Monday, October 2, 2017

Havdallah with a gun - yet another revision, for yet another massacre

I wrote this after Sandy Hook, and I had hoped, because of the sheer horror of that massacre, we would be mobilized to do something, to force our politicians to pass sane and safe gun laws. I was wrong. I've had to revise this a number of times.

We stand in this place, all of us together. We can change this. We must.  We cannot afford another death, another injury. We cannot allow another madman to loose his anger and insanity on us.

Havdallah with a gun

In praise of blood--
a pulse beat furrow
that runs royal blue to garnet,
to brown and black, but for the
space of a breath,
it is rich and sweet
and runs like wine,
like water, like life
in its pulse beat furrows,
until it pools in the cracks 
and fissures of pavement--
rubble now, rent, once
a playground
a building,
the brick and bones
of commerce
or worship
or home.

In praise of the scent of
oil and steel, the plastic
and ozone stench
that I imagine,
like musk 
and spice
that catches, in a draft
on the wind 
and carries with it--
singing and sharp--
the corruption of death.

In praise of a spark
that singular moment
of explosion, contained 
in that flash,
that spreads like 
light, that brings no warmth, 
and nothingness follows in its wake
and it offers a psalm 
of metal striking metal
that swallows sound
a single flameless spark
disappearing into the 
weighted scent of oil 
and blood.

A benediction, a 
prayer, for a 
life, for a
death, for
a gun.

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