TO THE EDITOR:
I am submitting this poem in the hopes to foster civil discussion regarding the stand your ground law:
Stand your ground? Stand your ground? But the ground where you stand is holy, see you not the burning bush, remove your shoes, set aside the warm, familiar robe of fear, that metaphoric silk prison which holds you so near, arraign yourself, with sackcloth and ashes, mourn for the one who received forty lashes.
Now time to weep for the sins of our fathers, they visit til the fourth generation, much to our consternation, these uninvited transients have overstayed their welcome, unleashing the so called lawful hell, have we all succumbed to the spell.
Oh, is it a human sacrifice you now require, to rid yourself of the seed hate spread in our darkest hour, from the ghost of crowded corners in your mind, constantly pulling, grabbing for every square inch, though you wrestle day and night, those demons never alight, when denied squatters rights to your soul, they cry blood sacrifice, blood sacrifice that is all we uphold.
When hope held a place you fought those aberrations, the constant source of your vexations seeming so true, yet nonexistent, now you believe the false threat to be real, to you love is nothing but a metaphor, hollow promises and platitudes, you say, ‘oh to rid myself of this attitude,’ but the loud silence in your head, has told you THEY you are to dread, is it a human sacrifice you now require, to rid yourself of the seed hate spread in our darkest hour.
Karl Ginyard
Durham, NC
