And then...hate (#Poetry Monday*)

You’re flying in clear skies
looking forward to returning home
from a fun, really great vacation,
and then...

You’re having a quiet dinner,
on a beautiful night, talking about
the theater and the play you’ll see,
and then...

You’re out with friends
dancing, having a good time,
you laugh, throw your hands in the air,
and then...

You’re in the market shopping,
selecting just the right items
for a dinner your family will love,
and then...

You’re in the stadium cheering on
your team, relishing the camaraderie
of like-minded fans. Score! Goal!
And then...


And then...
     the bomb goes off,
          the guns fire,
     the smoke roils up,
the people disassemble,
     crumple, go down
          in front of your eyes
     as blood paints red
everywhere.


Hearts miss beat after
     beat after
          beat
     as the plane plummets
          as the bullets fly
               as the debris scatters
as mindless hate salivates.


Momentarily there is
     stop-motion
          weightlessness
               disbelief
          terror
     screaming
intolerable noise.


And then...
                  silence.
Stunned calm.
          Dazed disbelief.


On television screens
     all over the world,
the morbid numbers tick up,
     a macabre score-keeping
of pieces of wreckage spotted
     of bodies and parts under sheets
and people bleeding, groaning
     in the streets.


And then...
   the
      tears
         fall
           like
        rain.


Meanwhile, hidden,
                             hate
                      sings
                             rejoices
                     coils.

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* It’s PoMo! To learn about PoMo (POetry MOnday), click here. Terrorism seems to be the norm now. EgyptAir Flight MS804 (likely terror but still to be proven), Paris, San Bernardino, Brussels, and on and on. Behind all of it, the father of every attack is Evil, who coils and readies to strike again and again, stealing, killing, destroying. How do you view terror? How do you process it? Share your thoughts in the comments.

This poem is included in this collection: