By Ron Faust
The Chiefs’ Kingdom
went terribly wrong
Exposing contradictions
In what was a parade
for a Super Bowl victory
Kansas City was having fun
but it ended in tragic violence
one woman dead and 22 shot
Normalized as part
of American culture
The red shirts turned bloody
Disbelief it could happen here
The use of Kingdom language
Refers to a Biblical period
When the Temple was built
Where prayers to God refer
To a Sovereign Lord having led
Chosen people to a promised land
Then prophets came along
to correct corruption
and show love as justice
and side up with the poor
and understand a kinder God
and align with a better way
Guns in America are readily available
A symbol and cause of violence
A pretense to defend ourselves
By distancing ourselves
from the fear of others
often a cowardly way
to settle differences
Death and mayhem
Leave many in tragic pain
Congress is not going
To solve the problem
Until it affects the pocketbook
We may have to question
our materialism and greed
and share our resources
The other problem is
Idolizing entertainment
As wonderful as football is
It still is violent
And permits aggression
And influences competition
And you might say
Accepts patriotism
As a right to go to war
Entertainment is often associated
With excessive drinking
A time to let down and go crazy
An ultimate concern replacing
Spiritual values
Of seeing life as more
than just having fun
Jesus perceived a Kingdom Within
“Thy Kingdom come,
Thy will be done”
More love for caring and justice
An alternative to force and guns
What happened in Kansas City
Is a sobering reality of our priorities
We are left confused and stunned
The Chiefs’ Kingdom is a nice diversion
As long as the Kingdom will come
(Without weapons of destruction)
With a Parade for Peace.
PeaceWorks KC’s Ron Faust wrote this poem 2/15/24, the day after the Chiefs held their Super Bowl victory parade, immediately followed by a mass shooting killing Lisa Lopez-Galvan and injuring 22 others. The poet adds: (On occasion in reassessing how a Parade can have a different ending … realizing mass shootings make us angry over the access to guns.) © 2024, Ron Faust, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License.
