Newtown Poems by Indran Amirthanayagam

            First Poems

There are murders that defy poetry,

challenge its song--I almost wrote

to a duel—ask  what business

do you have with us in the church,

in this memorial mass.

The children who died wrote

their first and last poems.

We do not know the metaphors

paralyzed, as teachers pushed

their charges into closets,

behind bookcases to safety,

before getting shot, plans

the Miss’s had made

for evenings, birthdays,

weddings to come?

            Indran Amirthanayagam, December 16, 2012

           Questions

This Newtown slaughter,

first graders learning to read

and write, teachers,

principal, psychologist,

adults, women entirely,

nurturing elementary

education, now rest

of the country and world,

the human family

in anger and sadness:

What beast roared

at innocents?

Why let him out

to murder us?

            Indran Amirthanayagam, December 15, 2012

          Spare the Rod

Spare the women and children.

Our future resides in their wombs,

the homes they will build

from the ruins. We have bombed

our own since the Wall

was scaled, since that order

to murder the first born.

We try to find reason in madness,

teach our children to believe

in God, the laws, and we fail

for a time, then pick up

goods and ideas

and start to build again,

aided by time, that nothing

ends, just transforms.

            Indran Amirthanayagam, December 16, 2012

          Journalist

What is observed, palpable,

children hiding in closets,

behind bookcases, these

are pixels in the landscape,

essential to the viewer,

to his need to fill the holes

of his empathy, to say

come into the classroom

and watch the revenger's

tragedy, listen to silence

next door where guns

reported,  hear scratching

at the knob,  sit on eyelids

of boys and girls waiting

for the murderer to walk

out, walk in, walk out.

            Indran Amirthanayagam, December 16, 2012

          Sure Thing

I am away from home. I see the human

tragedy, children lost to parents, order

upside down, inheritance uncertain,

restoring mind after grief uncertain,

forgetting details of crime scene

and return of the gun lobby after

a couple of days in black, keeping

quiet: absolute, sure, like the gun’s

silencer, the gun itself, bullets to be spent.

                Indran Amirthanayagam, December 16, 2012