my father died 30 years ago, got the sign
out of the trunk and went back to the protest.


Craig's YouTube reading of "Saturday at the beach"


Craig confesses: "Minneapolis under siege, innocent citizens being killed by the Federal government with our tax dollars is the main thing motivating most Americans for the past month. Of course, there are also the Epstein victims and files the siege is probably supposed to make us forget. Make America America Again."

CRAIG KIRCHNER loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels, and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart. He has been published in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, and dozens of others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop; these words help keep him straight. Craig has an interview up at Spillword and can be found on Bluesky.