(Note: I expanded my "calls to change" tanka into a 3-tanka sequence, American Daymare this morning)
This Brave New World, LXXIII
written in response to Senate Chaplain Barry Black's opening prayer for the Senate's new session
a young mother
wakes up with her son's bed
empty
calls for change loud and louder
until the next mass shooting
another
gun control debate
in the spotlight
the back-and-forth flow
of black-and-white monologues
a good guy
just needs an assault rifle
to shoot the bad guy ...
an outburst of clapping
among new psych ward patients
Note: Ls 1&2 of the concluding tanka refer to NPR, December 21, 2012: NRA: "Only Thing That Stops A Bad Guy With A Gun Is A Good Guy With A Gun."
And the following is Senate Chaplain Barry Black's opening prayer:
Lord, when babies die at a church school [this year's 129th mass shooting], it is time for us to move beyond thoughts and prayers. Remind our lawmakers of the words of the British statesman Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."
Lord, deliver our senators from the paralysis of analysis that waits for the miraculous.
And this tanka is a sequel to the following poem whose L3 is "satirically resonant" with the tone and mood of the first line of Senate Chaplain Barry Black's opening prayer.
FYI: Democracy Now, April 7: “A Public Lynching”: Justin Jones, Black Tennessee Lawmaker, Responds to Expulsion from State House
Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two Black Democratic lawmakers, were expelled by a Republican supermajority in the Tennessee state House for protesting Gun Violence in the chamber of Representatives...as thousands rallied at the Capitol to demand gun control after the Covenant elementary school shooting in Nashville.
Added: This Brave New World, LXXIV
written in response to this year's 129th mass shooting in the USA: "Nashville church school shooting, 3 children, 3 staff killed"
ra-ta-ta-ta-tat
followed by these blah, blah, blah ...
more "thoughts and prayers"
And FYI: The New York Times, March 30: After Mass Shootings, Republicans Expand Access to Guns
Added: This Brave New World, LXXV
a sequel to American Daymare
school shooting drill
after school shooting drill ...
under their desks
two boys point at each other
with their finger pistols
The New Republic, March 28, 2023: “We’re Not Gonna Fix” School Shootings Says GOP Tennessee Congressman, accessed at https://newrepublic.com/post/171421/tennessee-rep-tim-burchett-nashville-school-shooting-were-not-gonna-fix-it
ReplyDelete“Three precious little kids lost their lives, and I believe three adults, I believe, and the shooter of course, lost their life too. So, it’s a horrible, horrible situation. And, we’re not gonna fix it,” Tim Burchett told reporters Monday, in an incredibly bold-faced assertion about what a member of our government believes government is even for: nothing.