haiku-usa

A blog devoted mainly to haiku and senryu and to thoughts about, and inspired by, haiku and senryu.

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Haiku is to poetry as espresso is to coffee.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

shooting

shooting rampage
man on the bus says
guns don't kill people

posted by Bill | 7:47 AM

11 Comments:

Blogger gautami tripathy said...

It is people who kill people. Guns do not.

10:21 AM  
Blogger polona said...

i agree with gautami.
and yet... if guns were not so easily accessible...

11:52 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't you wonder what would make someone want to do that, guns or no guns?

3:22 PM  
Blogger Bill said...

And often it's people with guns.

But I don't intend this as a polemic on gun control. It's rather about the way we confront the unthinkable with comforting stereotypes and cliches, especially those that reaffirm a worldview that has been threatened. A different person might have muttered a prayer or a curse. My first words were "Jesus Christ!" Prayer or curse?

The answer to your question, aurora (if there is one) lies in the murky depths of human psychology. But a part of it is a lack of sympathetic imagination, the faculty that enables us to recognize the full humanity of people other than ourselves. That lack is a common theme in episodes of this kind.

Thanks for your comments, gautami, polona, and aurora.

6:21 PM  
Blogger bigshoulders said...

nice and succinct, regardless of one's stance on the issue.

thanks, bill.
kevin

6:51 PM  
Blogger Bill said...

Thanks, Kevin. Good to hear from you.

7:24 PM  
Blogger floots said...

i agree with you bill
i think that we feel a need to say something when faced with such atrocities
and
such a cliche is not so much an attempt to be "deep" or controversial - just an attempt to find comfort and/or show concern

thank you

11:57 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

red petals everywhere -
lecture about death
at Virginia Tech

any comment is useless...

2:17 AM  
Blogger Pat Paulk said...

From the jawbone of an ass to 9mm's and .22 calibers, the world doesn't seem to change much. Good one Bill!!

5:10 AM  
Blogger Bill said...

Of course, Pat, even if you're a Samson, killing 33 people with the jawbone of an ass is much harder than killing them with a gun. I guess that's progress???

Right, floots. Our comments at such a moment are often a form of psychic self-defense.

You're right, Dana-Maria. As Auden says, "poetry makes nothing happen."

But he also said it's a voice. Sometimes we are compelled to speak. Thank you for speaking.

5:23 AM  
Blogger Pat Paulk said...

Some progress. Good point!

4:54 AM  

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