Newtown

In this land of 300 million guns,
logic is a defenseless child. 

I love my country, 
I hate its paranoia 

Where they trade on our apathy
to stockpile their crazy. 

The cost of their "freedom?” 
The lives of the innocents. 

A well regulated militia--
well, Obama is a socialist. 

“I hunt.” 
'Nuff said. (Hunters are such sacred cows?)  

Self-defense?  
Man up. Statistics say otherwise. 

Guns for teachers! Guns for everyone!
Are you fucking kidding me?

Ignore this futile exercise. 
Every word since Friday comes out like shrapnel. 

And still, we bleed. 

--

These links have offered me much insight, if little solace, in the days following the Newtown massacre: 

So You Think You Know the Second Amendment? 
Guns Have Never Saved Us

Gun Deaths Vs. Gun Ownership by Country
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence 

Statistics on U.S. Gun Violence

Connecticut's Rules For Purchasing This Gun

Portrait of Eleanor Holding a Shell

(Eleanor Holding A Shell, by Frank Weston Benson)

Eleanor, 

how his sunlight adores you

Transforming your frock 

into waves and white horses

Igniting your hair 

with King Neptune’s touch.  

Yet how like Hamlet to me

you are with your token!    

Your youth arrested 

by the pearl of a whisper 

A crossroads suggested

in the purse of those lips 

Grave before beauty        

and the silence within.  

Whereupon the gulls cried out 

or your feet got drenched

The conch slips free

and Eleanor—I hear your laughter

As your father pauses 

to mix ochre and ivory 

and you take his light, 

running.