Thursday, May 26, 2022

Slaughtering Children Again—Ripping the Scab off Old Wounds with Murfin Verse

 

Remember them!  Honor them by fighting to stop the slaughter!  Just some of the Uvalde, Texas school massacre.

We are all reeling but somehow not surprised at the latest murderous rampage at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.  Once again an easily and legally obtained assault weapon was used by a young man who just turned 18.  The Texas Governor and rafts of on-the-take from the NRA grifters in Congress warn us not to take action to end gun violence.  But we will not be limited to thoughts and prayers but will be committed to action.  Write and phone your Federal and State lawmakers, sign all the petitions—it can’t hurt—Sandyhook Promise one of several being widely circulated.  March for Our Lives, the student-led gun control advocacy group founded by Parkland school shooting survivors, is planning nationwide protests on Saturday June 11.  In Chicago the event will be held beginning at noon that day at the Federal Plaza.  Local actions may still be planned.

The student led March for Our Lives calls us all to action.

Over the years I have written poetry often, far too often, after explosions of gun violence, mass murder, and domestic terrorism in this country.  It feels like there is hardly anything else to say—no new insights, outrage, or grief.  The parade of atrocities seems never ending, as does our by now ritualized and inadequate responses.  But however familiar they become, we cannot allow ourselves to be numbed by them.  We cannot lay aside our outrage and our anger not only against the individual perpetrators, but those who encourage, abet, and arm them. We must resist the culture that fosters violence and hate and take positive action—far more than ever before—to stop it.

I'm in my 70s now but this sign that I carried in a march in Woodstock after the Parkland mass murder is sadly relevant again. As a nation we never seem to learn...I'm carrying it again in my heart today for Uvalde

Almost three years ago after yet another outrage—the El Paso Walmart attack—I trotted out just some—not all—of the verse I composed after previous events.  Gun violence has all too frequently been my poetic topic over the years.  You will be forgiven if you can’t even remember some of the incidents—there have been far too many of them and the blur over time.

The victims at Umpqua Community College--now barely a footnote.

Ritual Bloodletting, Breast Beating, and Blaming

October 1, 2015

In the Wake of Umpqua Community College Killings

 

Grief stricken families, victims, and survivors

            are the bullies

            the launchers of vast, dark conspiracies

            and the gun worshipers and fantasy world heroes

            the mewling, pitiful victims.

 

Step right over the victims.

            Don’t slip on the blood.

            Remember what is Holy and Sacred.

 

…Or we will kill you.

 

—Patrick Murfin


                                          Not John Brown.

He Who Shall Not Be Named Here

November 27, 2015

After Colorado Springs

 

No!  He is not Old John Brown

            come round again

            no matter the wild eyes

            and wilder beard.

 

The unborn will not rise up

            and arm themselves,

            to wreck vengeance on

            the women who carry them

            and anyone who ever

            had a kind word or thought

            for them.

 

God is not on his side

            just as He/She/It

            is not on the side

            righteous trigger happy cops

            tempted by the backs

            of Black young people.

 

Just as Allah is not on the side

            of fanatics in Syria, Iraq, and Paris.

 

He will never savor martyrdom,

            ride to his own hanging

            on his casket,

            only the long, lonely oblivion

            of maximum prison hole.

 

Despite his yearnings

            a nation will not march to war

            with his name ringing in song

            on hundred thousand lips.

 

With luck, rivers of blood

            and mountains of corpses,

            families turned against families,

            the land laid waste,

            will not be his legacy.

 

With luck.

 

—Patrick Murfin


                        Bodies amid the refuse of the stampede to get out of the line of fire in Las Vegas.
 

What Doesn’t Stay In Vegas

October 3, 2017

 

What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay there.

 

It oozes under the front door

of that little house in Tennessee

leaving a nasty stain in the carpet

that will last generations.

 

It drips from the empty desk

            in the high school office

            where the phone rings unattended

            next to a famed family photo

            and a jar of M & Ms.

 

It is tangled in the nets

            of that Alaska trawler

            spilling on the deck

            and splattering those rubber boots.

 

It has to be wiped from the table

            of that Disneyland cafĂ©

            by some other harried waitress

            before it spoils some child’s

            special day

            or gets on Snow White’s costume.

 

It pools by the council’s table

            in a San Diego courtroom

            the empty chair

            unable to represent

            the mother of three.

 

It cannot be washed from

            the filthy hands

            of every politico

            who took gun pushers’ cash

            and kissed the ass of every

            fetishist wanking himself off

            to violence porn and hero fantasies.

 

—Patrick Murfin


            An actual Valentine Day target sold at gun stores,  Target audience?  Incels and misogynists? 

Three Holes in the Valentine Heart

Chicago 1929

 

Toddlin’ Town rat-a-tat-tat,

            just Jazz Age juice and justice,

            Tommy guns talkin’

            fedoras flying,

            mugs massacred,

            wanna-be eye doc,

            grease monkey

            garage gore gone.

 

“Only Capone kills like that.”

 

Cool beans!

            Gangsters!

 

Northern Illinois University 2008

 

Gunman on campus!

            Good-guy grad student

            gone goofy

            lecture hall lesson

            in shot gun blasts

            and Glock gotchas.

 

Campus cops closing in,

            one last round

            under the chin,

            oblivion.

 

Twenty-three down,

            sixteen shot,

            five dead and,

            oh yeah, the perp.

 

Is that all?

            Piker!  Ain’t no Virginia Tech!

            hardly worth the weeping and wailing

            all those vigils and candlelight!

 

And the NRA says all those pussy students

            who didn’t pack their own heat

            should have OK corralled it.

 

Nothing to see here,

            move along.

 

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School 2018

 

Crazy Cruz kid had issues,

            gas mask, smoke grenades,

            and a handy AK-47

            extra magazines just in case.

 

Shoot, pull fire alarm.

            spray death, kick in doors,

            spray death, repeat.

            Efficient.

 

Thoughts and prayers

            out the wazoo today.

            Blame tomorrow.

            Not me, not us.

            Unpreventable.

 

Look….a squirrel

            or Stormy Danniels’ cleavage,

            any damn thing…

 

—Patrick Murfin

 

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