A big thank you to Johnny Olson and Michael Clay of Mad Swirl for publishing my poem.

Lamentations on the Discovery of Evil

In my teens

I always slept with the radio on.

Even in slumber 

I’d hear my favorite songs.

But, I awoke two different nights

and my regular music wasn’t playing.

That’s when I knew the world was changing.

First it was Martin

and then it was Bobby.

I spent the next hours 

repeatedly sobbing.

The day after each event

I met with my friends.

Through our tears came sounds like the

ragged breath of tired dogs.

We stood as ones stupified. 

What were those sounds heard within the train?

It seemed 

as if stars screamed

as we chanted for the sun to rise

against the news of those days.

The reporters

with their steely dissection

of the facts

were as

nettles on our hearts.

 How many more years

would we be subjected to fears?

How much pain this all caused

even after the radio button was paused.

Don’t worry,” they said,

There will come a settling of what’s been dusted”

“No,” we told them, 

the world will never speed up again

because the center is now rusted.

And what we once believed

will never again be trusted.

We knew the Devil was a liar, 

but he still showed us a horrible truth.

That man may love,

 but also hate

and only man can create

those things that can’t be soothed.