Vox Populi
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Michael Simms: Uvalde
The news is the same old
Murder of children
At their desks loving stories
About ponies and castles
Where so much happens
Between syllables we
Understand the unfolding
The swelling and collapsing
Of a small promise more
Tentative than we knew
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But we’re somewhere far
From the terror where a calm sets in
Like a breath held hostage
As in a garden of roses and sparrows
Where a cricket ratchets a rough lamentation
And a tree frog remembers
An ancient elegy for the fallen world
Copyright 2022 Michael Simms
Michael Simms is the founding editor of Vox Populi. His most recent collections of poems are American Ash and Nightjar, both published by Ragged Sky. His first novel Bicycles of the Gods: A Divine Comedy is being released by Madville in August 2022. Originally from Texas, Simms has lived in Pittsburgh since 1987.
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An elegy indeed, MS. Love especially “Like a breath held hostage.” Kind of like having to muster the fortitude to write about it in the first place when we’d rather not. We’d much rather common sense make this particular mustering unnecessary. We’d much rather we’d never heard their names.
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Yes, what kind of society allows the murder of children?
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Brutal beyond words. What terror they must have felt. Beyond words. Nineteen children were murdered while 19 “good guys with guns” waited outside an unlocked door for the shooting to stop.
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Yes, what a terrible crime…
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Michael, in the sixties and seventies I truly believed we were at the verge of a new Age of Enlightenment. Now I only see us plunging into darkness. Struggle every day to stay optimistic, so aware of the gap between human potential and human behavior. But we must push forward, be active… thanks for this.
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Thanks, Jerry. I know exactly what you mean.
M.
Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info https://www.michaelsimms.info/
Author of Nightjar https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933974435/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2 Author of American Ash https://www.amazon.com/American-Ash-Poems-Michael-Simms/dp/1933974397/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PC9VWO127ZSF&dchild=1&keywords=american+ash+by+michael+simms&qid=1593969710&s=books&sprefix=American+ash,aps,133&sr=1-1 Founder of Autumn House Press https://www.autumnhouse.org/?method=displayPage&pagename=home Editor of Vox Populi https://voxpopulisphere.com/
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Hauntingly beautiful. Bless you. Made me think of me at my desk as a child, traveling in my mind through the solar system.
So for me, this passage:
At their desks loving stories
About ponies and castles
Where so much happens
would be:
At their desks loving stories
About rockets and planets
Where so much happens……….
*Derrick Z Jackson Co-Author of http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300204810/project-puffin**”Project Puffin: The Improbable Quest to Bring a Beloved Seabird Back to Egg Rock.” Yale University Press 2015 (Paperback, May 2016) http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300204810/project-puffin*
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Thanks, Derrick, for this comment and for all you do as a journalist and photographer.
Love, M.
Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info https://www.michaelsimms.info/
Author of Nightjar https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933974435/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2 Author of American Ash https://www.amazon.com/American-Ash-Poems-Michael-Simms/dp/1933974397/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PC9VWO127ZSF&dchild=1&keywords=american+ash+by+michael+simms&qid=1593969710&s=books&sprefix=American+ash,aps,133&sr=1-1 Founder of Autumn House Press https://www.autumnhouse.org/?method=displayPage&pagename=home Editor of Vox Populi https://voxpopulisphere.com/
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Michael your poem is elegant.
I share your grief; it shadows me all day. But I am now more angry than sad. My grief feels self indulgent.
I’m afraid that America has abandoned her children and their suffering is immense. Why aren’t we all in the streets screaming our grief and outrage? Surely we aren’t going to continue to accept this insanity. Are we? We need to be ferociously angry and active until there is change. The grief will still be there.
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Thanks, Nancy. Like you I’ve been angry and grief-stricken since Columbine which feels like a lifetime ago.
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I think we are finally going to make changes. Even if we don’t fully solve it, we can make progress. It feels somehow different this time.
Be kind to yourself.
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This poem captures the innocence that is destroyed every day. I too am now more angry than sad or scared. This carnage is inexcusable, and I won’t back down until the NRA does. Thanks, Michael, for a safe space to feel the feelings.
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Thanks, Patricia.
Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info https://www.michaelsimms.info/
Author of Nightjar https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933974435/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2 Author of American Ash https://www.amazon.com/American-Ash-Poems-Michael-Simms/dp/1933974397/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PC9VWO127ZSF&dchild=1&keywords=american+ash+by+michael+simms&qid=1593969710&s=books&sprefix=American+ash,aps,133&sr=1-1 Founder of Autumn House Press https://www.autumnhouse.org/?method=displayPage&pagename=home Editor of Vox Populi https://voxpopulisphere.com/
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Thanks, Pat.
Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info https://www.michaelsimms.info/
Author of Nightjar https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933974435/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2 Author of American Ash https://www.amazon.com/American-Ash-Poems-Michael-Simms/dp/1933974397/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PC9VWO127ZSF&dchild=1&keywords=american+ash+by+michael+simms&qid=1593969710&s=books&sprefix=American+ash,aps,133&sr=1-1 Founder of Autumn House Press https://www.autumnhouse.org/?method=displayPage&pagename=home Editor of Vox Populi https://voxpopulisphere.com/
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Thanks for your poignant poem, Michael. The almost daily reports of killings in schools, in shopping centers, and in theaters are becoming so depressing and painful to our collective psyche.
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Thanks, Gene. I am in constant grief…
Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info https://www.michaelsimms.info/
Author of Nightjar https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933974435/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2 Author of American Ash https://www.amazon.com/American-Ash-Poems-Michael-Simms/dp/1933974397/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PC9VWO127ZSF&dchild=1&keywords=american+ash+by+michael+simms&qid=1593969710&s=books&sprefix=American+ash,aps,133&sr=1-1 Founder of Autumn House Press https://www.autumnhouse.org/?method=displayPage&pagename=home Editor of Vox Populi https://voxpopulisphere.com/
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I receive these two places: under the app and in my email. When I respond to the app, I never see my response. Now I am responding from email. An important piece, Michael, snd another reader I responded to earlier reminded me of the many more deaths our country inflicts. All deaths hurt snd I loved the vision of the children as birds in the response I initially answered
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Thanks, Barbara!
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Terrible; I can only accompany that little bird hoping it flies to happier skies.
Your delicate song will surely fly along with the little bird.
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Thanks, Vengo!
Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info https://www.michaelsimms.info/
Author of Nightjar https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933974435/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2 Author of American Ash https://www.amazon.com/American-Ash-Poems-Michael-Simms/dp/1933974397/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PC9VWO127ZSF&dchild=1&keywords=american+ash+by+michael+simms&qid=1593969710&s=books&sprefix=American+ash,aps,133&sr=1-1 Founder of Autumn House Press https://www.autumnhouse.org/?method=displayPage&pagename=home Editor of Vox Populi https://voxpopulisphere.com/
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“Where so much happens
Between syllables we ” – ohhhhhh…..
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Thank you so much, Laure-Anne. Words are insufficient for this grief.
M. Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info https://www.michaelsimms.info/
Author of Nightjar https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933974435/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2 Author of American Ash https://www.amazon.com/American-Ash-Poems-Michael-Simms/dp/1933974397/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PC9VWO127ZSF&dchild=1&keywords=american+ash+by+michael+simms&qid=1593969710&s=books&sprefix=American+ash,aps,133&sr=1-1 Founder of Autumn House Press https://www.autumnhouse.org/?method=displayPage&pagename=home Editor of Vox Populi https://voxpopulisphere.com/
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!!!!!!!
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A necessary poem, it seems. There need to be more like it. A couple of breaths to read it, calm or enraged, then wander between the lines.. I would join the cricket ratcheting a rough lamentation for the endless killing of children.
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Thanks for your generous comment, Jim. Frankly, I think it would take a much more skilled and inspired poet than I to capture such depth of sorrow over the murder of the Uvalde children. What I feel at this point is a terrible chasm inside me.
Michael Simms https://www.michaelsimms.info https://www.michaelsimms.info/
Author of Nightjar https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933974435/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2 Author of American Ash https://www.amazon.com/American-Ash-Poems-Michael-Simms/dp/1933974397/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PC9VWO127ZSF&dchild=1&keywords=american+ash+by+michael+simms&qid=1593969710&s=books&sprefix=American+ash,aps,133&sr=1-1 Founder of Autumn House Press https://www.autumnhouse.org/?method=displayPage&pagename=home Editor of Vox Populi https://voxpopulisphere.com/
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Very sensational little poem.
We in the Islamic myth imagine the dead children as birds in heaven. All children in our myth are saved from hell.
It was gross. The shooting.
But not a major tragedy like what is going on in Ukraine, Syria and Iraq…
Please stop killing…
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Oh, Saleh, thank you. What a terrible thing my countrymen are doing to our children. Why is this happening?
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