“My Bowling Green”

It’s hard being Bowling Green, /
To see the things I have seen, /
Bodies piled high as friends lean /
Upon the bars in my Bowling Green. /

The reckless came to town one day, /
Said we had all gone away, /
Gone away, no more to say /
In this place now unseen, called my Bowling Green. /

Jihadist from a foreign land /
Had come and massacred us so grand, /
Wiped us all out where we stand. /
O’ the tragedy was so mean deep in my Bowling Green. /

They say none of us were spared, /
That these terrorist did not care. /
We were lost to great despair /
That day in memory serpentine in my Bowling Green. /

The media did not take note. /
Little was said and less was wrote. /
We were left with but just a sad note, /
A sad note it would seem about my Bowling Green. /

Fredrick Douglass had nothing to say. /
Nor Oliver Wendell Douglas about that day /
When Green Acres were turned red with dismay /
O’ that sad, mean, vile scene in my Bowling Green. /

We cannot remember what we do not know, /
Though alternative facts tell us so, /
That lies and lives come and go. /
There is little we can now glean from my Bowling Green. /

They erected a sign to the non-event /
And many a word has long been spent /
In song and poem and prose unbent /
To say what can’t be seen of the wrongs in my Bowling Green. /

It’s hard being Bowling Green, /
To see the things I have seen, /
Bodies piled high as friends lean /
Upon the bars in my Bowling Green.

–photo and poem by David E. Booker