Scoreboard

© 23 July 2012, the Griot Poet

Tyrants overthrown: 0
Co-workers, students, spouses, store clerks’ * et al: near ∞

And we cower
Kowtowed by lobbyists’ power
NRA clout and dollars
Make our representatives “want to holler”
They “throw up both their hands” GLADLY – with open bank bags
Raking in dollars
Dialing for dollars
As far as their main occupation,
Legislation: Oh! “Our main objective is to make Barack Obama a one-term president.”
Holding up the vote for raising the debt ceiling
Has the world economy reeling from the stench
Of Tea Parties
And downgrading precedents
In harbors
Harboring
Reflections back to times that never existed
Reagan raised taxes eleven times
Yet, they apotheosize him as a deficit hawk
And freedom – for the one-percent he served…

Gabby Giffords had to quit
A “blue dog” democrat
From Arizona
Because a disturbed Jared Lee Loughner
Thought she’d help initiate 2nd amendment Ragnarok

Major Nidal Hasan lost it in the heat of a Texas summer
On Fort Hood
The largest military base in the US
Should not be a place for “that kind of” combat stress
For military members
And innocent dependents
Victims of his ideology birthed by
Rants from a cleric
He’d met over the Internet…

Now, we have Colorado
Colored by blood in a theater
Once more: a disturbed member of humanity
Orders 6,000 rounds of ammo
Two semiautomatic handguns
One shotgun
An AR-15
And Kevlar armament
Saying to anybody paying attention
(Before he went from brunette to orange)
James Holmes was preparing
For war
As his own anarchist “Joker”
Though, [I] not being an expert at poker
Nor a neuroscientist or psychologist
Can see someone associating orange
With Batman’s nemesis
Is NOT playing with a full deck!

No less than
Mayor Mike Bloomberg
And former presidential candidate John McCain
Call for sane gun control
Beyond the political roll refrain
Of protecting the 2nd amendment rights
For law-abiding citizens

Seung-Hui Cho WAS a law-abiding citizen
Before causing a wreck at Virginia Tech!

How many more
Than twelve plus fifty plus
Would have died
If the NRA
Had their dream no longer deferred
Of arming ALL citizens
When a wallet
Birthed nineteen shots landing
Out of forty-one
From NY cops
For Amadou Diallo?

Or Sean Bell
Was sent to the gates
Of Heaven (not Hell)
When his only sin
Was attending his own
Bachelor party?

Were the Founding Fathers
Thinking of semiautomatic
Weapons
When they penned
The 2nd amendment
Or, were they
Thinking of the Minute Men
Defending their homes
From Red Coat British muskets?
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana
My corollary:
“Those who do not learn from (or learn) history, are doomed to be sheep!”

* Inspired by political cartoon