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poetry Hypocrites: Innocents Now Rule!!

Inspired by student outrage at the link between politicians and the National Rifle Association, the poet find hope in the no-longer-so-innocent next generation.

Hypocrites: Innocents Now Rule!!

By Francine Tyler                                      

The young who haven’t yet started to be hypocrites rule today. 

They inspire us. They speak what they see and truly experience

The students who survived the murder of seventeen fellow students and teachers - Who minutes before were talking to them in classrooms and hallways

Will never see them again

The innocents say our job is to go to school, to study and progress

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The innocents say their job is not to be gunned down in their classrooms and hallways

All the rest, all the hypocrites finagle, manipulate, lie to us, and go about their greedy lives

Life to them is one person, themselves

For the innocents it is all of us

They are so intelligent, so well schooled.  They researched how much money the National Rifle Association pays each corrupt member of Congress

to do the gun manufacturer’s bidding.

The war machine and armaments industry rule here

Marco Rubio, Senator from Florida, an apologist for the National Rifle Association receives one over million dollars from them

In Arkansas, Senator Tom Cotton receives nearly two million dollars from them. 

In Ohio Senator Rob Portman and in Missouri Senator Roy Blunt each receive over one and a half million dollars from them.

The list is long!!!

Ask yourself, “What do they do for the National Rifle Association for the ”twenty pieces of silver” they are paid?

The innocents talk to us in impeccable logic and articulate so clearly what must be done.

The innocents in their united actions show us what to do

The young who haven’t started to be hypocrites yet rule today. 

They inspire us. They speak what they see and experience

[Francine Tyler is an art historian and poet and an adjunct lecturer in art history at New York University.  I’ve been watching democracy ooze away for too long.]