People Over Politics, World Over Wealth
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Boneyard Brand ~ Philip Brent Harris
I’ve been busy organizing my writing, but every time I turn on the news, there’s been another mass shooting. More than all the days of the year we’ve had so far, by far. This is an old piece, but why write anything new.
What are the numbers, does anybody know?
Does anybody care how many we have to go?
Can anyone, anywhere believe it’d get this high?
Probably so, as we continue pretending to try.
How many incidents are recorded each week?
Not just in the world, but also of here I speak.
This time it’s one and that time it’s twenty plus,
but hey, you cannot control us, what’s the fuss?
For fifty years, more the total has gotten higher.
Those who deny it would torch you, not yell fire.
They have aught but their own interests at heart.
They are more than likely to cause all to depart.
What are these mystic numbers to which I refer?
To most I could tell them without causing a stir.
The question asked in a 60’s song, about cost;
how many human lives would have to be lost?
What total we would need, our madness to end?
How many to the ranks of death would we send?
How many deaths would it need our laws to rescind?
The answer, my friend, is still blowing in the wind.
A million, five hundred and sixty thousand, about,
fall annually to the gun, won’t that make you shout?
Nine hundred sixty thousand die from gun suicide.
You’d think this would make gun lovers run, hide.
These numbers are approximates and hard to find,
even trying to compile them just one year at a time.
That we should have to look seems tragic to me.
So little has changed here since nineteen sixty-three.
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Remember the numbers are someone’s mother, son.
Father, daughter, aunt, or uncle; it might be anyone.
Rich or poor, special on either end of the spectrum.
Smart, dumb, hawk, dove die at the end of a gun.
In, from an ivory tower its fiery wrath may descend.
From young hand or old hand, an enemy or friend,
whether from single shot or an extended magazine.
No matter, you’ll still be dead; know what I mean?
You will cease to live, but you won’t cease to matter.
The tears, pain and loss in the lives that will shatter.
And some will still say it is just some stupid number,
But not those whose loved ones will forever slumber.
Slumber rhymes; all those killed shall only be dead.
Whether murder, drive-by, straight shot to the head.
Innocent bystander, target, soldier, your own hand.
Forlorn tramp or hero; will they strike up the band?
Suicide, accident, murder, names that deny people.
Human lives lost while hunting, shot from a steeple.
Murdered by maniacs or hermit dreams to decimate.
They might as well be us, as we share the same plate.
Can you wonder I think this world is quite insane?
I, another inmate, one who would see sanity again.
And I know all weapons won’t disappear overnight;
Paranoia says we will save some for a random fight.
All guns may kill us, yet some meant for daily use.
A person-to-person call for which there’s no excuse.
So let us not be blinded by numbers meant to shock,
Each number human. Humanity stands in the dock.
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Peace is Purpose, Nonviolence is Strength,
Diversity is Unity, Empathy is Empowerment
Unite the World
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Boneyard Brand ~ Philip Brent Harris
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