Some children will feel
There’s too many days in the school year
Some will think there isn’t enough
Some will be bored of the repetition and ease
Some will still be eager to learn
It is school
They are just kids
Learning slowly the mysteries of the day to day
Young people with little experience in life
As we once were
And in some way or another
Still are
We don’t have all the answers
In truth it’s all still a mystery
Despite our years of experience
And our piles of the day to day
And kids are just kids
As children have always been
As children should always
Be allowed to be
So let a few feel there’s too many days
Of study hall and home room and homework
Encourage them all to learn
And just as importantly
Encourage them just as much to laugh
Let them be bored of things that bore kids
Let them be children
Let them be kids
It is our privilege
It is our responsibility
To look after them
To keep them safe
To make sure they know
They are loved
But let no child at school
Have to think
Have to feel
Have to see
That there were too many guns
That there were too many bullets
That too much innocence blood was spilled
That the school year
Had too many deaths
Of too many friends
That lived too little
That were taken too soon
Because we failed to be responsible
That we took our privilege
As a community
As a world
For granted by turning a blind eye
And giving nothing but a moment of silence
And our thoughts and prayers
Without any action or resolve or steps
To make this last tragedy
The LAST tragedy
Any child had to live through
Had to survive
To witness bullets bought by greed
Bury the bodies of their classmates
If we watch this scene of tragedy
Play over and over again
And do nothing
NOTHING
To even try to stop the death of innocence
We ourselves in our complicity
Are just as much to blame
And just as guilty
As the hand that carried the gun
As the finger that pulled the trigger
As the politicians that took their bribes
The days of thinking it will never happen here
The days of the unthinkable being unthinkable
They are gone
They have been buried
With the bodies and the names
Of the children we have failed to save
The ones already gone today
And the ones that will be gone tomorrow
In the next senseless tragedy
Today is not soon enough
And tomorrow is always too late
Now is the time
And if not now
There will never be a day
We’re children are allowed to be kids
That don’t have to think
Don’t have to feel
Don’t have to see
That the school year
Had too many deaths

Cold, lifeless, steel...
A barrel, a trigger...
An ounce of lead...
A hammer pounds and thunder booms
Another death in another classroom

And why?

You say it’s not the gun
and yes to some degree
there is truth to that
but it’s also true that
to some degree it played it’s part

it’s not the whole of the problem
but its there in the equation
written out for all to see
in the blood of the innocence lost
multiplied by the tears
of the mothers and fathers
and brothers and sisters and friends

that must now live sitting at the dinner table
minus one less face and its smile and its laugh
and its eyes full of endless wonder
by dividing its future from its past
equaling the end of its life far too soon

And why?

Because...

Cold...
Lifeless...
Steel...
Has more cash exchanging hands
To protect its right
To protect its promotion
To protect its distribution
To protect its ability to ****
Easily and rapidly

COLD...
LIFELESS...
STEEL...
Has more value to politicians
Than the warm blood
and bones and flesh
Of our children
Of their schools
Of their education
Of their safety

COLD...
LIFELESS...
STEEL...
Has millions and millions being spent
While we ignore our broken schools
and our long over due need
to reform our educational system
and this is no coincidence
an uneducated mass is easier to distract
with age old rhetoric
keep them cookie cut
and packaged and boxed
mental slaves to the **** tube
programmed to love

Cold...
Lifeless...
Steel...

Leaving behind...

cold, lifeless, bodies...

Endless eyes of wonder
That wonder no more
Smiles that no longer laugh
Lungs full of blood instead of life
Hearts with holes no longer whole
no longer beat
Hands that don’t draw
Feet that don’t dance
Nothing more now
Than a body to fill a coffin
And a name for a family to grieve
through a lifetime of sorrow

And yet the
Cold, lifeless, steel...
With its barrel, trigger...
And pieces of lead...
Still hammer out thunder and death
At a moment of anger
And the ease of
a squeeze of a trigger
a trigger so easy to reach
so easy to pull
and just like that
leave behind

cold...
lifeless...
bodies...

Guns turn playgrounds into graveyards
and study halls into war zones
and classrooms into memories of living nightmares
and you say it's too soon to talk about
and lets not make this about politics
while you stuff the money from the guns you sold
into your pockets
and are quick to add you give
your thoughts and prayers
to the families of the victims
but your thoughts and prayers
won't bring back the dead
and their bodies are not yet buried
and already you have forgotten their names

Tell me again what god do you pray to?
Is it the god of death and greed?
Is it the god of bullets and blood?
Is it the god of GUNS! GUNS! GUNS!
How many dollar bills does it take
to wash the blood from your hands?
How much cash does it take
to stuff your mattress
for a guiltless night of sleep?

How many more lives lost?
How many more tears shed?
How many more hearts broken?
How many more families torn apart?
How many more bullets fired?
Before we stop praying
and speak out and stand up
and take part in real solutions

And spare me the rhetoric that guns don’t ****
And evil will do evil no matter the law or restrictions
Yes bad people will do bad things
one way or another
it’s true
But these are children killing children
Sick minds stealing the lives of innocence
At the ease of squeezing a trigger
A trigger so easy to reach
A trigger of a killing machine that
NONE of us need

And calm the **** down RAMBO
Because if you want to dream of some
Battle of glory
Where you single handedly save everyone
From a tyrannical government
trying to strip you off your rights to bear arms
When all you do is sit there on your couch
and let them strip you off far more important things
Let me tell you how thats going to end
Before you throw your life away
It’s not going to play out to your favor
The only Red Dawn your going to see
Is the dawn of your life’s horizon
Painted with your own blood

When is the time if not today?
If not now, then when?
A better tomorrow will NEVER get here
Unless we do something today
Until then guns will continue
to turn playgrounds into graveyards
and study halls into war zones
and classrooms into memories of living nightmares

The gods do not greive for thier dead
for they know nothing is permanent
not their robes or shrouds or stars or altars or crosses
they will come and go
as light goes into dark
and dark gives into light
for they know from the first step
they take out of the void
and into names and prayers
when they will exhale and fade back into nothing
leaving only vague myths and flimsy fables
behind with their brittle bones
and they have handed down this story
and printed it on every crease and line
of every leaf of every branch of every tree
and left the equation of time and blood
and life and death
in every shed scale
of snake and fish
on every lost hair
of dog and cat and man
and the mystery
is no mystery at all
not really
the answers are questions
and the questions are answers
and nothing is so small
as not to matter
and no matter
has any weight
except for the matters of love
and love is all that is
and all that every was
and all that will every be
the mother of dreams
the robes of death
the keeper of time
the child of life
are all love
made from love
made of love
being nothing less than
being nothing more than
love
as we are all here today
made of love
made for love
made from love
and this is why
the gods do not grieve
for their dead

He stood motionless at the cliffs edge and stared out over the landscape and the  ever elusive horizon, with his heart punching hard against his ribs and his breath calm and deep and steady.  The air carried a warm gentle breeze and the sky held birds of black wings that sang of the sun and the stars and the moon .  He was so still that he could have been an illustration on the page of a book in a story where time had been frozen and maybe he was.  Maybe he was a moment stolen from eternity and sculpted into the shape of a boy holding two feathers longer than he was tall and maybe it wasn't until eternity stole that moment back that he turned and smiled as wide as the moon pretending to be a cat.  Then he turned his head forward and slowly raised his arms until they were parallel with the ground and leaned forward until he fell over the edge.
He fell without fear.  His mouth did not scream or make any sound, it only sat quietly on his face framing the teeth of his smile.  He tucked in his legs and curled into a ball and spun and tumbled in the air.  With the earth rapidly approaching, he stretched his legs back out and began to run and leap and fly through and up and into the sky.  
He was a dream in the shape of a boy pretending to be a bird spreading out its wings and learning how to fly

He is the sky full of stars
The stars full of dreams
A dream full of hope
A poem I will never finish

   writing
    
      or

   reading

He is the wonder of joy
The joy of life
A life filled with love
A love that will not end

   not today

   not tomorrow

   not ever

He is the music in my heart
The heart in my soul
The soul in my heart
A kindness that grows

   and grows

     and grows

He is everything in a sky full of stars
More than I could have dreamt
More than I could have hoped
A wish that comes true
again and again

   every moment

   of everyday

My lifes greatest privilege
My loves greatest joy
My son
The poem I will never finish

I let you go
to Philadelphia
I let you go
thirteen goin' on “life”
to your momma-- (God rest her-- and keep you
--from wherever she is)
to your father in Philly
outa the picture

Sheepish in the doorway of my classroom
back again
one last time--

Say good-bye, kid, to your short stay in Scranton
a town that can't rhyme
whose name falls over its own misery
No use for outsiders

“Where's your book?
Found your binder in the rain
Soggy protest to school's demands?
Of course it's yours
I checked, ya know”

"No way!"

Desk's been empty, three weeks now
Still, gotta ask
“Whacha doin?
Where ya been?”

“Khmir,
I'm sorry for your loss....”
Thirty seconds shares our grief
Thirty seconds for your future's-- all I got

“Listen to your teachers!
Do your work!
Please-- be okay?”

Khmir
in your wooly black coat-- like a bear
like a dare
shruggin and dancin in the doorway
of the “show”

Homework? Aint happenin'
But one paper, though
on why--
YOU-- should be president

and I almost vote for you