repetition historifies itself in poetry

three airplanes were taken down
by a small army with box cutters
fifteen years later
they still won’t let us fly
with toenail clippers on our person
but get shot to death in a
school or a church or a restaurant
a store, a post office, a mall
and they just don’t care
they could not give one single
flying fuck at the moon
oh, they’ll say at a news conference
that they prayed about it or whatever
but that is worth considerably less
than the almost entirely worthless unit
of a single flying fuck at the moon

they’ve said of other issues
far less frequent far less pressing issues
that maybe they should just not allow anyone
from certain countries into this one
until we “figure things out”
as a racist dog-whistle against immigration
by Latino Arab or Muslim refugees, of course
saying it is just another thinly worn fiction
the same as when they say that they have
prayers for the latest group of people
all shot dead for no goddamned reason
when really what they’re saying is
the munitions industry owns them
owns them locks and stocks and barrels
and they will not do anything to their masters
to prevent them from profiting off massacres
other than say that they’re whispering
to gods they don’t believe in while
they take money from the gods they do

well, maybe we just need
to shut down all the Wal-Marts
until we “figure this gun thing out”
maybe we just need to
shut down all the casinos until we
“figure this out”
shut down all the churches until we
“figure this out”
shut down all the schools until we
“figure this out”
the malls, the office buildings and
all our parks and city streets until we
“figure this out”

or maybe we just need to shut down
all the dog-whistling politicians
owned by the greedy butchers at the NRA
you know, until we
“figure this whole thing out”
have them go home
go away
while people with the spine
to care about human lives instead of
the profits of their business gods
actually figure this thing out
like Australia did
like Japan did
like Britain did
like the entire rest of the civilized world did
while these cowards and boot-licks
were all off praying and may as well
have been taking a flying fuck at the moon

Last updated November 09, 2017