Desperate people inflamed by hate
Ruled by frustrated passion
Resenting all they see
So they grab a gun or maybe three
Take aim at others, randomly
Inflicting pain, inflicting death
Spreading chain reactions
Of deepest misery and vengefulness
And the commentators will wring their hands
And go on to say it’s not the guns
And it sure ain’t us
The hateful bile we offer up is just for fun
So when we say that its time to aim
We don’t really mean it
It’s just a game
But clearly things are going wrong
Hot lead flying in schoolyards
And all to make a specious point
About free speech and hate and fear
Underlined in blood
And drenched in tears
David Trudel © 2012
Filed under Poetry
Your blood congealed and dried up 38 years ago
My heart’s been bleeding ever since
There are no stains left to mark where you fell
Just a handful of shadowed souls
Who mourn forlornly, evermore
Remembering your meteoric presence
Brilliance of a caustic wit
Depth of your great soul
Cut short
Cut down
In a moment’s violence
Your suffering was brief
Ours continues
My old and unaged friend
I water your grave with my tears
Like you misted your boston ferns
Moistly spreading such care
Freshening each desiccated frond
With love
David Trudel © 2012
Filed under Poetry
It’s time to disarm
Violence rocks this world
Tragically, in so many ways
In so many places
Wars of oppression and wars of suppression
Singular violence
Assassinations
Mass murders
It’s time to disarm
Torture
Gangbang rapes
Shootings in movie theatres
It’s time to disarm
Police brutality
Gang violence
Genocide
It’s time to disarm
Stonings
Beheadings
Acid thrown on faces
It’s time to disarm
Armies running amok
Barbaric as ever
Sanctioned hit squads
It’s time to disarm
Hot lead flying through bedroom walls
Blowing the brains out of sleeping babies
Apartment blocks full of families
Blown up to kill a lone soldier
Assault weapons sold to insane haters
Who riddle the innocent with bullets
Road rage driven angerbombs
Pulling out protection to settle arguments
It’s time to disarm
Violence contains a lot of energy
Negative energy, for sure, but vast
So there’s that law we’ve forgotten
Newton’s third
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction
Which means that the cycle of violence
Is a perpetual motion machine of bullets flying back and forth
Unless we can poke a stick in that wheel
Break free of the tyranny of the gun
It’s time to disarm
Start controlling access to mass murder weapons
End the sale of assault weapons, period.
Impose national and international gun control regulations
Limit access to the psychologically fit
It’s time to disarm
State sponsored terrorism must stop
All nations must reverse their insane military buildups
Dismantle the bombs
It’s time to disarm
Empty the prisons by investing in schools, hospitals and people
It’s time to disarm
David Trudel © 2012
Filed under Poetry
This line wasn’t drawn yesterday or today
This line goes way back
Straight through my heart
This line is as red as the blood that
Stained Jackie’s tailored suit
In the shadow of the grassy knoll
This line hangs as heavy
As the rope that bore such
Strange and bitter fruit
This line is the scar on Gabby Giffords’ scalp
This line is the tear falling
Down a mother’s cheek
This line is hot with rage and fury
This line was uttered in Ford’s Theatre
As theatrically as ever
This line is the sting of the whip
This line is the manacle that holds you in place
This line is drawn tight
Tight as a bow whose arrow
Will take flight
On a straight line to death
This line underscores the tally
Of the lost
This line spits hot lead
Randomly
In chaos
This line kills
This line is not a drawing
It’s a pathway to oblivion
And everlasting dark
David Trudel © 2012
This is a response to this great poem by Susan Daniels:
http://susandanielseden.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/that-line/
That line
if there is
a line between free speech
& treason
between change
& revolution
between assembly
& rioting
it is fine
it is dark
& it is drawn
in blood
the problem is
it takes death
to tell the difference
Filed under Poetry
Chores
Today is a day for small chores
Bringing water like some forgotten sky god
For my green prisoners
Next, I vacuum
Stirring the dust and detritus
Harvesting peanut shells and dust bunnies
For memories and lost thoughts
My routines are commonplace
Comforting in their normalcy
Giving me the illusion of some fragile permanence
That might stand against the intransigence of power
Forgetting that state control is as prevalent here
As it ever was in war zones and dictatorships
Where terror slams like bullets into unarmed crowds
And poetry is bloodwritten on pockmarked concrete
By the dying
Who no longer water houseplants
But bleed out their innocence on city streets
David Trudel © 2013
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Filed under Poetry
Tagged as blank verse, civil war, creative writing, creativity, free verse, metaphor, peace, poetry, social activism, social commentary, universal peace, violence, war