Category: Mass shooting

For All Our Daughters, A Prayer

Image courtesy of depositphoto.com
My daughter, mine,
though you live
       thousands of miles away
sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Though you live	
        where a man caresses a weapon of war as he plots
	to drill death into hundreds as he walks down a street,
sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Though you live 
        where freedom should ring 
	yet a state ties you hostage in righteous ropes of religion,
sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Though you live
        where you must sell your body
	to feed your children,
sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Though you live
        where no one, no law will protect you
	from the monster who sleeps beside you,
sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Though you live 
        where you have no voice,
        where you die in the custody of morality police,
        where you can disappear with no outcry to echo behind,
sleep, sleep safe, my daughter mine.

Nothing Ephemeral Exists Here

on the first year after the Uvalde mass shooting

Image courtesy of The Texas Tribune
All shapes of brutish violence,
written in sprawling spray
of innocent blood.

Did Eden ever exist?
Every rain of bullets instills doubt.

Pray heaven exists
for the sake of parents grieving still,
their children, bloody sacrifices
on an altar to the 2nd amendment.