THE RIGHT (TO BEAR) HARMS

THE RIGHT (TO BEAR) HARMS

“A man walks into a bar…
With a shotgun.”
It doesn’t have the same ring to it,
It’s not a joke,
Life becomes oh so more serious and vulnerable,
When viewed from a position of fear,
Invoking wrought, paranoid minds,
Like Shakespeare’s King Lear,
Akin to London’s knife crime,
Shifting upwards in weaponry,
Fear shifting upwards a gear,
And therein lies the rub,
The Catch-22,
How do you remain calm,
When paranoia says an enemy may legally hold a stronger weapon than you?
You don’t, you buy the same weapon,
You protect your kin,
From the ‘evil’ shadow’s sin,
And you begin to think there are gunshots in every din,
You see a wry, guilty smile in every innocent grin,
Ever assuming a surface-ripple may lead to a shark’s fin,
And soon, handguns become commonplace,
Sitting in the drawer beside bibles,
And the debate lessens,
The new ‘balance’ steers fear,
At least consciously,
And assertions of safety through force,
Attack as a form of defence,
Seeps into the mind and solidifies like a stealthy parasite,
Making it seem impossible to reverse or rewrite,
Surely it’s now just a rite of passage,
A passage of ‘right’,
Deemed no longer to be an alternative,
In order to sleep tight at night,
Eradicating fright,
After all, who brings a knife to a gunfight?
But whether you’re being careful and defensive,
Or have ulterior motives out of spite,
It’s very clear wherein lies this story’s plight,
How inevitable is the violence that may incite,
The blood that somewhere may be spilt,
For the sake of retaining structures that were once built,
For these were the inherited benchmarks of forefathers,
When defence of one’s self was paramount,
And war was rife,
But perhaps times CAN change,
When protection turns to strife,
To uncertainty,
Perhaps the grey fog really promotes clarity,
And perhaps The Right partly promotes a lack of parity,
Nobody is equal, and therefore with The Right everybody is equal,
The Dream feeding this notion perfectly,
In fact it is crucial, anytime equality is raised,
For the subject of societal values to at least be grazed,
And touched on;
When dreams are not achieved and empathy is gone,
The last thing that is useful is access to a gun,
Whether mental issues or depression,
Unhinged individuals have the potential for contemplation,
Resulting in a deadly release of tension through action,
Ultimately bringing to its knees a nation,
And leading to an assertion of future legal motion by a leader through oration;
A magical omnipresent hand to sprinkle a country with a potion,
Some antidote to the land’s predicament.

BUT

Is there a way back?
Or is this a train-track that can go only one way,
Allowing slight deviation and carriages of different thought,
But ever to remain on the same track?
It may be left to politicians to debate and deliberate,
But financial implications are immense,
And uncertainty over change is thick and dense,
Sending the nation into a minefield so tense,
And the resolution-end is detrimental to SOMEBODY,
Or is to their cost, or ‘expense’.
One thing is for sure, however.
Now there is to be no sitting on the fence.

© Alex Frost 2012