21 Grams

 

     What is this thing we bare upon the World,

What exactly is housed between skin, bone, muscle and blood?

Is it something we know is inherently good,

     Or is it there just to deceive,

To trick and cajole,

     And imbue -

Sad lonely wishes?

 

Dr Duncan MacDougall would have you believe,

In something more than carbon,

Something more than h20,

     Something revered the whole world through.

 

But I contest its meaning,

I revoke the importance of what was found,

For how can it be,

     The essence of man be 21 grams,

When seven point five makes up each killers round?

 

     Perhaps 3 times the weight of instruments

Of death, the soul alone will know,

Only 3 times the round fired from guns,

Only 3 times a wish upon Earth!

 

How much do you weigh?

For they state we are all just 21grams,

21 grams be you slim or rotund,

21 grams floating above,

Yet a full magazine of jackets and rounds,

Weighs princely a sum upon death,

Taking your schools your clubs and your films,

The gun in the hand denies everyone blessed.

 

Duncan MacDougall – an isolated, intuitive man,

Denied his findings by researchers keen to rebuke,

     For medicine not wants

For the heavens above,

To know life so fragile,

Competes with murder

We develop in bullets.

 

Michael J Waite 12th December 2015