20150907 (innocent deaths)

Five-year-old boy dead after drive by

Shooting on the east side mayor said

He hoped for peace during the Labor 

Day weekend council lady called it a

Damn shame and that might be the 

End of it maybe some stuffed animals

Tied to a nearby streetlamp wreaths of

Plastic flowers vigil candles propped

Among them words from the mom

Maybe to come about his needless death

Two other boys shot this week were

Said to be having a dispute over a

Dirt bike how that results in each of

Them taking a bullet has yet to be

Explained but who’d shoot a kindergartner

Playing in his own neighborhood where

The mayor’s grandchildren often play

The drowned Syrian boy delivered

Like driftwood it’s been a bad week 

For kids if a great week for photographers

But there are no photographs of the local

Boy’s death to go viral to bring world

Attention to the casual killing of youth

In our own house can’t point to the wars

Destroying the nations tsk-tsk the sadness

Of one family’s losses as the kind of thing

That sadly happens with war refugees

No one at the UN will urge the free world

To open their gates so the world won’t 

Have to see another lifeless youngster

Wash ashore why that one picture was so

Powerful when numerous others of gassed

Butchered infants have been piling up for

Years on media desks world over yet late

Compassion is better than none at all

A friend asked of the five-year-old boy

Where’s the outrage the street marches

The placards for Ramon D. Burnett*

We shall see I am certain the police have

Questioned everyone in the area who might 

Know anything if this is gang-related there’ll

Be plenty disincentive to cooperate as a

Witness people who help the police

End up feeling the gangs’ wrath they

Know where you live where your 

Daughter goes to school when your 

Wife’s home alone it could be Ramon

Was the target as payment for some

Thing a relative did terrible things

Happen let’s let this blow over before

Things get worse not every murder

Can be solved this isn’t CSI where

Handsome detectives busty lab

Techs find a hair on a carpet 

He ain’t the first and he ain’t the last

Kid shot in the street lookit the girl

Doing her homework in her house

You can’t tell me she was a problem

For some gang get used to it life

In the city are you gonna grieve

Everybody who washes up

On the shore

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

* The shooter turned himself in this afternoon. Said he was trying
to hit someone in the house behind where Ramon was playing