For The Massacred - Gail Onion

[Lawrence Robinson]

For The Massacred

	
	Don’t be silent now, 
	I say to the poets
	Don’t be fearful,
	Don’t be timid,
	Speak the truth my poets.
	I implore your mouths of trampled flowers,
	Your hands of faded laurel leaves,
	Your eyes like old horses that have seen it all.

	Diversity, equity, inclusion,  
	are in the fight for their lives for
	Lies and cruelty have pulled the trigger.

	Words wielded by murderers of faith, hope, and truth.
	Words with a hiss, words with a whip lash, words of shame.
	Words of nooses, words of beatings, words of cages, words of hate.
	Words of derision, words of abuse, words that maim and kill,
	become guns their intentions particularly
	orchestrated and targeted on black and brown bodies.

Guns that cut out laughter from the hearts
of children. Guns that have endless appetites
for death. Guns that observe with indifference
the carnage, the inconsolable grief.
Guns that vomit their horror 
extinguishing beauty and love in 30 seconds.
Bodies left mutilated, in a bloody detritus of
legs splintered, beloved heads shattered, 
eclipsed lives and dreams,
hemorrhaging sorrow and rage
that will never end.
An entire nation razed to the ground
To become a playground for oligarchs.

So sing poets sing for our lives!
Sing us defiant against power, greed and a gun infested world.
Sing us free from injustice, from wars, from terror.
Sing us brave, sing us truth, sing us sane.
Sing us kind, sing us wise.
	Sing poets, sing for our lives!

	Make it impossible for us to turn away
	From the suffering of others, 
	the holy more than human, bird, beast, flower, tree. 
             
	Make it impossible for us to turn back
	from creating a world of peace,
	for this one earth, this one family.
	
	Pray us into a world where no one
              can ever talk us out of justice,
              mercy and love again.

	- Gail Onion