by Lucille Gang Shulklapper
Every day we die a little, buried in the news,
suffocated by poison gas, kidnapped, beheaded,
bombed, burned alive, drowned,
struck by gunfire, massacred
in schools and shopping malls.
We are the nameless named by violence.
Four-year old Elliot Prior
at Nairobi's Westgate mall,
sees a jihadist wound his mother
with an assault rifle. Angrily, he says,
"you are a very bad man."
The terrorist lets them escape.
Inside the carnage continues,
Outside are dead bodies,
The nameless cannot speak.
There are no brave four-year olds
in our bully pulpits, We are hostages in
shopping malls. Our names appear
in obituaries and on grave sites.
Our papered deaths roll to the curb
in black garbage cans.
Every day we die a little, buried in the news.
Lucille Gang Shulklapper's poetry and fiction appears in many journals including Slant, The New Verse News, and The Prose Poem Project, as well as in four poetry chapbooks. She lives in Boca Raton, Florida.