Once upon a time
Not so very long ago
I was wishing upon a star
Watching Mary's lamb
With down as white as blow

I laughed at Country Boy Eddie
For hours it must have been
We'd been up all the night
Indulging in our sin

They said we were full of crime
I said we were doing time
They were about to leave
Until I made another line

We laughed at Country Boy Eddie
For hours on an end
Daylight came creeping in
It was time to make amends

If you every saw the flick
"Once upon A Time In The West"
It was a western made
Perhaps it was the best

Brutal man can be
unlimited it seems to see
For Country Boy Eddie was laughing now
And he was laughing back at me

All the laughing stopped
There in the morning mists
It was a time to collect the debts
And sadly were they ever ******


There would be no tomorrow
No more credit would they let extend
An eye for just an ounce
See how far the bones will bend

A life for no more than a pound
A bullet between the eyes
From the boys that
Wear perpetual frowns ,
"It's time to say goodbye!"

There was no more laughing
Except on the TV screen
Country Boy Eddie was hee-hawing to himself
The morning now serene

When I walk towards the dog lying in the gutter his eyes follow my every step.

Eyes blue like hard candy. Lips curled above white fangs
smile at me with a smirk of someone who has awakened
from a bad dream.

I think I hear him sigh and as I kneel beside him, his cold eyes catch some light from the pulsating Drum Bar sign.
"What do you see?" I ask. "What can you feel?"

Inside the bar the clatter of billiard ***** and muted conversations. I order a shot of bourbon and as I put the bourbon to my lips I hear the faint sound of claws on wood. The dog trotting across the ***** floor jumps on a barstool next to the fireplace. His lips are contorted tightly above its teeth and his eyes pulsate red light. After staring in disbelief the impossibility of situation dies. His eyes flash quickly several times. He seems to know me.

I order 2 shots of bourbon and walk over to where the mutt was sitting. He is not there and I'm beginning to wonder if I have imagined the dog when I feel something ice cold rubbing against my leg, I look down. The mutt winks at me. I crouch down to put the glass of bourbon in front of him. Then I touch my glass to his.

"I've learned to moan without making a sound. " I tell my friend as his stiff tongue stubbornly licks up the bourbon.

He slowly turns his big, ****** head towards me. "Out of the lowest," his hoarse voice rasps, "the highest reaches his peak."

I squat down. Cautiously I stroke his head. He growls but it is not too menacing. It becomes more like a contented humming. The faster I caress the louder the droning becomes. His eyes dilate and I become mesmerized watching them grow from a warm yellow radiance to a terrifying hot white.

And with a vicious snap the dog sinks his teeth into my hand.

I **** my hand loose. Quickly I stand up and punt kick the little ******* into the fireplace. My wounds are deep but bloodless. A cold numbness travels up my arm, into my chest, and down to my toes.

And just when I 've lost all feeling I begin to burn. The fire spreading within me unearths fragments of my life I barely recognize. The words I never said and laughter echoing in an empty room.

The fire is burning me from the inside out, so no one knows how I feel. Instead, I stare at the dog in the fireplace as steam rises from his head. His eyes flash at me three or four times.

I give him the finger.

When I walk into the poolroom, I put quarter on the table. It is a crowded room of tired faces unable to radiate any light of their own.

"The fire has consumed me. The true believer of snow and sad faces, I am a shell."

I am confused, frightened. I hear the words as if they are my thoughts. But then across the room hidden in a dark corner I discern the silhouette of the mutt. His eyes are shut but I can faintly see his subtle smile.

It's my game so pretending as if nothing has happened I select a pool stick. A tall man in a leather jacket comes over and tells me it is his game.

we argue.

And the dog's voice groans, "No matter what you dream it'll end in ashes or ice. Hit him with the pool cue." The pool stick heavy in my hands. The next thing I know I'm slamming the pool stick into the man's face. Blood gushes from his wound. People rush from the shadows. Hands grab me. Punch and kick me. I'm dragged to the door and tossed into the gutter.

Semiconscious, sometimes dreaming, I roll over and face the dog. Its eyes now dim but unyielding. From the shadows someone comes behind me, I try to roll over to see the voice but cannot.

"What does this world consist of?" The voice whispers into my ear. "Empty lots, a dead dog, and visions of the night."

No!
Shout their names
Let high winds carry them
to all corners of the world

Nicholas Dworet
Gina Montalto
Jamie Guttenberg
Alyssa Alhadeff
Joaquin Oliver
Meadow Pollack
Martin Duque
Luke Hoyer
Alex Schachter
Peter ****
Alaina Petty
Helena Ramsey
Cara Loughran
Carmen Schentrup

Scholars, athletes,
musicians,
community volunteers,

Chris Hixon
Aaron Feis
Scott Beigel

Teachers,
mentors,
leaders

All seventeen
caring, strong,
determined,
thoughtful

inspirations

Shout their names
Let high winds carry them
Honor their memory

Show their young vibrant faces
Look!
Really look!

Look in their eyes
Can you not see their hopes?
hopes that fell and
crumpled with their limp bodies,
destroyed in mere seconds

Can you not see their dreams?
dreams shattered,
turned to nightmares?
destroyed in mere seconds

Can you not see their plans?
Plans for their future,
a future wrenched from them
destroyed in mere seconds,

Mere seconds
of violence

That’s all it took

Congress persons,
Members of NRA,
Gun sellers
are your children,
grandchildren,
those you care about
shielded from this same fate?

Or
will it take their demise
before you can see?

Don’t you know that,
in truth, we are all
the same family?

The children who died
are your children!
The teachers who died
are your brothers!

Their blood courses
through your body, too

it courses through all of us.

Some like to daydream through life.

          I like to open my eyes and see
                  the negative & positive.

                          "We learn when we look"

But you keep daydreaming your rose-tinted reality.

We can never be
both patriots and racists,
we were once the open arms
to the seas on both sides,
to the oceans of grasses
and deserts between,
we were once home
to the huddled masses
having no need for castle
walls and moats built
to segregate the freedom
we forget doesn't belong
only to us because we are
more than the buffoonery
and blowhard *******
saturating the evening news,
it takes more than a tweet
to govern a country, we are
more than the flag we hold
hands over hearts to honor,
more than the Trumpets
and twilights last gleaming,
we are the space seekers,
the star dusted travelers
brave enough to strap
ourselves to rocket fuel
and hope, we were the first
to help, we are more, and
it is time we were it again.

Silence comes
  from bones
that rot in the Earth
beneath a wet stone
with a carved name
   white as good teeth
in a hard jaw.

Silence is
  a homerun some kid
hit in Tennessee
in 1973 and a father
remembering the ball
  going like a bullet
deep into left center.

Silence is
  a brother grimacing
whispering your name,
through salt
  and tears on his cheeks,
one last time.

Silence, it just is...
  quiet, like pain.

Our environment
                     writes
our
      words for us.

Moments
        elongate
to forever,
            without you.

No, she isn't a poet
has never inked one
she takes off my weight
gets my things done

so I have enough time
to afford in a way
the luxury of rhyme
clever wordplay!

No, she isn't a poet
not written one line
clean is her slate
sees I'm fine

so I have enough space
and hour of my own
to indulge the grace
of thoughts mind grown!

No, she isn't a poet
no way she would be
she does her best
to see I'm happy

so my words run smooth
poems are easy born
truth and half truth
are spun night and morn!

No, she isn't a poet
cares not a bit
from her toil's sweat
my poems birth sweet

poems aren't her art
in the sun and showers
she grows from her heart
our garden's best flowers!