Poem about the shooting yesterday

This isn’t my own work, it was written by an author whose work is on his livejournal http://sam-storyteller.livejournal.com/

Elegy for April Sixteenth, In Virginia

They are all dead. There once was some poor wretch
Who wandered these halls homeless save for what
They call a home — four walls, perhaps a bed
Perhaps a television, dresser, watch
Strewn on the bedside table. He slept here
Who now is dead. But not alone in death;
This bastard son of commonwealth who took
Up arms because his head was full of fear —
And now they all are dead. Whose bloody hands
Once held a pen and book, then carried death
To those who hardly tasted life, whose hands
Are these? A monstrous visage stands
With badge and weapon shaking his sad head.
The list grows longer and their parents ask
To know — does my child live? Where is my child
Who never knew the world? Is my child dead?
Where is my child? The rising tide of fear
Will drown their eyes. He killed them all and now
He too is dead. And they ask all for what?
For fear. Surely the devil must be here.
No human being could take one single steel
And chemical contraption in his hands
And with it make the country weep. Not one
sole man could enter these bright halls
And dim them instantly. Oh but these books
These lecture-halls, professors, and these desks
Were safe. This was a place of learning, safe
Until the fall. Who is so lost that looks
Over the tape and says, I knew that one?
Who is so lost that cries out for their child?
Who watches from a distance and who weeps?
So many dead. And all because a son
Of some poor god-damned mother sideways fell
And rampaged at the world that would have helped
If they had known. If he had only said —
That bathed their lives in red. This must be hell.
All dead. All senseless, comfortless and bare
Pain flayed too open. Christ, what happened here.
Torment on pain. What can words do? Words can
Do nothing. There will be no solace here.
They are all dead, and he is dead, and so
There must be mourning. Must be anger for
What happened here. There will be cries of pain
And scars and tremors. So the world must go.
The world is wrong, and setting it to rights
Is not the work of days or months but years.
This is no time to talk of dawning lights
That still must come again. No, not tonight
When children have been slain. Go comfort those —
The parents still and pale, the shaking friends
Who cannot see why they survive, when all
Around are gone. Don’t ask why — no-one knows.
Our love with you, for you, our helpless hands
For you. Remember that our love is here
And do not slip you sideways into hell.
Our love is here.