Why
do we kill people
who kill people
to show
that killing people
is wrong
and why,
if we kill people
who kill people
to show
that killing people
is wrong
are we four times more likely
to kill people
who kill white people
to show
that killing white people
is wrong
than we are people
who kill black people
to show
that killing black people
is wrong
and why,
if killing people who kill people
deter people
from killing people
do countries
who kill people who kill people
to show
that killing people is wrong
have more
people who kill people
than countries who imprison
people who kill people
to show that
killing people is wrong
and why,
if we spend six times more
to kill people
who kill people
than we do when we
imprison without parole people
who kill people
and why,
if killing people who kill people
deter people
from killing people
do countries
who kill people who kill people
to show
that killing is wrong
have more
people who kill people
than countries who imprison
people who kill people
to show that
killing is wrong
and why,
if our country has so many
people who believe in God
and so glories in the cross
on which
Jesus was tortured
and killed
but that cross was how
Roman people tortured
and killed people
who they believed had done
something wrong
and why,
if you can’t fight fire
with fire
and two wrongs
don’t make
a right
and though
sometimes subsequent
evidence shows
the people executed
for killing people
did not kill the people
for which they
had been convicted
and since we are
not GOD
but people,
why
do we kill people
who kill people
to show
that killing people
is wrong?
Author’s note: This poem is not based on an old Barbra Streisand song but from a bumper sticker asking the question, “Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?”
Carl Stilwell (aka CaLokie) is a retired teacher who taught for over 30 years in the Los Angeles Unified school District and participated in UTLA’s teachers’ strikes in 1970 and 1989. He was born during the depression in Oklahoma and came to California in 1959 and has lived there ever since. His pen name was inspired by the Joads struggle for survival in The Grapes of Wrath and the songs and life of Woody Guthrie. He has poems published in Altadena Poetry Review, Blue Collar Review, Four Feather’s Press, Lummox, Pearl, Prism, Revolutionary Poets Brigade--Los Angeles, Rise Up, Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, The Sparring Artists.
