Bullets and Burgers--2 Poems

Is 9 Years Old Too Young to Shoot a Machine Gun?

(from a headline, after a young New Jersey girl killed her instructor with an Uzi at an Arizona shooting range)

Is 9 too young to be wielding a weapon of war?

Will Suzie’s  parents ever get over this senseless tragedy?

Will the instructor’s family and friends get over this?

Will it affect the little girl for the rest of her life?

When is the right age to be shooting a machine gun in America?

I hear, over and over, the refrain from Bob Dylan’s old song,

“The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,

The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”

Bullets and Burgers at “Last Stop Gun Range”—A Great American Adventure

On your Arizona trip,

Don’t forget to come to Last Stop Gun Range!

For a measly $200 we will pick you up at your Las Vegas hotel,

Drive you over Hoover Dam, a wonder of the world,

Show you Lake Mead

And bring you to Last Stop.

There you can fire the weapons of your dreams, even if you are only 9 years old:

Machine guns, sniper rifles, grenade launchers—your choice!

Hamburger lunch included.

Helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon optional.

Hurry, before all slots are filled,

To our gun range, Last Stop.

[Bob Coughlin / August 28, 2014]

Poem about Chardon and Geauga County

Below is a draft of a poem-in-progress. It is somewhat fictionalized (my daughters are no longer little girls)--but it is true enough!

Just Under the Surface

Ratatatatatatatatatat . . .

The brutal rhythm goes on beyond my ability to count the rounds.

Any evening of the year, down at the end of my cul-de-sac, the dead end,

Or in two places across the road, less than a Hail Mary pass away,

Neighbors shoot at imagined enemies with some sort of automatic rifle--

A machine gun, in my mind, a terrible weapon of war,

Discharged into the woods in this suburban paradise.

My little daughters walking on the wooded path

The coyotes, the deer

Better beware

As a hail of fire rifles through the wood.

Under the surface under the surface of this wealthy suburban county

Like an embarrassing hateful tattoo

Is fear and hatred and violence

More intense than in the 3rd World Cleveland ghetto.

So I was not altogether surprised

When TJ Lane let loose his disturbed vision of vengeance

On innocent classmates in Chardon High School

That late winter day in 2012.

That anger, hatred, frustration is there. It is there, lurking

Just under the surface in wealthy Chardon,

Privileged Geauga County Ohio.

[Copyright 2013 by Robert M. Coughlin]