Shopping List

 
When I was six
My sun-kissed mother
Was teaching me how to make shopping lists
And write lovely poetry of peaceful butterflies
But soon I realized my short lists became occupied
By the cries of children in Palestine
And slowly my poetry seeped over
Onto the floor and out the door
To emancipate the broken and soar

Now I stand
On a little broken blue crate
Spitting poetic words against Hate
And fear and rape
That sounds like this


I hope you know
That the once open windows
Are shut tight here
And these worthless light-years
Will never accumulate enough worthy space
For the storage of our salty tears
Like overwhelmed church collection plates
Filled somehow with Dark Hate

Can you taste the bloody acid rain
As it falls
Never discriminating
But eradicating everything comely

The rain keeps us sadistic company
As it digs into our heavy hearts
Teaching us bigotry

Hate is the enemy
But we all sit blinded
Claiming we are Justice
Not knowing Justice is Ugly
And has been dealing
With two-faced Janus and feelings

Matthew Shepard

Lawrence King

Michael Sandy

Michele Richard

Ronnie Antonio Paris

Ronnie was killed at three years old
And Lawrence at fifteen
Before they forgot how to create
Something out of nothing
And grew into adulthood

I think adults would
Cry if they spoke to ghosts
Who choked on desperate Hate
And confounded the minds of
Pacifists and Anarchists alike
When they woke in Heaven’s womb
And cried for the lives of murderous fools

My shopping lists are now worthless
I am not six
And we cannot buy them back from Heaven
Anyway

Jim Byrd

Bill Clayton

Allison Dawe

Steven Fox

Robert Walters

David Converse

Robert Drake and

Too many more to write

Mommy my hand hurts
So can I stop
With this shopping list
Because we cannot afford lives and souls
And no one can return those in Distant Heaven


Yet
We cannot afford hate and violence
And pacifists with machete hands
And open wounds
Inside our children

Hate must be distant
And Heaven must be within
                                                                                                Reach