City of snipers, this time it’s cops
who’re dead, not presidents,
not black people, for a change,
who don’t react fast enough to commands,
or don’t hear them, or don’t get them
in the first place –
just the bullets.

I could say, ‘Its about time’.
I could say, ‘It was just a matter of time’.
I will say, it’s no surprise
that rage turns to retribution,
that someone was going to start
shooting back
to even up the score.

It’s said that violence solves nothing –
a naïve point of view –
read your history again.
Is revenge a form of justice?
Maybe not, but it’s what we have instead.
Did the right ones die?
Who knows? Not I.

Across the states flags fly half mast
not the first time, nor the last,
but did they for those innocents
shot down by cops in ‘self defence’?
Protected by a uniform,
firepower long has been the norm.
Why should they bother to reform?

Until we make the world a fairer place,
until we think just ‘human race’,
until we give the poor the wealth we stole,
until we see ourselves as whole,
until we change the way it’s run,
there’ll be no end of killings done –
it’s just easier with a gun.

rs 8.7.16