Killing Fields

No human being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does. - Thoreau

On a mass scale.

Hear the citizens wail.

Where does it all end?

How low can we descend?

Time was when we'd point an angry finger.

Letting gossip be enough.

She's this and he's that.

Tit-for-tat.

Now we're pointing guns.

No longer watching flying nuns.

Built upon cynical cement and capricious concrete.

Spraying down every street.

It's even in our malls.

Echoing 9-1-1 calls.

Worshipping twisted dreams.

Amidst snuffed life's screams.

Relying on the safety of shiny shields.

Our country's places have become ...

... killing fields ...

Author's Note

“And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, - we need never read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?” - Thoreau