New Day, New War
dawn breaks over dust—
jets thunder into Iran
Israel’s warning
missiles cross at dusk—
sirens bloom in Beersheba
Tel Aviv trembles
bunker busters boom—
America joins the fray
call it degraded
waves of rockets hit—
Al Udeid hears the thunder
Qatar holds its breath
fragile agreement
hours as thin as paper—
sirens, then silence
The New 3 Rs
In elementary school,
my children learned the three Rs:
renew, reuse, recycle.
In today’s federal service,
we’ve learned three new Rs:
resign, retire, reassign.
Professionals used to fill the halls—
190 names on our org chart,
writers, editors, public affairs specialists,
plans etched into calendars,
ideas passed like notes in class.
Just 23 remain,
learning new scripts,
left without leaders
to map the road ahead.
I propose the next three Rs:
reverse, recall, restore.
How To Kill in 12 Easy Steps
Fitting, we agree,
two months into our training,
nine more months to go,
that the first busy work they give us
to ensure we are “productive”
is to kill off records.
Thousands of death reports
from funeral directors
scanned in for us to input.
An easy, 12-page guide
on how to kill.
First, they make us load bullets
for OPM once a week.
Now, they want us to pull the trigger.
Author Owen Givens is a federal worker who has been a civil servant for more than 30 years.
Featured Image: A Paper Fire by Oleg Yunakov under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
