Violence Poem
by Pat Bizzaro

          1.
A person never really knows
what will happen 
if someone places a gun
in his hands.
Will the fingers
freeze on the trigger
and skin tear when 
the hand is pried from steel?
Will long shadows
press closer together
in the corner of the room
until someone decides?
This is murder.
I will do it.
Over and over again,
I will do it.


          2.
Maybe you're walking
down the street
when you hear something metal
slip through the hole in your pocket.
You keep walking until
you hear it again.
You wonder what, in this life,
could so strongly want
to be lost. A coin,
a gold filling from
the newly dead?

Maybe you're walking
down the street
when you hear someone
call your name.
And when you turn,
it's your son, carrying
his best memories of you
in a box the size of his thumb.
And the sound of metal
hitting the sidewalk,
of something trying so hard
to be lost in this lifetime,
follows you home and calls you
father. With all his might,
calls you father.


           3.
There are men who keep 
violence by their beds all night
as though they can prevent 
their dreams.
I know a man who sleeps
with a knife under his pillow.
Once when his wife returned
with a cup of water, he jumped out
at her from the shadow,
a knife shining
beneath her throat
like the eyes of blind men.

And when he turned back
to his sleep, he dreamed
of children stabbing
the backs of their hands
with sharpened pencils
until black blood rushed
to the floor. All around them
a halo of gray shouted out
from the dream, and he awoke
jabbing the backs of his
hands with the knife.


             4.
I know you haven't listened
since the beginning.
This talk of violence
eating out the hearts
of children and frightened
old men who, like me,
take their terror with warm
milk and a bit of chocolate.

But there are corners
of the room filled with 
hours no one has named.
Colors only the blind know 
and shades
so subtle we call them black.

There's smoke right now
curling to the top of this page,
smoke drowning someone's last
shout for help, that shout
we all hear when deep
in our dreams our lovers whisper
in our ears. Right now
there are fingernails chewed
to the flesh, blood
slowly driven to the surface.
And there are men throwing
their wives through windows
and women beating their children.
And there are children
dancing around us,
their faces pink and bloated,
their lips moving
like triggers, slowly,
cautiously, aiming at you.