We have been privileged to publish some very powerful poetry over the years in the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence. Today, we have this poem, "A School Shooting", by Jo Anne Meekins.
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Go here for more from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2024.
They had taken offense at a man who was unpleasant to a pregnant woman on the bus.
Embrace Love
Embrace
love, it is designed to cover a multitude of sins;
Release the
anger to be productive, effective, and win.
God is love and He created us all to love ourselves,
each other, and Him.
It's
time to make different choices
if we want to change our
environment
and the hatred of the world that we are living in.
Ke
Yanna, who was just beginning to live,
is a victim of
circumstance.
An
innocent bystander caught between
the poor choices of an angry
group,
converging at the same location, by chance.
If
we loved ourselves and our neighbors more,
this story could have
ended a better way;
instead of paying respects to the memory
of
a 15-year-old angel, who ended up slain.
How
do we handle tragedies
and move forward, beyond these types of
crimes?
By
practicing love and compassion within our hearts,
and affirm
godly thoughts within our minds.
Stop
reacting
to negative behavior,
Respond in LOVE for life's problems to be
solved.
Don't
turn a blind eye to the chaos around you,
step up and be
unafraid to get involved.
My
heart was broken and heavy laden with pain
by the loss of this
precious loved one from my life.
Yet,
I was able to heal, forgive, and be whole again
through the
love and saving grace of Jesus Christ.
By
Jo Anne Meekins © 2008
For more powerful poems from The
Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence, see:
When Will the Killing End? by Gloria Clark
Faces of the Bereft by Hilary Thomas
Lamentation, Verse 718 by Carla Cherry
For the Lovers by Carla Cherry.
Go here for The Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2023.
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| Hilary Thomas |
Faces of the Bereft
They
shot her in her home as she opened the door
then
went and shot her nephew who slept in his bed.
I was transfixed to this story in the news today,
No
words could convey the depth of the pain I saw
in those faces, photos of an aftermath.
The aftermath of a shooting
Where mothers and sisters and daughters are left,
Bereft
Women, dressed in amber hues and royal blue African print
Protrude against a backdrop of black and white, ink.
Between the pages of stale adverts, the headlines
And bylines of stories that pop, and then
Die as the day progresses, but this,
This one will surely stain
The faces of mothers and daughters and sisters left,
Bereft
A crime scene of a story to freshly unfold.
Outside on the grass, where shoeless women
Who’s bodies contort with unimaginable pain, remain.
The lives of their loved ones taken by hate
The faces of mothers and sisters and daughters left,
Bereft
So many photographs, taken by a journalist
Determined, I guess, to do their bit.
The windows of an Estate; the building, now barred,
A solid line of police, their vans and yellow tape.
Their cold faces and straight backs, give nothing away.
The crime scene of a double murder, a serious case.
And the women are begging, perhaps, to see, to touch;
Just one last embrace.
The faces of mothers and daughters and sisters left,
Bereft
There’s a face that stands out, repeats in my mind.
I imagine her elegance and grace. Yet, it’s deep lines
I trace as I look at her face; shrivelled by loss,
I see her strong shoulders sink low, towards her buckled knees.
I trace her puffed up eyes and mascara stained tears, then
I surmise; hands in tight fists and arms around her belly pain
Her belly pain, a mother’s worst nightmare
A double blow for the sister of the auntie
She is drenched in death
Drowning in her innocence
The faces of mothers and daughters and sisters left,
Bereft
A crippling affliction has engulfed her today
Like a hell fire that burns and burns
It burns, and burns, no mercy no mercy
It burns into the chill, of the night.
Suffer the living, the ones that are left
For they are the ones that are left
bereft
© Hilary Thomas 2021
Hilary Thomas is a teacher and writer. She is a student at The City Literary Institute in London and has contributed her flash fiction to Late Lines, their monthly spoken word night. She has also written poetry for UK musician, Alfa Mist’s highly successful 2021 jazz/hip hop album, BringBacks. She is currently working on two debuts: a poetry anthology and her debut YA fiction novel.
Go here for readings from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence.
Go here for more from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2021.
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| Gloria Clark |
Another night of violence; another young life ends.
Another family crying; another vigil to attend.
Our sons are quickly dying, taken from us way to soon.
Their bodies being littered under twilight of the moon.
I hear a mother crying; sounds like thunder in my ears.
Oh how I wish I could comfort, and wipe away her tears.
Though her face I cannot see and her name remains unknown,
I find the need to let her know that she is not alone.
I feel a deep connection from the bottom of my soul,
For the pain she feels I also feel; my heart still bears the hole.
Our families have been broken, our spirits even more.
For we have lost our loved ones; the ones we so adored.
Can we ever find that happy place where we used to be?
Before young boys with guns and drugs attacked our city streets?
Do the colors that he’s wearing make you want to take his life?
Or are you simply angry and cannot deal with family strife?
Do you have a burning desire to feel the love our loved ones knew?
Where are your family values? Guess that’s missing in your life too!
Is the gang you’re in your haven? Does it take away your pain?
Does it make you feel significant? Is it your personal domain?
What can be done to end this war? When will the killing end?
We’re in a quandary, what can we do? All rational thoughts transcend.
It’s time to stop the violence; the shootings have to cease.
We have to learn to love one another and try to live in Peace.
Young men out there who find the need for a weapon to conceal,
Before you pull that trigger remember that body may never heal.
Life is a precious gift, given from the Lord above,
He gave us life to show us of his unfailing, undying love.
He died for us upon the cross and gave his only son,
That we will have the tree of life; He died and said, “It’s done”.
So stop the drugs and the killing and put the guns away,
Be smart learn to walk away to live another day.
“This is the day that the lord has made;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Psalm 118: 23-25
My youngest son was shot and killed in 2000 which prompted me to
write a short story of the struggles I faced in trying to deal with his
untimely death. The title of my short book is entitled When Half of Your
Heart Dies.
I am a retired bookkeeper from Buffalo, NY and I lived a happy, fruitful life being the mother of two sons and the grandmother of two granddaughters until the summer of 2000 when my youngest son Darian was shot and killed as he and friends were leaving a Social Club in our city. This is when my entire life changed and it will never be the same again.
Go here for readings from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence.
Go here for more from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2021.
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| Carla M. Cherry |
I love this poem. The more I read it, the more I love it. It is heartbreaking, scary and beautiful.
Lamentation 212, Verse 718 by Carla M. Cherry
Are you still moving to Texas after you retire, I asked.
“Nope,” my friend replied.
“I’m staying right here in NYC. At most, I’d go upstate. It’s the best place to be. Politically.
The weather isn’t too crazy, we don’t get hit with a lot of storms.”
Three weeks later, on Wednesday, September 1, 2021,
Ida whelmed Northeastern skies, sent rivers surging,
flooded our subway stations and streets, stranded more than 600 cars,
left a sinkhole in Morris Park and drowned eleven of us
in mostly illegal basement apartments.
Friday. My locs freshly done at the salon.
After lunch at Maxwell’s, I walked from 111th and Fifth Avenue
to my BXM7 stop on 120th and Third,
nodding to the hip-hop and salsa music from passing cars,
past congregations on stoops, schools,
La Marqueta and shoppers along 116th,
politely declining and wishing God’s blessings
on two hawkers of $2 Metrocards
as I deposited $60 on mine
with my pretax-earnings-funded Commuter Benefits Mastercard,
failing in Spanish to explain to the woman who stopped me
that the 6 train was not coming.
Shook my head at the single-use plastic bags from bodegas and
plastic containers from fast food joints littering the streets,
and dodged secondhand cigarette smoke.
Hotstepped six feet away from
the stiffened carcass of a gray rat
on East 119th between Second and Third.
I wrote two notes to myself in my cell phone:
one to write to my councilman and the Mayor to demand more funds for the Sanitation Department so that every street is as clean as Park Avenue below 96th,
and the resuscitation of Grow NYC and the Zero Waste Initiative.
The other, to buy bamboo toilet paper and paper towels and Tru Earth laundry strips.
It just can’t be too late for us to slow the Gulf Stream and sea level rise
with laws curtailing corporate carbon emissions.
To restore the marshlands.
Build flood walls and permeable pavement.
Convert empty office buildings into eco-friendly apartments with terraced and rooftop gardens, first for the unhoused and people living in substandard conditions.
Transform those silent lobbies into ground-floor food markets selling locally grown produce
and sustainably produced home goods.
To ride state-of-the-art public transit and bicycles.
Replace our gasoline fueled cars with hybrid vehicles.
Should managed retreat become necessary, my heart
may dissolve like soil in a mudslide
without the sidewalks where I skipped hopscotch and double-dutch.
The honey locust trees and lampposts that were bases for tag,
my thirteenth floor view of Goose Island, gulls skimming the surface of the bay
that shimmers in sunlight and moonlight, and Pelham Bay Park.
My walks across the bridge to the soft sands of Orchard Beach
and views of Long Island Sound on City Island.
How far would I have to go
for Atlantic waves that knock me off my feet
Go here for readings from the Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence, including another poem by Carla M. Cherry.
Go here for details of more poetry by Carla M. Cherry.
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| Carla Cherry |
