AMERICA STOP!

Lawerence E. Mize 1949 (Baltimore, MD)



America...Stop!
You're coming apart at the seams.
Your people are dying.
Can't you hear their screams?

You help others abroad
In their desperate hours,
While ignoring your people,
Who hide and cower.

They hide from the bullets
Flying through their streets.
They run from the thugs
Who maim and beat.

No peace can be had
Here at home.
The dying are calling.
Pick up the phone.

It's time to act
Before it's all gone.
No land of the free.
It won't be long.

You have to find a way
To put things aright.
Or suffer the cries
Of the helpless and their plight.

A beacon of light
You once were to all.
Please America,
You mustn't fall.

About this poem

Wrote this poem on 5/31 22 while watching the news about the homicides and gun violence in Baltimore. But, it's not just Baltimore, It's D.C., Chicago and other cities that are experiencing an increase in crime and its all so needless and sad.

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Written on May 31, 2022

Submitted by larrymize on June 03, 2022

Modified on March 30, 2023

44 sec read
117

Quick analysis:

Scheme XABA CXXX XXXX XXBX XXXX XCXD DEXE
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 632
Words 143
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Lawerence E. Mize

Lawerence E. Mize was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1949. At the age of seventeen he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as a medical corpsman with the 101st Airborne Division. A month after his eighteenth birthday he began his one year tour of duty in the Republic of Vietnam. He served with the "Screaming Eagles," of the 101st Airborne Division as a combat medic with A Company of the 2/501st Airmobile Division. On completing his military obligation he returned home to Baltimore and joined the Baltimore City Police Department at the age of twenty-one. Mize went on to serve with the Baltimore City Police Department for the next twenty-nine years retiring as a Sergeant in 1999. Mize then went on to become a District Court Bailiff in 2003. He left that position in 2018 and now likes to spend his time riding his bicycle, writing poems, and traveling with his wife Sandy whom he has been married to for the last forty-eight years. They have two sons, Lawerence Jr. and Nicholas. Mize has self-published six books of poetry since 1997, to include two works about his experiences in Vietnam, "Tortured Soul and Dead Men Calling, (both published by American Literary Press, Inc. Baltimore, Maryland), both of which helped Lawerence deal with the painful memories of Vietnam; a book of poems he dedicated to his wife, Sandy, titled "Thoughts of You," (Tate Publishing & Enterprises, Mustang, Oklahoma); a book of poems about life and dying titled "Reflections," (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Charleston, SC); a collection of poems about Mize's life growing up in Baltimore, his experiences in Vietnam, and speak to the riot and looting in Baltimore in 2015 and the aftermath with all its violence in the city since titled, "My Long Journey In Baltimore," (Dorrance Publishing Co. Pittsburgh, PA); and his latest work in 2021 titled "Baltimore...A City Besieged," in which Mize takes us on a poetic tour of Baltimore and provides us with a chilling account of what life is like for Baltimore's residents with over 300 homicides in the last six years. more…

All Lawerence E. Mize poems | Lawerence E. Mize Books

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1 Comment
  • teril
    A serious sentiment, I share your hope; keep using your talent to call out the darkness, there is a long way to go.
    LikeReply1 year ago

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"AMERICA STOP!" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 16 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/128578/america-stop!>.

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