Comment by Margaret Randall on February 3, 2013 at 8:25am

You mirror so many of our sentiments in this poem, Jules. Thank you. The two lines that hit me hardest, strangely enough, are "Weep with me, soil / Weep with me, sky". It's as if we must go to those elements to mirror our feelings, since those humans with the power to effect gun law change still seem more interested in keeping their jobs than in saving lives. I'm sure the soil and sky are weeping with us all.

Comment by Greg Smith on February 3, 2013 at 8:42am

As a local newspaper columnist said " Jesus wasn't there to protect the Griegos family" I despair that any effective legislation will come soon. Perhaps our grandchildren will see the folly of gun worship and these deaths will end.

 

Comment by John Roche on February 3, 2013 at 9:47am

Necessary words! Good to see this here, Jules.

Comment by Teresa Gallion on February 3, 2013 at 11:27am

Very strong piece....well said message Jules.

Comment by Izquierdo on February 3, 2013 at 2:27pm

Well said, indeed. A new verse could be written weekly. Yesterday Alnuquerque; Today Stephensville, Texas...a gun range. Tomorrow...?

Comment by Dee Cohen on February 3, 2013 at 2:58pm

Thank you Jules for putting these thoughts into words. D

Comment by Aaron Greenwood on February 6, 2013 at 8:46am

I identified as a Democrat and progressive growing up as a child and into young adult years.  My mother was a liberal politician, my uncle a speech writer for Democrats.  My liberal pedigree goes way back to none other than James Michael Curley, a most famous partisan Democrat.  If I had stayed in Massachusetts I would be another Mad Hatter following the party line, but I woke up and began thinking for myself.  I moved away from the cave known as Massachusetts.  I bring this part of my past up so you know where I came from.  I've spent the rest of my life finding out what lies outside my cave.

This is my response to Jules' poem.

We take our politicians the way the deeply religious take their spiritual leaders no matter what kind of charlatans they are.  We are blind and easily manipulated once we pledge allegiance to flag of whatever ideology we submit to. Politicians live for Sandy Hooks, it is like god send.

This isn't the first time Jessie Jackson has asked the president to come to Chicago.  I'm with Cornell West when he says, “We can’t just shed tears on the Vanilla side of town.”  Which means there is a racist element in any discussion of violence.  The African American community is ignored and the inner cities are becoming culturally decimated by crime, poverty, teen motherhood and violence.  That is not me talking, but some African American civil rights and religious leaders that are waking up to reality. 

Standing aside from the gun control argument, it is clear we are a flawed species.  Violence is natural as spring rain. One can point to certain cultures in certain times as examples of peace, but they are just respites.  It is a harsh reality, but it is true. In the general sense the species is not particularly interested in non-violence.  You can't legislate non-violence. I seriously doubt anyone can disarm the American people with 270+ million guns in the hands of 43+ million households.

Any real discussion of violence needs to address our culture in its totality, in ways many will refuse to.  It's not the video games per se but the content where the killing is easy.  It not books, movies. TV or advertisers, it is the morally of their content.  It is not JonBenet Ramsey, it is the sexualized of our children.  It is a lot of things that proceed the pulling of a trigger, the flying of fists and the insertion of a knife blade into human flesh.

In the words of Martin Luther King Jr:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate,
violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness
in a descending spiral of destruction....
The chain reaction of evil --
hate begetting hate,
wars producing more wars --
must be broken,
or we shall be plunged
into the dark abyss of annihilation.

Comment by Jules Nyquist on February 10, 2013 at 7:28pm

Thanks, everyone for your comments. I am honored to have my poem featured for this week. I'm glad it is generating discussion, as that is what poetry is meant to do. Whatever you take from my words, or what they represent to you is what I want this poem to be for you. I wrote this poem a  few days after the Sandy Hook killings. Since then there has been more media involvement and more deaths. The poem captured how I was feeling at the moment.  I felt the soil and the sky strongly that day.  I still do. No president can save us, anger won't prevail over darkness, love really is the only answer. Alas,  we are left with our feelings of loss all the same.

Comment