Bulletin Board
Each morning on the news
we hear another threat,
currently schools
the victims
of dissatisfied students
eager to pay back
the system that warped them.
We are now acclimatized
to lunatics attacking
malls, the workplace, movie houses,
low or middle-income targets,
while righteous legislators call
for stricter gun control laws
to keep automatic weapons
out of the hands of the disturbed,
who somehow always get their hands
on automatic weapons,
despite legal restrictions
constantly challenged by gun-nuts,
who claim they need assault rifles
to eliminate garden pests,
dangerous gophers, woodchucks.
So stronger laws will be passed
without serious objections
from not-for-profit gun lobbies
confident that gun customers
will find ways to make purchases
and keep the profits growing.
Circumstances may change
if the insane rampagers
select new targets,
museums, expensive restaurants,
theaters, the opera house,
cultural institutions
supported by wealthy patrons,
mansions where the rich reside
suddenly vulnerable
to unexpected assault.
This will motivate the privileged
to take immediate action
to prevent bloody disruptions
of their comfortable lives.
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. He has 11 published chapbooks. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays (Winter Goose Publishing). Fault Lines, Perceptions, Tremors and Perturbations will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. Conditioned Response (Nazar Look). Resonance (Dreaming Big Press). His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press) Acts of Defiance (Artema Press). Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing). Call to Valor will be published by Gnome on Pigs Productions. His short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other stories will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.