Poet’s Corner: A Response to Trump’s Feb. 21 Remarks

Published 4:26 am Thursday, March 8, 2018

A Response to Trump’s Feb. 21 Remarks

By Norm Olson, Nikiski

Platitudes and empty words filled the room today

As the children of the corn stood up to take the guns away

“Tis that nasty rifle and the handguns that do us savage harm

“And it’s our intent to stop the guns by raising great alarm.”

And the children of the corn began to march resist and yell.

“If you don’t make the guns go away, we’ll stir a devilish hell.

And from the multitude of truths, this echoed truth will stay:

They believed they’d all be safe … just take the guns away!

Building their power on social media they quickly reached their goal

With every child marching behind a promise to make them whole.

The Piper promised to make them safe, but instead he vexed them so.

In haste the Piper called the experts who certainly must know.

The Piper said, “We’ll solve this problem” but all the kids demanded when

“We’ll study it and form committee will review the plan again.”

And finally an answer came, when all other solutions failed

Instead of honestly solving the problem, this consensus prevailed:

For soon a solution was grabbed that was supposed to ebb the fear

A solution that would keep bad guys away and keep the good guys near

And it was a popular solution, and one appropriate for our age

We’ll simply herd the children into a goodly solid cage.

Platitudes and empty words are offered to our children now

By the people who may one day command them all to bow

But instead of teaching the children to wait and patiently cope

We ought to give them kids a real reason to hope

How then? How can we protect them now?

Instead of empty promises we should be teaching them how.