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Heidi Franke Mar 5
I felt it
When I spoke
To the judge,
For my son,
Years of shell work
Encasing fear and sanity, cracked with each glance, falling away. Everyone listening.
I was left lost
Like a snail losing it's shell
Mushy and vulnerable
A Pulpy mess.

Was it enough
That I said
Or too much.
So much was left out
The Russian Roulette admission
The thoughts of jumping 15 floors from his hotel
So many letters making up words and paragraphs upon paragraphs
of 15 years.
Throwing out a gun
Into the city trash.

How could I be anything more than a mother
Who let the saving flatten her out of existence. Incoherence and pulp.
Will it be discarded
All that effort
To keep him alive
At my expense.
Is that what mothers do?
I'll never get to return. Life doesn't
Let you.
Speaking to judge on behalf of mentally ill son's crimes.
the wild west's still with us
it isn't gone at all
8 shot inside a high school
11 at the mall

Tombstone is no longer
Dodge City, it's now dust
But, the wild west's still with us
Believe me...in disgust

They no longer use revolvers
And have show downs in the streets
They've moved it to the school room
Where children hide beneath their seats

The press are there like vultures
The NRA cries foul
11 dead inside the mosque
But people wail and howl

They've the right to carry guns
You can't take that away
So, when you explain that to their folks
Just what do you say?

The wild west's still with us
It's a fact, that's true
It's not the same as it once was
This wild west is new

Shootings in the workplace
Shootings at the schools
Shooting in the churches
Are there any rules?

Each night the news is showing
A new shooting, it won't stop
The shooter dies a victim
And it's always death by cop

The wild west's still with us
It isn't gone at all
7 dead inside the church
11 at the mall
Amanda Kay Burke May 2023
The rest of your life has just begun
Time folds itself
A finger on the trigger of a gun
Hand wraps around to help
Written 3-27-30
you are foolish to think that pointing the gun
directly at me
will make me fear you.

hovering your finger over the trigger,
will not do the damage that intend it to,
if i have already unloaded the bullets.

but to my dismay,
the damage is already done.
as i look over my shoulder,
i can see the shattered mirror,
and a pool of blood seeping through the carpet.
in the end, i became the monster
that everyone always warned me about.
it does not live under the bed.
neither is it hiding in the closet.
but it stares back at me
when i look at the mirror.
it's been a year since my last poem. i told myself  that i would write more positive poetry. but after re-reading all my previous poems, it seems more fitting to continue with the same theme.
lua Feb 2023
a rifle fires a bullet into the night
its sonic boom shakes my bones
and rings in my ears
i watched it fly across the sky
its metal glinting like a shooting star
yet my eyes were too sluggish
unable to see where it might have hit
whatever it may have killed, lies in silence now
a corpse for me to find when i am older.
Michael Matthews Sep 2022
Tired of the fight
Fed up with the pain
No reason to live left in sight
I just don't want to go insane
All I want is to go to sleep
To never wake up with the next days dawn
Maybe with the gun to my head
I will finally get to stay asleep
With these Gunshot Eyes
Written by
Michael Matthews
Destiny C May 2022
My heart shatters on the floor,
like the bullets of a school corridor.

The sound ricochets in my mind,
like the screams of a parents not able to pick their kid up in time.

We are at war with the reaper.

The one who hugs the bullet while it pierces through the air.

The same one who casts its scythe away,
because the gun was more American.
colette alexia May 2022
Ten because nine isn't enough
Violence because we never learned how to love
Searched for forgiveness, now we search for blood
Couldn't reach an understanding so we're reaching for the gun
Shoot it ten times because nine isn't enough
05.04.2022
Zywa Apr 2022
An automatic

gun does not fire by itself --


There is time to think.
Collection "Half The Work"
JAM Mar 2022
the sun is a done
bun hon'.
worry now,
it can't be undone.
hurry now,
your pens and paper for fun.

you know it's too soon
to feel the flurry bow
down to rend bones
into red and vapor for fun.

so **** my **** and call me cherry.
pour the sherry one more time,
I can feel the divine
flesh and scrape her for fun.

knives and saccharine,
guns to blow the *****
off each and every one.
don't worry hon',
it's just for fun.
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