Earlier today, I combined a couple of poems while preparing to submit work to a journal; I finished this poem in similar fashion.

The system absorbs the blows
we take all the punches
and most of the blame

so stuck in our views
that nothing changes

A trail of corpses
litters the screens of a weary nation
convinced their lives don’t matter

shut down when they make the point
ignored when they ask the question

until nobody talks at all

The pendulum swings ever wider
sending the crowds running for cover
from the bullets fired from all sides

(21 August 2016)