Sunday, July 10, 2016: An American Song

Sunday, July 10, 2016 Sunday morning

Here is the poem I wrote yesterday.

 

 

An American Song

 

Now they’re shooting cops in the street.

It’s got to have been getting worse

I don’t remember this when I was young.

Yes, they shot JFK, but that was bizarre.

We just didn’t have such violence over here.

Except on TV, where the cowboys shot the Indians

And the white hats shot the black hats.

Of course, there have always been shootings

From the Boston Massacre to Wounded Knee.

And Gettysburg and Antietam:

Mass American shootings.

Assassinations in the ’60s were more one-one:

Malcolm X and Medgar Evers,

Martin Luther King, and RFK,

Some guy in a tower in Texas shot a lot of people,

But it was an anomaly, wasn’t it?

We don’t really act like that.

Then the Kent State shootings,

Four Dead in Ohio.

And Jackson State,

where the victims were black.

And it was cops killing students.

Then some nut shot 22 people in a McDonalds.

You want fries with your mass murder?

Over 10 billion served.

There was Columbine in ’99,

students killing other students.

Moments of silence,

our thoughts and our prayers

 

Meanwhile, in the cities,

cops are quietly killing black men

Pulled over for “driving while black.”

Nobody pays much attention;

black lives don’t matter.

Then Virginia Tech scares everyone to death;

The freaky image on the Facebook page.

How many likes for mowing down classmates

Then it seemed to be everywhere.

Breaking news; broken lives.

Gabby Giffords seemed so nice.

Sandy Hook made it all the worse:

Little children shot in school.

Now we teach them to shelter in place

in the safe zone away from the windows.

Like duck and cover drills in the Cold War.

Then more black men are killed by white cops:

What’s going in here?

Michael Brown and Eric Garner,

Walter Scott and Freddy Gray, and …

 

Oh my God, what’s happening now?

They’re shooting folks in a famous black church.

More black lives; what’s the matter?

How can you shoot people when they are praying?

Then Orlando took us over the top.

Fifty Pulses ceasing to beat

How can you kill people while they are dancing?

Blood spills all over their rainbow flag.

When is it terrorism? When is it a hate crime?

When is enough enough?

When is it just plain crazy?

When is it just the norm?

Films about Rambo, superheroes and super-killers

First-person shooter video games

Then these videos start going viral

More white cops killing more black men

It’s on video again and again.

Outrage explodes into marches

Demonstrations explode into gunfire

A lone sniper mows down five cops

who were trying to keep the peace.

Now that they’re killing cops in the streets,

Where do we go from here?

 

--James W. Kershner, Wildacres, July 1016

 

 



The inspiring view from the Guest House at Wildacres.

 

Sunday morning was terrific. We had tem people at meditation—double our previous level. At breakfast I sat beside Jack McGregor, who asked me all about my motorcycle trip. Jack is a longtime Wildacres regular, but this was my first extended conversation with him. What a nice guy!

After breakfast I went to the lodge, where there is a limited Internet connection, and updated my blog. I also took the time to reread the poems we will be discussing in class this afternoon.

The afternoon poetry class led by Janice Fuller was stimulating. We talked about our favorite poems by other poets and why we liked them, and then we critiques one poem by each student in the class. Mostly we identified those special passages when the phrases sing or shine with beauty. I got some good feedback on my poem about phragmites. It is more universal than I thought.