Chronicles multiple years of mass shootings

The choices we made again and again

Ten bodies hit the floor

Eight more the week before

On the job, or out buying food

All it takes is to die, is a bad mood

At the movies, in your churches

It all started with a purchase

A gun

For fun

Or defend

A friend

Emotion

Leads to motion

Twitching finger

Is the bringer

Of death

And bereft

Black and brown

Hit the ground

Lives cast aside

In a hellward slide

Society on a path

Lead by wrath

Thoughts and prayers for the dead

But we must defend our lead

It’s our right to own the gun

That took away your son

Put him in a grave

Our amendment is the only save

We chose the weapon

We let this happen

Again and again, it’s not the right time

To put our values on the line

Maybe next time around

When our kids' schools locked down

We will come to our senses

Instead of sitting on fences

Blood liberated by lead

And now you too are dead

Too late now to make a choice

Use your voice

Put an end to this war

Streets filled with blood and gore

Put down your gun

Don’t be the only one

We chose this as a right

To be able to fight

To kill

At will

We can change our minds

Leave the slaughter behind

No more fear when we meet

Or bodies in the street

Cause a man with a plan

Had a gun in his hand

Fired away

Taking your child away

Just a twitch of a finger

Becoming the bringer

Of death and despair

Blood caking the hair

Another soul gone

From the barrel of a gun

This was our choice

Though tears are still moist

We can put our guns down

So next time won’t come around

For thoughts and prayers for the dead

While we defend our lead

Forty-five days filled with death

Since paper met lead giving words breath

Over two-hundred-fifty bodies were torn asunder

Assault rifles killing in seconds of rapid-fire thunder

Everywhere you once felt safe

Could become the next bloodbath place

And if the mass killings aren’t enough reason

Ten times more die I don’t know why every season

Accidents, suicide, bad break up, kids acting tough, innocent bystander

Even crimes of passion based on falsehoods and slander

Times of fear anger jealousy or just bad temper

Just takes a spark to become an ember

Add the presence of a gun

And you better run

When the bullets fly

It’s run hide or die

These are the choices we made

How many in graves have we laid

While we are defending the gun

That sent our children on the run

A run for their lives or early grave

When all they want to do is finish fifth grade

When you are talking on your phone

Scared feeling all alone

Or sleeping In your bed

Your life’s taken by flying lead

Draining from you as you bled

Point blank range into your head

Quick to Shoot you in the back

When all they see is You are black

Who may or may not have a gun

Or even just trying to run

Our sworn Protectors live in fear

Their deaths are always near

Too many guns in too many hands

Protected by the laws of the land

We all share the same fear

Our own deaths may soon be here

Only our solutions may vary

Should we disarm or carry

Some choose to reduce the risk

So every taillight out doesn’t end in frisk

Some react to fear with the need to kill

Send bullet down barrel at will

Clearly what we have done

Since our nation's first rising sun

Is not working out great

Maybe it’s not too late

To try another way

And see our very first day

Without hundreds of dead

Lives taken by flying lead

Might makes right, is the way to peace

If that’s so right why the unease

Today in Israel the land they call holy

Missiles keep flying sirens blaring slowly

Holes in buildings holes in the ground

Where is the peace you say is to be found

Might doesn’t make right

Might makes never-ending fight

Bullets flying everywhere

Bombs bursting in the air

Is this why our flag is still there after two hundred years

Till our flag was used as a weapon against ourselves fed lies and fears

The choices we made we’re not solely our own

The channel we watch and the people we know as we grow

Influence you every hour of every day

Till missiles and mass murders and insurrection are okay

In the past year, half a million died here

Three million more everywhere

We even fought over whether to protect each other

Or heighten the danger, mocking one another

Please please please choose wisely from this second forth

Go back to your innocence free of influence, the moment of birth

See the world as wonder once again, life as a gift

The moment you know nothing, just a smile brings you bliss

Unlearn everything that’s programmed into you except this moment in time

Start your life over full of love, full of wonder, on the right path, the kindness line

Death is forever, death is the end, no more chances, no more choices

Hundreds of thousands can be saved if you just use your voices

Don’t listen to others telling you how to feel

Feel what you feel with each life a bullet may steal

Ten seconds may pass in the blink of an eye

More than enough time for the bullets to fly

Two more dead twenty lives changed

Targets don’t matter when fully enraged

What next we wonder

What horror to ponder

Children with assault rifles shooting at police

Imitating video games used for stress relief

A good guy with a gun

Forced into letting the blood run

From a thirteen-year-old child

Who thought it would be wild

To play with a real gun

Have a little fun

She grew up In strife

Now she’s clinging to life

While in the halls

Of the Texas laws

A sub-brilliant idea was formed

As people plead for reform

A governor with no heart

Had this wisdom to impart

Let everyone run around with arms

What could be the harm

Driving to the store

Ends in blood and gore

You went through a light that was red

And now you lie there dead

Any event that may anger another

Maybe the moment you join grandmother

On the other side of the grave

Or a life someone did save

Spending the rest of your days in a chair

Wishing lawmakers would begin to care

Every time I put pen to page

Chronicles of pain and of rage

For every death, I have mentioned

A hundred more go without attention

The forecast, a hot bloody summer

Every death, is just a number

A toll we pay to the reaper

Just to be the keeper

Of the power to cause death

Glorified with every breath

Social media profile photo

Holding guns and the tired motto

The same old quotes from the NRA

Is all we have to say

When dared to question our decision

To value gunmetal over a vision

Of a world without the need

To teach active-shooter, before how-to-read

Someday

Someway

A poem with no end in sight

Completed by doing what is right

Will be short enough to be read

By the time we are dead

If started after learning the alphabet

Is it a long shot or a safe bet

The author spends his last days

Honoring the lives blown away

Maybe he too will meet his end

A bullet his life mid-sentence rend

‘Twas not this moment for my words to flow away

Been holding out hope of touching someone today

Awaken a feeling of disgust and remorse

Inspiring a change in the current discourse

I send my words out to the world at large

Hoping to stop even one bullet discharge

I woke up to my dismay

The news of the day

The more that die

The more guns people buy

Four million this month alone

Everyone scared not to have one

The more guns they buy

The more in the hands of, the other guy

A never-ending cycle of ever-increasing fear

Open carry laws remind us death is always near

It is Gun Violence Awareness Day

All the newscasters had to say

People are buying guns at a record pace

While mass shootings all over the place

This is our answer this is our solution

To the season of bloody execution

Madness, madness it’s not only badness

Accidental discharge brings grief and sadness

Do you have the right mind and will

To pull the trigger and kill

If it’s the person that kills not the gun

Are you willing to be another one

Whether it’s fear or anger

The perception of danger

That sent you to make your purchase

You made a choice to accept a purpose

To kill

At will

No matter the reason

To join the killing season

In the year the would-be king was disposed

A former would-be princess had this to propose

The south shall rise again and kill them all

All those who look like they belong behind a wall

Just days before the disgraced adviser of security

Exclamation punctuation corruption story

Rise up in bloody overthrow

Violent tendency we must outgrow

They say they must be armed against tyranny

Those with the most arms become the tyrants

The people we elect

Now under death threat

Oh what disgrace

Cultural arms race

Many dark moons passed in silence

Stunned without words for such violence 

Massive guns stacked up threateningly at the border

So much peace force, we need that here in short order

They are our brothers, from other mothers

So unprepared for the coming slaughter

The tangerine king

Didn't say a thing

When genocide 

Became the pride

The lion attacked the mouse

The mouse would not give up its house

Nuclear wasteland another battleground

Global disaster incoming with every round

Back at home we have qanon

Planning our execution 

Nazis dine

In the den of lies

Whispered plans magnified

Nondenouncement amplified

Just because he was her

Five more dead and your goto phrase

Proven no more than smoke and haze

The good guy set aside the gun

The target fought instead of run

The bad guy did not die that day

The propagandist had much to say

Rising danger rising heat

Four more lost on a distant street

Talking heads taking aim

Claiming all who attend are fair game

If you dare be who you are

You are targeted near and far

The hero who saved the life

Was there with his kids and wife

A good time to be had

Laughter ended by the very bad

Comedy

Twisted tragically 

Punchline pause bullets flying

Friends and family laying dying

The choices made no longer made by us

Meme mentality tools of propagandists 

The more people call for common sense

The more they wrap themselves in senselessness

When they have you living in the slaughterhouse 

They want you to scared like a shaking mouse

For every point we try to make

Pleading for our lives at stake

Screams into chasms dark embrace 

Echo-chamber fear and blaming race

We don't need to be controlled by memes

There's no need for violence themes 

Fear and hate

Purposeful separate

They can't let us see eye to eye

Or we'd agree we rather not die

They change the way you see everything

So you accept anything and everything 

Ding

Another meme

Cartoonish

Buffoonish

Blood keeps pouring down the drains

Check your pockets not your brains 

We are dying here

While you are relying on fear

For every one person shot

Two new guns are soon bought

Exponential

Expansionism 

Will your fear increase or subside

Once every man woman and child is armed on every side