Troubles (poetry challenge)
CW: gun violence
Forty-nine souls slaughtered while dancing.
Fifty-eight music fans murdered from a hotel window.
Twenty-two shot while shopping.
Nine killed at church.
Twenty children gunned down in a classroom.
Which church? Which children?
Too many too remember,
too many to count,
too many for your mortal mind
to believe.
You don’t let yourself cry because
your tears might flow, unstoppable, like their blood.
You might sigh, or swear, or shake your head.
But soon you stop, and drive to work,
and wash the dishes, and play games.
You forget their names because
to carry on living you must pretend
this is not really happening.
You bet your life it is.
Senator Sandra read the news.
She did not ban assault rifles,
nor demand background checks.
She did not call for registration or licensing.
She typed 140 characters about prayers.
Thought that was a good solution.
They must’ve paid her a nice price
to plug her ears against the screams
of the parents, sisters, brothers, children, wives,
clothes stained with their stolen loved ones’ blood.
Families with no gold stars, only black holes.
No war has been declared, yet Sandra accepts
that civilians will be sacrificed
in this conflict that she calls a tragedy
while she herself arms and funds it.
The man with the golden gun
has perfected his trick shot.
He wears a mask to hide his true nature.
People flock to him because
they are afraid of each other.
He knows how to kindle fear into a bonfire.
He knows how to lead worship services
where God is a piece of metal.
He is not an association.
He is an assassin,
and his next victim is any one of us.
Russian roulette is required
for all who reside here
where we let crazy children
play with terrible toys.
Duck, duck, goose.
To defeat this strange man
it will take a strange army,
led by women and children.
They must be braver than the Amazons,
more powerful than the Valkyries,
to swallow their horror and scream
ENOUGH.
Lyrics borrowed from Cornflake Girl by Tori Amos
This is a rough draft; feedback welcome!
YW poetry slam: Lyrics
1) Well, those lyrics take me back....
ReplyDelete2) I love the directions you went with this. I think that "He is not an association/He is an assassin" might have been a better parallel as "he is an assassination" even though TECHNICALLY of course a personification can't be - you're drawing broad lines there and the rhythm keeps it more firmly in metaphorical visuals. Um. Did that make sense? It did when I wrote it.
Such a powerful poem. Starting with numbers really hits like punches to the gut. I like how you've ended it too with a call to arms. It's a scary world we are living in at the moment and I think your poem hits the mark
ReplyDeleteIt's great and I couldn't agree more - even though I don't live in the US. The second stanza in particular got to me in much the same way I imagine it gets to you. The pseudo-pious, knee-jerk call for prayers after an atrocity makes me almost spit with anger. Not knowing the original, do the highlighted lines correspond to those highlighted there?
ReplyDeleteI thought the way the stanzas skip subjects was engaging because it forced the reader to think about the connections between mass violence, Senator Sandra, Trump, and the women and children protesting. I loved the analogies the poem made: God is a piece of metal was especially moving to me. I might even go more specific. Is he a crowbar? Is he the slats of a wrought iron gate? Is he a single staple? In future edits, take a look at the word choices used that keep the voice of the poem distant. Souls slaughtered, for instance. Why pair a concept with a vivid verb? Does the poem not want the reader to picture the bodies? For another example, most of the poem is expository, which works well at the beginning? But when the poem discusses the protestors at the end, the tone is still expository when I wanted to dig into the emotion there. Because it felt like the voice is siding with them. It would also contrast starkly with the beginning and pack more of a punch.
ReplyDelete