CURRENT EVENT poem

"Timmy got a bad rap"

I know that I'm gonna get lynched
I ought a shut my mouth
but damn it,
I'm gonna say it-
Timothy should've got off!

Why did we have to kill him?
What made it our right?
Since when are WE
to stand in judgment
over human life?

Last time I checked,
The Word was thus:
Don't judge, lest ye be judged.

In fact, I seem to recall
being told:
Vengeance was THINE
not mine.

I know the death toll was 168.
I'm not saying,
Tim was a saint.

Tim was a lot of things
stupid, bitter and cruel-
but did that justify
our bloodlust
to watch him die?

I wish a lot of things for him
that he could look into
a dead child's face.
That he could hold the child's mother
in his arms.
So that he, too, would suffer.

That he would watch
a loved one die-
to make him hurt,
to make him cry.

But I can't do that anymore
even though I had six years
I just don't think that's time enough
to wash away so many tears.

Somebody thought
it was his time to die.
Like they were God Almighty
Lord on High.
Guess no one told them
what my mom always said,
"Two wrongs never make a right."
Now 169 are dead.

I watch the parade of names and faces
scroll down my TV screen
I try to find the justice
on the pages in between

I guess that the feds were thirsting
for blood
after all, it'd been 38 years.
"We haven't played judge &; jury
in so long-I think the time is here."

I listened to the radio
on my way into work that morning
they killed him at 7 am,
pronounced him dead at 7:14.
Leaving me wonder,
What did it all mean?

What couldn't be forgiven?
What couldn't be laid to rest?
What couldn't sit in a prison?
Who were trying to impress?

Who died and made us king
of another fellow man?
Who was it that made it all right
for us to kill again?

What were we trying to prove
that morning, before the day began?
What did we set out to do,
fulfill some master plan?

Who made us the authority
to give the thumbs down on this life?
To say what the end of the story be?
To Timothy, we say "Goodnight".