In the stroke of the midnight hour,
From the depth of my heart i felt;
Kindle not a fire you cannot quench,
It is easier to raise the devil than to lay him;
If pouring oil on the fire doesn't quench it,
Then let bygones be bygones.

Still i feel it now,
Necessity and opportunity may make a coward vialant.
Pardoning one offence will encourage many,
Mercy to the devil is cruelty to the people;
Pardoning the bad is injuring the good,
We are not here to think of offenders.
Seldomly seen, soon forgotten, is the society,
But it's better to be a has-been than a never never-was!

I looked, before i leaped,
The resolved mind has no cares;
Bold resolutions is The favourite of providence,
So now it's the time!

They should be punished with no mercy,
For their sins and cruelty.
They are the who,
Once talked of, now forgotten!
Behind whose smiles daggers were hidden,
And whose blood couldn't be washed with blood!
The plunders,
The massacres,
The murders,
The screams;
They are supposed to be gone,
And not forgotten!

Black will take no other hue,
So does white!

(a poem for Christina-Taylor Green, who
was born on September 11, 2001 and who
died at age nine, shot to death ...)

Child of 9-11, beloved,
I bring this lily, lay it down
here at your feet, and eiderdown,
and all soft things, for your gentle spirit.
I bring this psalm — I hope you hear it.

Much love I bring — I lay it down
here by your form, which is not you,
but what you left this shell-shocked world
to help us learn what we must do
to save another child like you.

Child of 9-11, I know
you are not here, but watch, afar
from distant stars, where angels rue
the evil things some mortals do.
I also watch; I also rue.

And so I make this pledge and vow:
though I may weep, I will not rest
nor will my pen fail heaven's test
till guns and wars and hate are banned
from every shore, from every land.

Child of 9-11, I grieve
your tender life, cut short ... bereaved,
what can I do, but pledge my life
to saving lives like yours? Belief
in your sweet worth has led me here ...

I give my all: my pen, this tear,
this lily and this eiderdown,
and all soft things my heart can bear;
I bring them to your final bier,
and leave them with my promise, here.

*

Published by The Flea, The Lyric, Copia Posterous, Elizabeth’s Ramblings, Legacy.com and Fullosia Press

Keywords/Tags: Child, beloved, lily, eiderdown, psalm, shooting, gun, violence, massacres, 9-11, evil, NRA, guns, war, wars, hate, hatred

And she was a city
borne off massacres
stuck on the idea that
only love could heal her.

We raised ours hand with others
And shared the grand hurrah.
We marched with them if we could
Amazed at what we saw.
Sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers
Half a million in the demonstration
A solemn gathering of protest
In the capitol of a grieving nation.

We came together, raised our voice
In major cities, and small towns.
This time we would not allow
The corporations to shout us down.
We carried signs that told the truth
In a fewest words we could write
That enough was enough and this was
A battle we had just begun to fight.

We shouted our children deserved
Not to die in their childhood school
And demanded that the government
Changed their wrongheaded rules.
We let them know across the land
The many of us were voting soon
And we would throw them out if they
Didn’t dance to a different tune.

We told them it was time they knew
That we saw through their faults
And that this country needed to
Outlaw weapons of mass assault.
We let them know we were through
With what they called leadership
That we would gladly send them home,
A much needed one-way trip.