Poetry: Calling All CEOs by Todd Matson

Calling All CEOs

You have a solution for mass shootings?

 

Let me guess.  Arm teachers. Arm all the good

 

people with guns to gun down all the bad people with guns.

 

 

Am I getting warm?  Insist on better

 

treatment for mental illness for the camera

 

while cutting funding for treatment of the mentally

 

ill off camera since viewers have the attention span of a gnat.

 

 

Am I getting warmer?  Sanctimoniously

 

offer “thoughts and prayers” while doing absolutely

 

nothing to stop mass shootings.  I believe I must be red hot.

 

Do you really want to stop mass shootings?  Follow the money.

 

 

Gun sales skyrocket after mass shootings.

 

Blood money starts pouring in. Gun manufacturers

 

donate blood money to the NRA to promote the unbridled

 

sale of guns.  The NRA donates blood money to politicians pimped

 

out to protect the sale of semi-automatics, military-style weapons, AR-15s,

 

assault weapons, weapons of war to young men desperate to renew their “man card.”

 

 

Follow the money

 

and you come to a trail of blood.

 

The blood of innocents. The blood of children.  

 

 

Calling all CEOs.  Does this

 

sound like an acceptable business

 

model to you?  Do you truly want to stop

 

corporate vampires from harvesting the blood of

 

children used to make killing machines for mass murder?

 

 

Stop making the spilling

 

of innocent blood profitable

 

for gun manufacturers, the NRA,

 

and the political whores who care more

 

about being reelected than keeping children safe.

 

 

The political whores.  Vote them out.

Todd Matson is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in North Carolina, United States. His poetry has been published in The Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling, Soul-Lit: A Journal of Spiritual Poetry and Bluepepper, and his short stories have been published in Ariel Chart International Literary Journal, Faith, Hope and Fiction, and Children, Churches and Daddies.  He has also written lyrics for songs recorded by various contemporary Christian music artists, including Brent Lamb, Connie Scott and the Gaither Vocal Band.