Ten million people
killed by machete
The Congo a hemorrhage
of human despair
Ten million people
whose carcasses rotting
In jungles of torment
— and life’s disrepair
(The New Room: September, 2025)
I come to bury Charlie Kirk, not to praise him.
I’ve heard his words hurt millions, but that that didn't faze him,
that he took Jesus’ words about sowing division to heart,
and is said to have use them to help tear our world apart.
So, as for my praise ~ I'll wait till I see how history does appraise him.
My heart is racked with so much pain
For one who garnered admiration and disdain
A man whose love for country did outpour
A man who loved his Savior more
His values went against the grain
He stood for all that’s moral and sane
His calling? To proclaim the truth
To ignorant and misguided youth
He taught God’s love and never hate
But his political incorrectness sealed his fate
A fiend of hate from the party of love
Was ready to kill when push came to shove
He was far too evil to agree to disagree
So he shot Kirk dead before his family.
From the party of love came nothing but cheers
Validation, threats, mockery, and jeers
Because tolerant is a wonderful thing to be
Lest it is a truth for which you disagree
But what can you expect these days in the West
Where only degenerates truly know best?
Where the only approved speech is shibboleth
And penalty for speaking the truth is death
Farbeit that Kirk will die for naught
There is still a holy war to be fought
No matter the cost, I will be brave
For the only place for the righteous is the grave.
the devil swings
with the pain Billie brings
to the song of a sparrow, once lost
but heaven cries
with the drug in her eyes
and the weep of a willow's sad cost
the awed repute
of a tree's strangest fruit
never gave up its dead or it's moss
one mother's urn
sifted ash from the burn
of a tragedy's southern-most cross
shall only years
dry that muddle of tears
the torrent drowning races and sin
or will the truth
age a sweeter vermouth
let as blood on a much darker skin?
weep collected
for life, disrespected
would deluge all Jehovah's dear streams
yet not one wonder
that God's loudest thunder
will ne’er quiet that riot …
of screams.
~ for Billie Holiday ~
Copyright © 2020 Gregory Richard Barden
( photographic art created copyright-free by the poet with GALA AI software )
She got to wake up the next day
He didn't.
She got to live her life
He didn't.
She got to have her own family
He didn't
She lied
He didn't.
She admitted to the lie -
No repercussions
He was a black boy -
He got murdered
Carolyn Bryant,
A murderer
Emmett Till,
A victim
The courts awarded her due diligence
His family fled in fear, that it'd be repeated
Leaving their home, scared they'd be targeted
Their home a ghost to a child evicted
A system built to allow racism
Charlie Kirk shot dead
America’s soul, bled
Red, the color of conversation
~ absent communication
I gazed into my husband’s eyes.
Eyes once borne by my daughter.
Agamemnon upon Mycenaean soil once more.
I embraced him as a figure crept out of the shadows.
Aegisthus slipped the knife’s hilt silently into my hand.
Agamemnon now forever lay beneath the land.
They shoot, stab, and run,
some are caught and then released
showing no remorse.
Fell to my knees, broken that day
Couldn't believe you'd been taken.
Cut down in your prime by Evil.
Blood. Bullets were not meant for you.
The Devil flashed a smile in court.
Your family grieved in silence;
Screaming inside, "You murderer!"
Karma will have her way with you.
*Oxymoron Poetry Contest
*Sponsored by: Nette Onclaud
*Entered on: 08/31/2025
It came quiet as the night
Nothing you could fight
It drifted unnoticed in the air
More lethal than an angry bear
He didn't feel a breeze, he didn't feel a change
Nothing out of order, nothing struck him strange
It bound to his hemoglobin, 200 times as strong
His cells were suffocating, all systems going wrong.
They found him in my car, a snow drift behind
The got him out in time for the poison to unwind
I researched it, other compounds also creep in stealth
They may change the way you act, they may destroy your health.
A crime mob found this out, they can ambush, poison you
The motive might be foggy, the method leaves no clue
Just another thing to worry about these days
Bad things can happen, in so many new ways.
See, there are crimes you know were done
But with stealthy drugs in air, there is no smoking gun
We can rub the wrong guy the wrong way
then wonder why the joy fades out, and our life goes gray.
Her winsome smile belied her secret essence
A temptress and siren
Given to saturnine quintessence
And I a man of placid and calm complexion
Became ever more umbrageous
With each stranger she offered affection
Ciara Cybelle chose to take her chances
Unconcerned by my mood
Continued her frenzied romances
She swooned at my charm
And laughed at my wit
And yet held to another man’s arm
Ciara Cybelle a nymph out of hell
Twisting a man
With her temptress spell
I had to make her understand
She simply had to see
I must be her only man
But Ciara Cybelle laughed instead
Eyes flashing fire
She brazenly said
The likes of me would never know
The deliciousness
Of the charms she would bestow
On other men she found fairer
Then in a rage
I struck in blind error
And carefree Ciara Cybelle
Lay shattered and still
At my feet where she fell
To the dark waters I fed
The alabaster body
Of Ciara Cybelle dead
Now benthic stillness of cimmerian depths
Disturbed by the pale lifeless limbs
Of Ciara Cybelle
Now tumescent and water pruned
The once sempiternal beauty
Forever ruined
So long ago
It was a far different world
It was safe to be a child
You could attend school
Go to your church
Or just play outside
You would feel perfectly safe
No one decided when it was time to die
Now you cannot do these things
Not without worrying if you would get home
It is a sad world when there are daily death counts
Telling how many died, where, and when
Almost like getting sports scores
One thing, it all has to stop
Kids should not have to think of death
And may they never have to see it
© Poem – XXVIII/VIII/MMXXV
LRET
Dedicated to the lost and wounded
of Annunciation Catholic Church
in Minneapolis on August 27th, 2025
and all of the children murdered so often
Seed of Fear: Jack and Jill
Mack and Stacks went up to the trap,
to stash a pail of cash, slick and packed.
The street was quiet, corners still,
sun hung heavy over the window sill.
Mack held the bag, pockets tight with green,
Stacks right behind, eyes sharp, unseen.
A shadow broke, the door rattled loud,
a flash, a bang, the night turned proud.
Mack hit the ground, crown knocked low,
Stacks stumbled next, nowhere to go.
They both fell fast, fear in the air,
the block held its breath, nothing was there.
The pail was gone, the trap left bare,
echoes of warning hung everywhere.
Mack went first, got hit in the dome,
Stacks went next, it hit his neck—neither made it home.
coroners report
murder or undetermined
dissatisfaction
left in limbo
do we seek perpetrator
family left hanging
it was a bright pretty happy day
Joy had always been excited about life
she was from a small town
seventeen years old, in her happy element
She was from the kind of a town where people take care of each other
her bicycle chain broke on a country road
a nice-looking man in a blue pickup truck smiled at her
He turned his truck around to help
Offered to take her to town to fix it
Lifted the bike into his truck, showing his kindness
Joy trusted his smile
she was never seen again
Specific Types of Murder Poems
Definition | What is Murder in Poetry?
Poems Related to Murder
homicide, lynching, massacre, felony, crime, destruction, bloodshed, shooting, manslaughter, death, hit, butchery, annihilation, liquidation, blood, off, carnage, foul play, rub out, slaying, assassination, terrorism, knifing, offing, dispatching