OVER AND OVER AND OVER

Canada was rocked and shocked by École Polytechnique,

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Bang, bang – lives end but the pain stays.

Columbine High School shocked us, and we cringed.

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Bang, bang – but change does not happen, only sadness endures.

High School after High School, the story is the forever same,

Bang, bang – never much change, but gloom darkly remains.

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Churches, Mosques, and Synagogues are religiously in the news,

Bang, bang, creates turmoil, but no bang, bang noise to reform.

Sandy Hook School targeted little ones,

Change is shouted but then dies down, like the wee ones.

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Shopping malls, grocery stores, homes, and streets,

Bang, bang, and change does not happen, but sorrow stays,

Close families and random strangers are killed, it does not matter how,

Bang, bang, and change rarely happens, but misery is forever.

Even calm, safe Nova Scotia explodes with a devastating spree.

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Trucks, and cars explode into crowds walking, protesting, or Christmas parades,

Another bang, bang, with no sense but nonsense.

Decade after decade we hear, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Suicides we are told double because life seems too hard,

These solve no problems, but family heartaches persist.

Yes, suicide is double, it is not news, but it should be.

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Limited mental health resources are overloaded, so is prison the solution?

Would much mental health care help? Would much gun control help?

But still, it is a bang, bang, and the destruction surrounds us all.

Spontaneous, careless thoughtless acts, or long-term well-planned killing sprees,

The results give bang, bang, and many wonder why, oh, why?

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Bang and one’s family and others are crushed forever.

With shootings, gun sales go up and up, why, oh why?

Bang, bang, we need changes – rhetoric after bang, bang is often loud.

We need changes, not short-term oratory that gives empty sounds.

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Many shouts for change, and many shout back no! – no one wins.

No winners but dead broken souls and innocents, over and over.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, and the band played on.

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Even before the bang bang was common Pete Seeger asked, “When will we ever learn?”

Sadly, as the Stones later cried, “Let the tears go by” And, we do, we do, we do.

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The dead heard no bang, bang, and we remain deaf to their deaths.