Mike Catherwood

School Shooter: #45 September 2024

Yay school shooting,
Yay “hands up, kiddos”
yay gun lobby,
yay NRA,
yay school's out,
yay little Richie’s Dad
yay bump clip,
yay daddy’s AR15,
yay funeral directors,
yay “some good
     will come
     from this”
yay Georgia
     Arms and Ammo,
yay gravesites,
yay Guns
Unlimited,
yay dark limos
     and hearses,
yay prayers and thoughts,
yay USA,
yeah, “the janitor
     has to clean it up,”
yay florists
yay guns
     guns
           guns…
   and more
     fucking guns
yay good guys with guns,
     cowering
           in the bushes…
yay tears and sobbing
“Don’t you
     remember
           the last
     school shooting?”

 

 

Michael Catherwood’s awards include a Nebraska Arts Council Grant, Pushcart Nomination, The Holt Prize for Poetry, and Finalist for the Ruth Lily Prize. His books are Dare,  If You Turned Around Quickly, Projector, and recently, Near Misses from WSC Press. He is former editor at The Backwaters Press, and former Associate Editor at Plainsongs since 1995. Recent poems have appeared in The Opiate, As It Ought to Be Magazine, Pennsylvania English, Ginosko Literary Journal, Corpus Callosum, and The Common. He’s a cancer survivor, retired, and lives in Omaha with his wife Cindy.