Here's a poem left over from yesterday, using Robert Lee Brewer's prompt of writing a popem with a title beginning with "How." I mentioned my friend Vince Gotera earlier and provided a link to his blog, The Man with the Blue Guitar. His poet friend Thomas Alan Holmes has been writing a series of poems this month about gun violence and gun control, focusing on the recent events in the Tennessee legislature. I wrote a poem earlier this month on the subject of guns, but he inspired me to revisit the topic.
How Easy to Forget Mỹ
Lai
It's almost been lost in the shuffle of history,
but I am old enough to remember when it was news.
1968: Three to five hundred unarmed villagers
murdered by our troops—many women and children.
No war crimes trial—only the lieutenant in charge
was convicted, and his sentence was commuted
to three years of house arrest.
Children. Murdered in cold blood.
Lying in a dirt road next to their dead mothers.
Why should we be surprised, in a country
that has always worshipped the gun?
Why should we be surprised that children
are murdered even today, every day, in the streets,
in their own classrooms, by guns once used
only by the military? Why should we be surprised
when the people who are supposed to pass laws
to protect us, mumble something in the hall
to a reporter about "thoughts and prayers,"
on the way to their office to meet
a gun lobbyist and get their check,
guaranteeing amnesia for the last tragedy
until the next one comes around?
It's almost been lost in the shuffle of history,
but I am old enough to remember when it was news.
1968: Three to five hundred unarmed villagers
murdered by our troops—many women and children.
No war crimes trial—only the lieutenant in charge
was convicted, and his sentence was commuted
to three years of house arrest.
Lying in a dirt road next to their dead mothers.
Why should we be surprised, in a country
that has always worshipped the gun?
Why should we be surprised that children
are murdered even today, every day, in the streets,
in their own classrooms, by guns once used
only by the military? Why should we be surprised
when the people who are supposed to pass laws
to protect us, mumble something in the hall
to a reporter about "thoughts and prayers,"
on the way to their office to meet
a gun lobbyist and get their check,
guaranteeing amnesia for the last tragedy
until the next one comes around?
2 comments:
Bruce: very powerful poem. I had forgotten that Calley was sentenced to house arrest. Thanks for writing that. I hope you can get it out somewhere where more people will see it.
Bruce, I hope my focus this month does not adVERSEly affect your work.
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