Annunciation school and church
shame
what is the shame
humiliation in
allowing such things to happen
such
awful things
and those who seek to move the world
but
cannot keep children safe
by lesser measures than vainglorious
and is that
it
we cannot say
one cannot say
I did this
and the mountains shook
the seawaves vibrated
by my hand
I pressed my enemies into the ground
beneath the beneath
and
took on God’s role for myself
over heaven
over hell
no
we simply mean to keep our children safe
most of us
that is
to remove the means
for harm
from them and from those
who’d
just as soon hurt them
to let Annunciation
say
these are the children
these
are welcome
we will keep these in the world
and
rise and fall by how we do
to have them in the school for learning
in
the church for faith
at last madness all to own
and
did it say
I hate those Christians
for
what is there to believe in
not myself
only the power I might bear
a little while
‘til I’m caught
‘til my
life is over and what
do I care
this is significance
blood
and flame
I’m like a king
a stupid
conniving
thieving king
a king
of nothing
this is what I am
what I’ve
become
and by such cruelty
and madness
I shall die
only
for remembrance
of them
not who I was
but
what I did
and even then only the loss
and hoped-for judgment
of
the flames
except for those
forgiving
even though I hate the Christian
almost
as much me
then
as I must hate
certainly deny
if not
forget
their God
c l couch
MINNEAPOLIS — Mass was underway Wednesday morning to mark the beginning of the academic year at Annunciation Catholic School when bullets started to come through the glass.
. . . which killed two students and wounded more than a dozen other people, . . .
(MSN)
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/ways-to-help-victims-of-the-annunciation-church-mass-shooting/
(KSTP)
photo by Jacob Bentzinger on Unsplash
the killings at Kent State
prelude
the lists don’t show
who shot whom
except
for whom
we don’t know the perpetrators
with
the guns
and certainly there are sides
though only
one side
was
you know
armed
more so we could
search documents or
talk with folk
to
know and note
who
gave orders
as if to say to children then
don’t learn more
or
your elders
might just as well
kill you
requiem
if you were at Kent State
in 1970
on the fourth of
May
you should have heard
shots
and known some of your peers
had been killed
by intramural soldiers of your nation
learning the price
of protest
I suppose
except that’s absurd
because the nation’s youth
and anyone who’s here under rights
and that
everyone
should not have to speak out at the cost
of loss of
life
and who had guns
but only soldiers
the only thing destructive
on
the students’ sides were
voices
yes
and maybe
numbers
it was tragic all around
unreasonably
even
stupidly
frankly so
I mean
what parent generation calls for killing
of its children
what learning process
even with complexity
goes so far
so
terminally far
to send a message
don’t learn anymore
don’t grow
don’t try
ever
again
c l couch
Taking place in 1970, the Kent State Shootings (also known as the Kent State Massacre or May 4 Massacre) were the killing of four and wounding of nine unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on the Kent State University campus.
(Wikipedia and me)
Jeffrey Glenn Miller
Allison Beth Krause
William Knox Schroeder
Sandra Lee Scheuer
plus nine more students shot, wounded
photo by Ally Griffin on Unsplash
(stairways in Kent Ohio USA)
Steel Brass Plastic Agenda, Never the Last Word
(2 poems)
Steel Brass Plastic Agenda
There was an argument
In Kansas City
And evidently
Lots of guns
At the scene
So who wants to be powerful
Who wants to be famous
First
Who is more superior
By bullets
An argument
Is not enough
Except perhaps
For pretense
I am ready
I have the final volume
With my gun
Keep talking
Keep rising
I’ll have you
With the last word
My own
Explosion
To settle everything
Then come and get me
You should
Know me now
Never the Last Word
This is no last word
But taking a breath
To breathe
Without the news
And all things
That press on me
On us
I can’t do this without you
And don’t want
To
But let’s all take time
To breathe
And we can drink
And talk
Besides
We could sit
At table
In that made-up
Lakeside café
I keep making up
Adding details
For our ease
And for reflection
On reflection
Of the water
And we could leave
Better than before
Join me
In breathing
If you will
In sipping
Also nibbling something
For small pleasure
Great pleasure
In the interacting
Relief in
Trying to be ourselves
A little more
Each time
We meet
You send me something
And I send you things
While the café waits
And other good
Imagined things
In between
The substance of ourselves
And what we choose
In greater and more open
Health
(let’s try)
To share
C L Couch
Photo by Fern M. Lomibao on Unsplash
crazed
(thought and response)
shooting at
the Kansas City Superbowl
parade
and why?
only notoriety
would seem to be
the answer
I’ll shoot at anyone
and then
be famous
no one knows my name
and I’ll be put away at best
and
I’ll be famous
in what’s left of my mind
having let my spirit go
already
Kansas City
Kansas City
here I come
they got some crazy
so they should be ready
for me
c l couch
Beloved DJ Lisa Lopez-Galvan Killed in Kansas City Parade Shooting
32 minutes ago (11:08 a.m.)
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/beloved-dj-lisa-lopez-galvan-killed-in-kansas-city-parade-shooting/ar-BB1ikt7R
“Kansas City” is a song by Wilbert Harrison
Photo by Dale Nibbe on Unsplash
Wandering around old abandoned buildings in downtown Kansas City.
Kansas City, United States
(x = space)
x
x
Signs of Protest
(civilly offered)
x
I do not understand
The people who have died
From shooting,
From hunger
Or lack of safe water,
From COVID
x
You know what I mean,
I don’t understand
The situation
That allows for these
x
Too many guns,
Not enough
Food and water,
Too much disease
x
The solution seems mathematic
Fewer guns,
More food and water,
Less disease
x
I don’t care about the politics
We’ve made death too easy
And where politics might be concerned,
We’ve rendered people into blots:
x
We take off our glasses
And look at the blots from a distance
x
We have the right
To kill
Except we don’t have it
x
Made-up spies, perhaps
Soldiers who follow orders,
Though there’s too much a burden
For them,
The soldiers and the orders
x
Stay strong
Broker peace
Don’t outlaw emotions
But outlaw hate
x
Maybe slowly we’re getting there
I don’t know
Maybe you do
I hope so
Because I have to count on you
And you and you
Not as blots
But with the most urgent
Kind of clarity
x
C L Couch
x
x
International Women’s Day in Barcelona, Spain (2009). The motto, written in Catalan, says: “Total crisis in the patriarchal system”.
By Mutari – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6151838
x
finding an image to represent protest was harder than I thought it would be; I chose this photograph because I agree that the patriarchal system is in crisis: in fact, IS a crisis
x
Random
Now
The town that has a gal,
According to Glenn Miller’s band
Has lost that trust in wrecked
Romance; the “sweetest gal”
No longer waits in Kalamazoo,
Does she?
And does he want to explain
Himself? The driver who took
Fares when bouts of shooting
Anyone was done
Silently, she now attends
In another state of place,
Gated from harm
(random shootings in Kalamazoo,
one killer who worked taxi-like)
Fourteen Dead
(it happened yesterday evening, my time)
“Fourteen dead in San Bernardino.
What is this inhuman trend?”
From my journal last night,
wondering what is going on.
Serial killers (I say serial means
mass murder, whether happening
once or over time)—they enter a
community center “with long
guns.” (This from the news.)
They shoot and kill.
Maybe they are killed or
captured afterward. The
investigation goes on.
We once feared a hand upon
an efficient surface, fingers ready
to press a button, sending atomic
missiles into space to fall back
to earth again in a foe’s land.
We still fear this.
We fear that killing from
afar lacks the moral intimacy
in killings of the past. We
worry about drones this
way. And we still have
more personal ways to kill.
Does a gun make the murder
seem distant, too? Pull a
shiny trigger, bullet travels
through a silvery barrel, the
target is hit. No personal contact
yet. Like the launch, is this
too easy, too?
If never done before, maybe
so. Or maybe when one
kills, there is no person there.
Only an objective.
clcouch123 
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