Arts Alive San Antonio

I Don’t Want to Think About It
James Brandenburg

Gunshots in the distance
Then near, close to home
Bullets explode, blowing them apart
Our children are dying
Our children are dying
Unrecognizable except for their DNA
All the king’s men
All the king’s horses
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again

Fragile children once broken
Can’t be restored
Can’t be put back together again.
The egg is shattered
How many more
have to fall? 

Beauty in brokenness an illusion.
Who are the kings in this equation?

Do we even care, 
Are we hiding from broken pieces?
No longer can we retreat into our shells, of 
I don’t want to think about this.
Guns, Second Amendment Rights,
Mental illness, Weapons of war
Big business and Senators
No badges of honor here.
Only the broken-hearted remain
And those blown apart
Lying dead in our streets.

Thoughts and Prayers
By Sue Foster

This ache
above my left breast
radiates across my chest
binds my breath, strangles cries
that try to escape my throat.
I swallow and cough to gain traction,
but sputter and stall
as futility silences my rage.

Stricken with grief,
we chant an unworkable refrain.
Blood continues to stain our hands and halls
as children fall victim to dogma-
belief held higher than breath of life.

Death is the thief that steals as we,
in our stubborness, fail to heed.
Our treasure is lost as our children bleed.