Pray for the martyrs
Viola Gregg Liuzzo, Lamar Smith, Louis Allen,
Reverend George Lee, Jonathan Myrick Daniels, Jimmy Lee Jackson,
Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Herbert Lee,
James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, just to name a few
as well as all of the unfortunate, bayonetted beings of the American Revolution,
the dismembered, bloodied barrages of bodies blown-up in the American Civil War by artillery,
the lynched, the enslaved, the black (and blue) battalions
of unsung heroes and victims throughout American history
and it’s all for naught, what they have fought for
if our willingness to vote is superseded by apathy
while injustice for most prevails like the plague
we must head to the ballot box, voice our concerns
or your children will ask you, “Why didn’t you help us? Why didn’t you try?”
“Why’s the world poisoned? Are we all going to die…?”
“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”
-Mary Harris “Mother” Jones