46

everything trumped
by stupidity’s game
of numbers
                     even as I write
disjointed phrases
                punctuation
  nuance
                           all
  lost in the white space
         between
  words

        like refugees
             immigrant children
                  families divided
  disordered
too loosely
  connected
  in this
     concrete-jumbled
  world

  this
           poem-in-pieces
             its title
  a cipher
    for forty-six
  words

© BH, 2016

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Poetry24 published a poem by Gil Hoy, ’45’. Based on a CNN article about Trump’s intransigence on the issue of family separation after border infringements, Gil embedded the issue in a poem about poetic meaning, expression and structure. The title, I interpret as coming from the ’45’ on the plaque under Trump’s face in the article’s main image.

Being similarly interested in poems about writing and meaning as well as ones with numbers for titles, I felt I had to write my own in response.

This, I hope reflects on the issue, uses a number (now the next consecutive) for its title and, in this case, breaks down the grammar into fragments and uses a concrete poem form.

The illustration is drawn from the article’s original image, heavily altered, I hope.

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Gil Hoy’s Poem - ’45’
http://www.poetry24.co.uk/2019/04/45.html

LINK:
CNN
Trump denies reports he will reinstate family separation border policy
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/09/politics/donald-trump-family-separation-border/index.html