IN THE GRIM DUSK

IN THE GRIM DUSK

In the grim dusk, in the shadow of a corn husk,
In middle America, a nightmare foretold,
Steadily and stealthily,
A lost sheep leaves the fold.

In the grim dusk, our world amiss,
We cling to hopeful promises.
The half blind of humankind,
Bridging darkness and the vast recess of time.

We are fortune's orphan souls,
Spoils of an awful tragedy, the din of a sudden roar.
Gunshots in our ears are fading,
We see the lights of the city cascading,
Over the outdated folklore.

Earths fade away, skies zoom to gray,
Guns do not kill says the bold NRA,
Always forever extolling the charms
Of the ever so sacred right to bear arms.

How many children lay dead on the altar,
How many footsteps to fade and to falter.
Earths melt in moments, skies fade to black,
We are left with a code we're unable to crack.
Unfathomable mysteries fold their arms in our faces
And turn away from embraces.

How many souls need be torn from flesh and bone,
Untimely parted and rudely called home.
How to make sense of the violence
That stains this gilded throne?
How many sick souls whose wounds lay gaping,
Who turn the barrel to their own heads,
A world of pain escaping.
Not content to go alone, lost inside their bitter rage,
Wandering without a home, they prance and fret upon the stage,
The slaughter of innocents their avocation,
Their final sin their final wage.

In the grim details that begin to emerge,
Our nation its grief still yet unpurged,
Sighs in collective confusion,
Binding up its wounds, putting salve on its contusions,
Goes trudging right on through the thread of a compromise,
I see disillusionment come burning in your eyes.

America, its flapping fish of an ideal, lies dead on the rotted deck,
The future swings like a pendulum, with the promise of a blank check.
The children do not learn and the fabric rips away,
Beyond the fencepost sun goes down upon this wicked day.
The deeds of the misbegotten, rain upon the downtrodden,
Leaving us weakened yet not at all wizened.
In the grim orchard springs a bitter harvest,
Scarecrow on the grim horizon.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED