Fortress Wantagh High School
“Blowing The Skool [sic] up today
no joke I’ve had it.”
It looks like grammar and spelling
at Wantagh High School has quit
Sadly, our schools from elementary
to universities have become potential killing zones
A gun culture layered over a
collapse of mental health becoming way too violence prone
Sealing lockers, banning purses,
banning backpacks, books in plastic bags
While lurking within or without
guns with high capacity mags
If a troubled teen somehow does not
have access to a gun
A knife will kill almost as quickly
if one cannot away from the threat quickly run
While some pounce on the excuse of
white privilege to violence explain
Others quickly condemn the culture
of music and film violence distorting reality in a teen's brain.
There was a time almost eons
ago when during recess running free
You would hear "sticks and
stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me"
But words today can feelings
definitely hurt
Planting the revenge seed that may
sprout in violence gone berserk
Or not heard or ignored cries for
help are omens of violence to waiting to explode
Victims of the social mores against
killing and violence continuing to erode
We cannot put an armed deputy with
bomb sniffing dogs in every school
Nor can we keep all kids at home
isolated to learn online education's tools
An easy answer might be to
inculcate in the youth the need for the Golden Rule
Teens shorn of childhood innocence
would laugh at us as fools
But we can our mental health system
try to restore
To learn the signs of mental illness
and no longer ignore
© May 29, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka
the Alaskanpoet
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