The usual reaction to tragedy
is to comment – and it seems, to derive
from the events, their objectivity,
forms of denial, to keep well alive
the standards of decent society.
Horror expressed at the scale of events,
inflicted casualties, appalling carnage,
harrowing details in witness accents,
is denial, in gospel truth of language,
we are implicated in any sense.
The president weeps a hardly seen tear,
the public consensus that it should never
have happened, the perpetrator is here
branded a lone psychopath, but as ever
is one of us, his deeds make loud and clear.
