Poems: So Soon and Footprints of the Fallen
So Soon
So soon so soon
Just yesterday was June,
Children and teachers dying,
People shopping, people praying
People lying on floors, on streets in places
Where their bodies, where their blood,
Shouldn’t be lying
Sometimes only days apart again we’re asking why
So soon, barely now July,
Again people had gathered to celebrate,
Instead, leaving behind more innocent blood
to consecrate
Ground that ought not be stained,
More rhetoric, more prayers, another list of names
So soon, so soon
Left scattered on the ground,
In haste to get away from the terror, panic of the sound –
A stroller, a torn barely started bag of chips,
Baseball hats, a purse, broken sunglasses, crushed lipstick –
All left in chaos of a moments clatter
Where protecting loved ones is all that matters
So soon, so soon
Now the blood gets washed and scrubbed and fades into another day
The departed souls sewn into the hearts of those that stay
While the grieving goes on as long as it will
Another aberrated mind is out there still.
Do you read and hold your breath at the news,
Wondering who next will leave behind their shoes?
note: I have too many poems like this. Here is one more.
Footprints of the Fallen
Foggy morning dew weighs heavy
On regimental rows of blood-stained grass,
So many fallen blades sacrificed
Under shoes of violent acts
Guns giving violence a voice,
That need not shout so loud,
Less guns less deadly choices,
Yet,
bullets keep shattering villages,
Indiscriminately mowing down the crowd
Bloody footprints walk to heaven
As we totter in our morass,
Trails of red-tinged dew remain,
Till the next cutting of the grass