Mass Shootings

 RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: POEMICS

Mass Shootings

 

How dare we shrug at the blood of children

The death of innocents is always chilling

But to die in this manner…

A mad gunman (all mass shooters are mad)

Invades a sacred space –

Where the outside world is banished

Where an open mind is the only requirement –

And opens fire as if it were a war zone

As if wide-eyed kids were enemy soldiers

Where the explosion of gunfire does not end

Until blood covers the cold tiled floor

And nineteen children lie still

Motionless

Never to rise again…

 

To be a child and witness the slaughter

To have it imprinted on your mind

From Columbine to Sandy Hook

To a fourth-grade classroom in smalltown Texas

 

It will never end

Until America fundamentally changes

Until the gun industry gets out of politics

Until American voters stop pretending

That Americans cannot be free

Without a gun in every hand

Without access to mass-killing weapons

For every warped psycho killer

With a credit card

 

Mass shootings will not end

Until we vote out of office

Every self-serving politician

Who sold his and her soul

To protect the right to kill