—Dateline 3/27/23
3 adults and 3 children were shot dead
earlier today while the gun industry,
gun huggers, and legislators who live by
gunmoney —yes, while all of those stand at
mics and mutter, “Ho, hum,” sub voce,
while the cracked bell of their worn thoughts and
prayers slowly tolls over blood-spattered schools
and in the rest of us brings up nothing but hurls
So— Infernal platitude:
a new term to be used instead of the
exhausted thoughts and prayers, which
by now have become a rank curse;
infernal platitude, a new term that
more precisely expresses the vacuity of words
inevitably turned to when children are
routinely shot dead in American schools.
Infernal platitude has the advantage of being
more sonorous, a sound somewhat more fluid,
making it more economical in saving
political breath (if not the lives of babes)
when a politician has scheduled
a suddenly-conflicting financial-grease meet
with a gun lobbyist at the very moment
an inconvenient mass killing has
occurred during math lessons or recess
so that the well-coiffed empty suit,
of course, must run . . .
So, Infernal platitude possible usage:
This has been a terrible tragedy, horrible,
heinous, let us, therefore, send our heartfelt
infernal platitudes to the many bereaved parents
who today have lost a child
—now, if you’ll excuse me . . .
Jim Culleny, ©3/28/23
Blink 