This war is a class war

Because he could not find a girl to love

Or a friend to greet,

Because his father left after one night in his mother,

He took a gun to school

shot at those he thought were happier

those once happy teens

dying in the halls, screaming with terror.

The boy with the gun had nothing to lose

So what could be done to stop him?

 

 

Because he saw his father lose job after job

And turn to drink

Because his father hit him

As he was hit by his father before.

Because the time the police stopped him on his way home

And he was already angry.

He pulled away and struggled and was shot.

No hero, bad enough to knock you over and rob you

But the hungry need a place at the table.

 

 

The prisons stand as warnings

Like bells in the night

Like fires licking out of windows

Each iPhone sold, each interest dollar paid

Tips the scales once more toward

That flood, which cuts down each man and woman

Regardless of wealth or colour.

 

I, who you thought drowned by God in the great flood

Have returned.

There was no room for me at the Caesars table

But there was room for me in his army

And it was there I learned to cut with knife and sword.

In the forest I see the collar on the hind

That reads ‘harm me not, for I am Caesar’s.’

But I, having seen Caesar cut down, cared no more for any life.

 

They put me to the guillotine as well

The blade took off my head, but I lived on.

I saw those who watched the executions

In their turn executed,

Now, in my age, I stand on the street of your city.

I see the gun in the hand of the man

I see the children kept from school

I see the woman with the bloody wound.

This war is not one of religion or race

It is as it has always been what it is now.

A class war.

Where one has too much

And many have too few

No number of guns can keep that door closed.

 

Check out my new novel Anvil Soul