How many years have I prayed
since that day playing dead
kept the bullets aimed
at those folks trying to flee the park
through the da-da-da-da-da-da rain
of another full ammo clip emptying
from on high and over
the police and EMT sirens
when my faith in God
ran smack into doubt’s
full metal jacket?

This world must be drunk
on small minded hate
with a sense of inequity so vast
that there is no possible way
to envision the apathy chasm spanned.

I do not want to live
where metal detectors
are poetry reading mandates
and the unanswered calls
of free verse and formed rhymes
point out unrequited love
and its accompanying heart ache.

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copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney