after Sandy Hook in poetry

after Sandy Hook
in any sane or loving nation
we would’ve just started turning in our guns
we would’ve just started destroying them all
we would’ve
had a smelting pit built in every major town
we’d just have thrown them all in there and
used the pig iron from all those awful
demonic heartless cruel murder-sticks
to build new playground equipment
on which the children who would
never have to worry about being shot
when going for their ABC 123s
could play at recess.

after Sandy Hook
we would have smashed them with sledgehammers
flattened them with great steamrollers like
racist DJs used to do with Japanese cars
all that would be left would be museum pieces
and ones kept triple-locked away for
military use only in case of emergency
and the NRA would have been classified
as a terrorist hate group
we’d have the Southern Poverty Law Centre on their asses
they would have been sued into frantic oblivion
but that didn’t happen

after Sandy Hook that didn’t happen
because we are gutless cruel and paranoid monsters
we are selfish and shortsighted and blood thirsty
and gun sales only went up
this is the hell that we deserve
this is the hell that we deserve
either for being the kind of I’ve-got-mine shitheads
that don’t care if everyone else is at risk
as long as they have their own shit
or cowards
cowards like me
who haven’t gone to protest in the streets
because I’m afraid of getting shot myself

this is the hell that we deserve
this is the hell that I deserve
but man
these kids do not deserve it
those kids did not deserve it
they did nothing wrong
we did terrible things
by cruel commission
or craven omission
but those kids did not

fuck this country
fuck it with an AR-15 in the ass
fuck me
because of what we didn’t do
after Sandy Hook