My heart

I cannot believe that it’s 2023 and I had to go Googling for “poems about mass shootings”, because another fucking one this week. On top of the one last week, and the week before, and every bloody week in this lunatic asylum we call the United States.

You can’t go to a concert, hotel, church, dance hall, university, mosque, office, supermarket, synagogue, bank or garden shop without having to work out an escape strategy because God forbid the NRA-funded Republican Party should take even the most miniscule step toward reining in the free sales of military-grade weaponry.

When I was a child, we had duck-and-cover drills in school, because for sure crouching under a wooden desk was going to protect us from nuclear attack. It was fantastic, and we knew it was an exercise in pointlessness.

These days, children are regularly run through active-shooter drills. And they’re real because the threat is real. Republican congressmorons send out family gun-totin’-Christmas card photos and smirk to reporters that their kids aren’t in danger because “we homeschool”, so God’s in his heaven and all’s right with their world.

Know what? Instead of sending thoughts and prayers, get into those banks and synagogues and classrooms and supermarkets and churches and everyfuckingwhere else, get down with a bucket and rags and clean up all the blood, bits of bone, fecal matter and the rest of the aftermath of one of these weekly events. There's bound to be one in your district.

Today’s entry for National Poetry Month is appropriately “Thoughts and Prayers”, by Alissa Quart. The appropriateness is that the poem is composed entirely of the public statements of politicians and public websites.

Yay.

“Thoughts and Prayers”

Designed and executed. Us gun owners,
Our thoughts our team’s banner; our assault-
style thoughts and

#Prayfor

Praying impacted terrible
prayers on the scene
15 kids AR-15 pure evil
John 16:33 / horrific / my prayers / 1st responders

We continue to keep the victims

Kingdom of God. Columbine. Thoughts and prayers fireside basket.
The thoughts and prayers clear mount stamp

No child, teacher: There’s just no other way to describe it

Our hearts break for all the victims and families affected by today’s
terrible

satiation semantic civil religion common spiritual language shooting responders

The whole country stands

My heart is with Las Vegas we continue to keep the victims

My thoughts and prayers are with

$30 million in
donations. Thoughts
and prayers memes
Thoughts and Prayers: The Game,
Thoughts and Prayers tater
tots, A Thoughts and Prayers make-
up tutorial with invisible cosmetics.
Fantasy red blusher: “Blood of Our Children.”
Lifting up in prayer

all impacted by last night’s despicable

armed teachers

relatives affected

The thoughts and prayers stamp. The thoughts and prayers handcrafted
wood card.

The thoughts and prayers angel pin.

#Prayfor

“The science” of Thoughts and Prayers.
The ostensibly mixed
research about Thoughts
and Prayers.

My heart is with Parkland. My heart is

running down the hall

shooting
our prayers