While Paris is Bleeding

      A poem from Happy

November 2015

While Paris is bleeding
We complain about the decorations
On our coffee cups.
We talk about building walls to keep illegals out,
So they can’t pick the crops we place on our tables.

While Paris is bleeding
We engorge ourselves becoming obese,
While our neighbor’s children have not eaten today.
We make plans for Thanksgiving,
As another black youth is buried too soon, too soon.

How can we not be aware of the sorrow that surrounds us?
All around us, every day.

While Paris is bleeding
We go on serenely
With only distractions to clutter our lives.
And we think that God loves us
Because, in our minds, we are doing so well.
So we stand up, fists clenched, and angrily yell,
“Damn all of you sinners, you’re going to hell!”
At the homeless veteran, the impoverished child,
The tired and poor, the huddled masses
Asleep at the foot of our Liberty bell.

And Paris is bleeding.
Jerusalem too.
And Beirut is bleeding.
And Yemen, Cairo, the Ukraine and Kabul.
And Nigeria, Denmark, and Istanbul
And Blacksburg, Sandy Hook, Chattanooga,
And Charleston is bleeding.
We bleed too.