They Don’t Just Kill The Ones They Slay Poem by C Richard Miles

Grim ghetto’s gunfire now may seem to shoot its guiltless victim dead
And needless neighbourhood knives, cold steel, bare blades
May rudely, roughly rob the passing innocent of breath
But senseless shooting saves the worst for fresh fatalities,
Those left behind, the rueful relatives, the kith and kin
Who suffer longer-lasting, living dreadful distress: death:
Consumed by festering fires of heated, harmful hate
Which digs more deep that ever did blunt bullet bite the skin
In all-consuming, soul-tormenting, never-ending fate.
And bitter blades don’t only slice and slash and slay
But make unwanted, unhealing, meaner, keener cuts
On blood relations whose souls shed colder, crueller tears
With wounded hearts which spurt grief’s gore-red blood
That flow more free than that from those whose life was spilt.