20150622 (Charleston sacrifices)

There’s way too much high drama 

For it not to be a movie

I mean no disrespect nor do I 

Favor profiting from tragedy

Like some Hollywood mogul 

Eager to cash in

But the story has Olympian 

Proportions dealing as it does 

With America’s Original Sin

Make no mistake I am not offering this 

As any summary equal to the import 

I come slowly to this topic

Declare myself inept and unprepared

To venture anything more significant

Than what’s been said already

There’s much more yet to come

Things I’d want to see unearthed

The back story of each victim very like

The Bridge of San Luis Rey to know

How these came to place themselves

That night trusting in God’s loving hands

For years now I’ve been trying 

To change people’s opinions 

On warfare and on killing

It’s been a slog even to get them

To look up from their day to day

Much less engage them to discern

Their feelings toward a flaw

From which their whole intent

Is to turn away to duck the question

Pretend it never was proposed

Directly and go on hiding in 

Unquestioned certainty

It’s a lot like arm wrestling 

When no one else shows up

America has lost its taste for great debate

Of great ideas moral argument 

Few are left who know the word

They fear you mean to rail against

Their learning without reason

Call them stupid witless

Callously dismiss what they have 

Treasured since their youth

Today I’m leaning more to art

To do my work

Perhaps my college course

In aesthetics will finally pay off

Aristotle for all his ignorance in science

Knew a thing or two of theater

How sympathetic depiction

Can change a human heart

That’s why I mention movie

It’s our form American as apple pie

So when the story’s finally penned

And the characters are cast

A genius with a vision 

Might bring forth an image 

To remake the millions’ conscience

c. J.S.Manista, 2015