A couple of days after

The news reached the States,

His mother’s heart broke

Never to mend itself.

With his last breaths,

He took his family and friends

Hostage into the darkness

Of the world’s sin.

 

There’s no turning back

The clocks.  They cannot be

Adjusted to read the present

Time, when the future has died, alone

Somewhere, in another place.

 

And the newspapers will write

About it and the TV will

Talk about it, but no one

Will ever tell this story

he way it happened.

The way it was supposed

To have happened in a town,

In a life somewhere, unknown.

​

And this business of murder

Bruises each rising sun

Above every American town.

Towns that were never

More than small dots

On small maps, routing death

To innocent lives that

Will be forever lost

In the rapid-fire

Of the jungle night.

 

Because everyone can’t

Believe it,

That doesn’t mean it didn’t

Happen!  

 

Because everyone didn’t

See it,

It doesn’t make it

Untrue!

 

Because everyone

Hurts,

Doesn’t make it Stop!

 

Because after twenty years

They’ll have forgotten your names

Doesn’t mean you never

Existed! 

​

Because you did live,

Doesn’t mean

You’ll remain

A memory!

 

Because it is,

It is!

 

And you can’t reappear

For the benefit of the few

Who doubted all along.

Injustice is the law here

Dear boy.  Here where

You grew up where

You dreamed, not where

You died.  Not where

They took you,

Laid you out,

Neatly uniformed,

Placed you in the funeral

Home of the Far East.

The whole thing planned,

Planned to the smallest detail,

Except for your mother’s broken heart. 

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