Wanting Peace – Chronology of Hope

I

When I was a child I wondered about Vietnam,

couldn’t wait to see the names scroll by

the evening news, Walter Conkrite’s lovely sigh

would ring in my mind until my later bedtime.

~

I saw the protestors, I lived by their side,

I was the kid the one with dreams and hope,

everyone else jaded with shards of rope,

to me this all seemed rather a cool slide.

~

When Malcolm was shot I was only five

years old, yet young enough to curate

a foundation of wonderment to relate

my own upbringing to his will to survive.

II

Shards of glass tore through the landscape

I remember Bloody Sunday to wit

storms of lost souls with no regret

their master the King slain without escape.

~

I recall my childhood the assassinations

today an older soul was still watching scroll

the names scan across on the idiot box below

the regular news, the stuff of our emotions.

~

In California, a presidential wannabe

gunned down without a moment good bye

where on the ground the nation’s own lie

the world went on, we had needs to see.

III

Instead of losing our nation’s leaders,

we’re taking away those we don’t know

those we have often times told to go,

yet somehow they cannot be seceders.

~

We argue commonality and dated resource

no one really knows who will need defend

a nation in peril of its society soon to upend

ignorance of reasoning, (bare) arms of course

~

I read the news today, heard about the fire

within whose wasteful rage to wallow close

to take a life that matter so to all of those

family that in his life he tried to aspire.

~

What happens in our world today,

such to disillusion the American way.