Do Not Presume to Call It ‘Fun’!
Ellen Ficarra
Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest 2010 (view all the winners)
Most Highly Commended
Offer not my child what you call a game of skill, teaching, as it will how much fun it is to kill!
Small instruments of death, held in tiny hands that, yesterday, held mine for their instruction.
Yet, you offer, in the name of amusement, destruction!
These lessons taught my child by your hand-held toy, though just a boy,
how cruel it makes his childlike features.
These creatures, of monstrous proportions, teach him to glorify death, by ugly distortions of all life holds dear.
Hear me now, I will not allow his tiny fingers to push tinier buttons, in order to
let loose your gluttons, hungry for blood.
On that minute screen, how larger-than-life they seem to his young, sponge-like mind, forcing him to leave innocence behind!
In their stead, why not bring forth a means of learning to satisfy their youthful yearning?
Teach him wonderful things, heroes, fairies, noble warriors, ancient kings, kindness to all living things,
respect for elders, authority, nobility, courage in adversity!
He is too young to realize that, even through his magic eyes, in reality, he
cannot put together a body blown to bits, stop the speeding bullet
that hits an innocent child at play!
It will not go away, this horror they perceive! Do not deceive them with false tales
of fun, for you may be the one who grieves, someday!
If some young boy shoots real bullets at your son, would you then believe it was
not the same,
there was no one to blame, it was just a game?
