Again and Again

there is no amendment nor its
handgun instruments so fit a need its
amending as the second amendment(1)

if I thought prayer would move,
I’d be move to pray(2) when the
second amendment trumps the
sixth commandment to make
rich the thoughtless hands of the
most un-noble of bloodlines(3)

yet we offer our thoughts and prayers

when the gun has emptied it rounds
and its sounds transpose to those
slain about the ground, we then again
want to heal the gaping wounds within us
that persist daily amongst us

when the teleprompter prompts the reader
the abridged, made-for-TV, epitaphs,
we kiss dead caesars’ wounds and
dip scripted red anger and anguish in betrayed
desecrated blood(4)
to say on cue

“ our thoughts and prayers are with you’

when they first thank first, the first
responders for responding first,
when they acknowledge first the
esprit de corps and cooperation of local
county, state and federal law enforcers who
enforced the full weight and force of their agencies
for violations of the sixth commandment whilst
overlooking the second amendment’s complicity in murder

our thoughts and prayers are with you
when they again want to know the motive,
the time frame, the response time within
the time frame to timely place rocks
on stars fallen untimely

again, our thoughts and prayers in the midst of
appalling silence, appalling apathy,
appalling complicity until an alleged shooter
whose purple hand reeks with gun smoke(5)
shoots you, yours, to your appalling cries,
appalling disdain, appalling duplicity
as we bury your dead in our heads and
dare again offer our fleeting thoughts
and empty repeated prayers that fall
like the fallen falling on death ears
again and again to second amendment guns
and bullets amidst your thoughts and prayers

1 Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar – Act 3, Scene 1, lines 163-166
2 Act 1, Scene 3, line 64
3 Act 3, Scene 1, lines 163-166
4 Act 3, Scene 2, lines 131-132
5 Act 3, Scene 1, line 163-169