Libby Feore
Found grade three math a bore.
In class she often dreamed
Of schemes she elaborately schemed
For getting cookies out of the highly placed jar.
Little did she know
That when to school that day she did go,
She’d end up in a zone of war
PS121
Was usually a lot of fun.
Children ages five to ten
Escaped the confines of the playpen,
And towards knowledge learned to run.
But on that fateful day,
The children’s innocence was blown away
By a stranger with a gun.
Reggie Solnit
Thought it the height of wit
To blow a loud and prolonged fart.
You could say he had mastered the offensive comic arts.
To Perfect his craft he would never quit,
But when in the crossfire he was caught,
All his hard-won skills were for naught,
And he would soon find out if he had true grit.
“What is that noise?” Misses Tannenbaum demanded.
For the interruption to her math class somebody would have to be reprimanded.
A muffled pop pop pop
Came from the direction of the woodworking shop.
As to what happened next, well, I must be candid:
A stray bullet hit Misses Tannenbaum in the head.
All over her carefully drawn lesson plan she bled,
As “Get under your desks!” Reginald commanded.
Eustace Quinn
Liked to win,
But the minorities that had the system beat
Took what was his; they would lie and cheat
And commit all other manner of sin.
It’s a good bet
He channelled his rage through misinformation on the internet,
A toxic miasma he loved swimming in.
“We have to do something!” Libby shouted,
But Reginald just cowered and pouted.
“We aren’t,” he responded, “mass murderer chasers –
All we have are pens, a stapler and some chalkboard erasers!”
Self-defence? He didn’t know the first thing about it.
“I know, it makes me want to cry,”
Libby said, “but if we don’t do something, we could all die!”
Not a single child in the room did doubt it.
Was Eustace mentally unstable? Who can say?
But it couldn’t help that he received an assault rifle for his eighteenth birthday.
To connect with his son, his dad Philboyd was straining
(Too bad with the gift he didn’t include any training).
As an area of moral consideration, his parents’ actions weren’t grey.
At eighteen, Eustace was still a boy,
Who should not have been given a deadly toy,
So that on others he could prey.
Senator Ted Cruz
Must have had a little too much booze;
Even as the deadly ammunition on the children did rain,
He waged a bullets, not books campaign.
While his Republican colleagues on the issue did snooze
He took a crazy idea, and with it boy did he run:
That the only thing that can combat a bad child with a gun is a good child with a gun.
Thus, he ensured children’s lives the country would continue to lose.
Suddenly, open the door flew
And at the entering figure the children threw
Everything they could get their little hands on.
They created chaos with gleeful abandon,
And had some hits that turned Eustace’s face black and blue.
The killer was momentarily stunned.
Who was trying to spoil his fun?
He fired randomly as from the room he withdrew.
Senate Minority leader Moscow Mitch
Supported mass murder without a hitch.
Killing meaningful gun reform made his caucus shout “hooray!”
Because they were bought and paid for by the NRA.
And isn’t that a bitch?
He came to mass murder’s hearty defendment
By repeatedly misinterpreting the second amendment.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you? That’s rich.
The shooter was finally stopped on the gym room floor.
A dozen children died, but it could have been more.
When defending yourself, it’s always wise
Never to underestimate chalk dust getting in the eyes
Of the boy who caused all the gore.
It may be small consolation, but she rose and he rose
So Libby and Reginald died heroes –
In an emergency, you never know who’ll come to the fore
Who is the biggest violence instigator?
The person who is a minority hater
Or the politicians and media that spur his actions?
Each point of view has its factions.
This could be the cause of endless debate, or
We could do something to fix what’s rotten.
Of course, it’ll be too late to help PS 121, which was forgotten
When the next school shooting happened two days later.