Friday, May 27, 2022

What's Next, a poem. Indran Amirthanayagam

 

What's Next?


We are not going to give the fellows a pass with expressions of condolence,

minutes of silence, then off they go to the NRA Convention in Houston

while leaving instructions to block the latest attempt to forgive student loans,

increase funds for Covid tests, fund food stamps, allow a woman the right

to choose, and ban littering in national parks, or force the wearing of masks.

I am tired and hungry, friends, repeating the litany, naming all the blockages,

scrimmages, jostling and gerrymandering, mouthing off and filibustering

that we call a democracy. We must ban guns outright. Eliminate any sacred

or sacrilegous right to bear them hidden or not in public. Can you imagine

that Texan law allows for this? That the deranged eighteen-year-old murderer

of nineteen kids and two teachers did not have to account for the guns he used –

albeit against the law by stepping on to school grounds--to massacre and remind

us that we have so much to do to heal first and then build this democracy

to assure the safety of all who live here, so help us God.



Indran Amirthanayagam, c) May 25, 2022

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