Impotent Vigils

Impotent Vigils


The president’s lament is again for rent.
The gun control proposals came and went.  
We just pray, posture, petition, and vent.
Trying to decide leaves us all so spent.

As we move toward the motives,
We implore a new score of votives.
Our leader, so prone to conceding,
Deaths mount faster than pleading.

God’s will is set; not to refute our choices.
Won’t help us hear, all the muted voices.
A rose mounted to counter acts illicit.
Grace, not found for the innocent or complicit.  

Consulting talking heads and shrinks,
Without knowing what the dead child thinks.
Not to exhume from silent souls of the dead,  
Left to speculate and debate instead.  


The gnawing fear they defend with rigor,
Grants consent to pull the trigger.
So satisfied, they scold, and they blame,
Darkening the remaining souls in shame.

We look for truth with eyes averted.
To find self-righteousness perverted.
To insist free living is of life and death,
Past the victims’ last gasping breath.  

                                                         Al Bartolis 2022