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.