‘The Guns’

(with apologies to Edgar Allan Poe)

Alameda Post - a photo of a hand holding a prop gun. The hand is held down to a surface by long strips of yellow and black tape that says "Stop."

Guns, guns, guns, guns,
Guns, guns, guns
Hear the banging and the banging
Of the automatic guns.
While the children cry beneath their desks
And teachers crawl to cover them
The shooters just keep coming in
With blazing weapons shooting them
And anyone that’s in their way,
With guns they buy as easily
As candy from a candy store
While soulless legislators take
The cash from manufacturers
And turn their backs on laws to save
The innocent who die each day
From all the shooting, shooting, shooting,
And the bang, bang, bang, bang,
bang, bang, bang,
That never stops destroying lives so pointlessly
Because the killers simply can.

There are more guns than people here
And everyone should be aware
That guns will pop up, striking fear,
Since, somehow, they are everywhere.

Hear them banging in the schools
Blowing little kids apart
Or in the workplace bang bang bang
And former friends are now dead friends
While relatives and counselors
Tell about how well they knew the living and the dead
And knew that something really bad
Was going on inside the head
Of the shooter, who only knew,
When the time had come that they could
Easily get a gun
And go bang bang bang bang
Bang bang bang.

Now here we are, another one,
Bang
Where did it happen?
Bang
What, in a church or synagogue or mosque?
Bang
Or at a store where everyone knew everyone?
Bang
Or at a workplace once again?
Bang

The flowers at the fence are nice
Bang
The tributes on the wall are good
Bang
The wailing people in the news are sad
Bang
And final services are full of unfulfilled possibilities
Bang

There are distraught people everywhere
Mentally upset and seeking help.
This goes on all throughout the world
But only here is there the out
Of grabbing guns and shooting up
Whatever you think causes
What it is that bothers you enough
To take the life of someone else.

Yes, only here, the land of the free,
Free to get our hands on
Guns, guns, guns, guns,
Guns, guns, guns.

Hear the banging, then the crying
Then the weeping and the wailing.
Then the mourning, then the praying,
Then the endless reasons why
The spineless greedy politicians cannot bring an end
To all this plain stupidity
And stop proliferation of the
Guns, guns, guns, guns
Guns, guns, guns.

BANG!

Copied!

KQED Curated Content
Thanks for reading the

Nonprofit news isn’t free.

Will you take a moment to support Alameda’s only local news source?