Poem: Violence

Violence

A world of too much violence

Where impulse turns to rage

A world of too much violence

Of monsters left uncaged

Bombs will never win a struggle

Conflagration yields no prize

The coldness of a conscious choice

A choice of promised lies

The zealots planning mass destruction

A government hooked on drones

Madmen screaming “seas of fire”

Mindless hates intoned

Violence yielding more the same

Death reveals more death

Nothing’s gained for any cause

In ending just one breath

Too many guns; too many “tools”

A weaponized decay

Too many means to take more lives

The murderous bouquet

Enough, enough, this all must end

Build and not tear down

Stop the hate, stop this craze

The rage is all around

Riling frenzied, manic “flocks”

With words of hate and words of fear

The vitriolic platitudes

Breed anger most severe

Blood for blood and eye for eye

Ratchet up the storm

Rocks to guns to missiles launched

So death becomes a norm

Copyright SGW 2013

Footnote: 

Boston, Manhattan.  Columbine, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Newtown, Tucson.  The West Bank, Baghdad, Aleppo, Yemen.  The Topeka abortion clinic, a podium where a speaker stands and arouses hate.  North Korea, Iran.

Nothing justifies a terrorist attack on innocent people.  The actions are evil and without any justification.  But drones, missile strikes, propping up dictators, and wars of choice kill indiscriminately, too, and breed more hate.  Some war is necessary; defense is a right.  But more balance – building schools, teaching democracy, farming assistance – these things cost less than bombs and shape people’s views in a better way than bombs and drones.

This nation’s gun craze does not in any way lead to acts of terror such as the World Trade Center, Oklahoma City and the Boston Marathon.  But they kill far more people in many other acts of terror and in daily , routine life.  They can, of course, serve the purpose of defending a home.  But far more often they kill innocent people.  They have a place for hunters and sportsmen, but not to the extent of the weapons escalation we are living with … without even the most basic and reasonable means of temperance.

All of these things are related because they are all acts that lead to amping up the violence.  One act or circumstance does not always lead to another.  Nothing justifies the end result of mass killings.  But they are all part of the same problem.

And it is ALWAYS the right  time to look for change.