My Country, 'Tis Of Thee

the big bad gun boomed; it hissed and spit awful bullets
a dangerous dragon tongue of metal and meanness
snaked forcefully forward
and the sound was horribly indiscriminate,
an odor of refined evil spreading over the scattered gummy bears
many who heard the unfamiliar sound didn't know what it meant,
and they died suddenly not knowing what it meant!
if there was any meaning, it has already vanished into the chill
of that sad mid-December morning.
but what is the meaning for the children?
six and seven years old!
six and seven years young!
children dying by their desks without parents for a goodbye embrace
blood and crayons and show-and-tell on the floor
hearts broken after the morning announcement, forever lost in the static
with Barbie pencils and Disney promises and more
screaming inside each classroom without answers for anyone
sufficient for Peace On Earth understanding.
children caught in a desperate moment of madness.
a simple elementary school designed to educate the many for life,
now left with fewer lives and even more questions,
while that vile man continued to boom and hiss his big bad gun,
firing a final fatal hot bullet into his own fatally flawed cold heart.
during his brief visit to a sunny school in Connecticut: 20 children,
12 girls and 8 boys
six and seven years old!
six and seven years young!
murdered
all innocent, pure souls
six and seven years old!
six and seven years young!
the big bad gun boomed
and millions of caring people began to cry.