I am one who believes that there is far too much violence in our society, and this poem is a reflection of my inner feelings about this social illness.

Johnny's Gone Mad

(An American Tragedy)

Johnny's gone mad you know,
It happened just the other day
All the neighbors said:
"How could this be?
He was so much like any other kid."

But the Associated Press and the TV set
All said that he had gone insane,
That they had found murdered
The bodies of his whole family
Buried near the pond

Behind his back yard,
Where once he played like the rest,
Where he sang and swung from trees
And learned to shoot his gun,
At little targets he had set up
In the humid heat of the summer sun

Johnny's not insane you know,
The lawyers and the congress said
He was in full possession
Of his wit and faculties
But was he, really?

Now the clangor of prison bars,
That shut out the light of day
And the heavens of the firmament
Are forever closed for him,
As he sits and waits on death row

Oh certainly, there were appeals
Movie rights and psychiatric evaluations
That claim he had perhaps been alienated
By the violence of a drunken dad
But still, Johnny is lost to us now

And we hardly know why or how,
Such a tragedy could have fallen
Like a shadowy funeral pall,
Over the dimming sanctuary
Of our quiet little town