There's No Difference
There's no difference between
Killing 60 school girls
In a Taliban bombing
And 45 mass shootings in America in a month
If their citizens do nothing about it
There's no difference between
Kissing the feet of Donald Trump
And the feet of Vladimir Putin
If you want to live in a dictatorship
There's no difference between
The suppression of Ulgar minorities
In China
And the suppression of the vote
In the United States
When it comes to human rights
There's no difference between
Refusing to be vaccinated
And hate crimes against Asian Americans
When your mind is closed
There's no difference between
Electing Republicans
And denying climate change
If you want a horrible future
There's no difference between
A child locked in a cage
And welcoming a future citizen
Except the color of their skin
There's no difference between
You and me
Except the channels
Of the cable news we watch
Carl Scott Harker ©2021
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My latest book of poetry — poems written between late April to Late October, 2020, is now available and you can find it on Amazon here: Above Us Only Sky.
Poet’s Note: The structural model of this poem was inspired by the John Lennon/Yoko Ono song, “We're all Water” which contains the memorable line, “There's no difference between Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao, if you strip them naked.”