"Constant
Carnage"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
4/17/07 6:15 a.m. pdt
Columbine
still fresh in memory
Weekly accountings of killings
listed in Monday's "local" section of the newspaper
Horrendous reportage doesn't cover the scars
and last week's headlines pale in comparison
Then another
young disillusioned iconoclast
with a gun
goes hunting
A first
barrage isn't enough
Where are the authorities
when the second barrage
eradicates the lives of over 30 souls?
Is anyone
safe anymore
Even in America?
No, we knew that in 1999
and we certainly knew that in 2001
and we know that even better today
Are we living on borrowed time
while the misbegotten
are allowed to lock the doors
of our innocence
and barricade themselves
inside our psyches?
Are we moments
from our final exit
as police and government seem to
ignore the realities of constant carnage
in the workplace and at school
even as the unsanctimonious shards of insanity
sever our serenity with sudden reports
from hidden guns
All too
easy access to weapons,
All too easy access to
support groups for homegrown
terrorism
Are there clues on
thousands of MySpace pages
portending the slide into
anarchy?
Another
day passes from memory
But the events prove
that even the last shocking act
of inopportune mayhem
is not going to be as shocking as the next
And the
next
And the next
And will
there
ever
be an end to the constant carnage
???
Or will you and I be counted among the dead
next time.....
????
Poetry
2007
