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A gun man in El Paso--White rage, a weapon of war, and a manifesto.
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Note—ordinarily a blog entry for this date would remember
and ponder the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima in 1949—the fires of
hell unleashed on Earth changing everything. We have lived under what I have
called “The Inevitable Umbra of the Mushroom Cloud” for74 years now. But this year another dreadful fire burns in
our country and threatens to consume it—the poisonous stew of White supremacy
and nationalism crossed by toxic masculinity, freely armed by gun worship cult,
and abated by a fascist criminal in the White House.
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.
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Chicago Police seized these guns, ammunition, and high-capacity magazine in just one stop over the weekend, all profit for gun manufacturers and dealers.
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Note
must be taken that this week’s mass murders riveted the nation’s attention
while in Chicago over the weekend
left seven dead and another 52 wounded,
many of them in incidents on the West
Side including a gun battle in Douglas Park left seven people injured
and a drive-by on South Kildare that left one dead and
eight injured. The street carnage
got so bad that the overwhelmed emergency
room at Mt. Sanai Hospital had
to close to new admissions for seven hours.
It is true that no White fingers were on the guns of these
Black-on-black attacks, but the system of White supremacy that keeps these
neighborhoods in hopeless poverty,
flooded with drugs from nation’s destabilized by our military from the poppy fields of Afghanistan to Latin America, and armed the same arms merchants of death that supply wild-eyed White boys. May be it is true that gangs we will always have with us, but when they were armed with brass knuckles, switch blades, and an occasional one-shot homemade zip gun the casualties of their rumbles were much lighter and collateral damage far less. We must remind ourselves that in American gun
violence Black Lives Matter too.
In
lieu of new pieces inspired by killing
sprees in El Paso, Dayton and elsewhere, here are three poems
that remain still relevant.
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The victims at Umpqua Community College--now barely a footnote.
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Remember
the Umpqua Community College shooting? Probably not.
Ancient history as these things go—way back in 2015. Wikipedia reminds us that:
The Umpqua
Community College shooting occurred on October 1, 2015, at the UCC campus near
Roseburg, Oregon, United States. Chris Harper-Mercer, a 26-year-old student who
was enrolled at the school, fatally shot an assistant professor and eight
students in a classroom. Eight others were injured. Roseburg police detectives
responding to the incident engaged Harper-Mercer in a brief shootout. After
being wounded, he killed himself by shooting himself in the head. The mass
shooting was the deadliest in Oregon's modern history.
What
stunned me that time was how before the bodies were even cold the gun worshipers and NRA trolls were all over social
media wailing that they were the real
victims. The same this week with
some new twists. Less than an hour of
the first bulletins, someone posted
that the El Paso shooting was “another false
flag attack” and the whole thing was
just more “fake news” to empower gun grabbers. In the past the NRA line was feigned sympathy along
with finger pointing at Democrats, liberals, bleeding hearts,
mental illness, movies, rap music, video games, and the ever reliable—taking prayer from schools. The answer, they say is more guns and they blame the victims for
failing to be armed to the teeth.
There
was plenty of that again this time from the Lt. Governor of Texas, an official
White House spokesmen, and a parade of
Republican Congress rats. But
there was also something even more sinister. Emboldened
and enabled
by Presidential Tweets and rally rants, White Supremacists
and Nationalists are openly
cheering for the gunmen and violence on the so-called Dark Web—the online forum 8chan, the neo-Nazi web page Stormfront and
other sites. Shooters are hailed as heroes and saints and open calls are made for more killings in the hope that a
wave of them will destabilize the
nation leading to a collapse upon
which Arians can construct their utopia free from the “mud races,” Jews, and race traitors.
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
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Not John Brown.
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Less than two months later a self-proclaimed John Brown of the Right to
Life movement dealt death at a Colorado
Springs Planned Parenthood Clinic. A police
officer and two women at the clinic as patients or accompanying patients were
killed; five police officers and four civilians were injured.
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
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Bodies amid the refuse of the stampede to get out of the line of fire in Las Vegas.
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The efficient
mass murder in Las Vegas in 2017
was unusual only that it was carried on from a distance—a hotel snipers’
nest overlooking an outdoor concert. By happenstance it occurred exactly two years
after the Umpqua rampage. The shooter killed
58 people and wounded 422, and the ensuing panic
brought the injury total to 851.
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
café
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
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A target for Valentine's Day.
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After the February 14, 2018 slaughter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in
Florida, I began to see a pattern.
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!
—Patrick Murfin
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
