Against the Injunction to Live and Let Live

    After the murder of Muhlaysia Booker

I tell you, it don’t make no sense,
“Deceased from homicidal violence,”

But that’s the pólice-man’s report
About another life that’s been cut short.

Whereby grew such a culture that
A gun’s more common carried than a hat?

That she was murdered, this we know,
But don’t know if it was for “bein’ a ho”

Or some cheap facile epithet
That doesn’t justify a murder yet.

The fingers point all ways around
But yet no proper culprit has been found

Save the ubiquity of guns
That shatter peace and freedom all at once.

Making itself a vulgar herd
Humanity gives up the precious word,

Allowing for such incidence:
“Deceased from homicidal violence.”