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# Don't Shoot
- URL: https://www.andyposner.org/dont-shoot/
- Published: 2023-09-24T00:02:01.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-15T05:02:54.000Z
- Description: Don't shoot the rats pillaging dumpsters, or the man with rat-like eyes and rumpled suit, who orders they be set ablaze...
- Author: Andy
- Tags: Be The Change, poetry, #Migrated-1784090317409, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-15 04:39

“*If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide*.” – Abraham Lincoln

Don't shoot the rats pillaging dumpsters,  
or the man with rat-like eyes and rumpled  
suit, who orders they be set ablaze.

Don't shoot the gophers swallowing whole  
your Begonias, or those bearing traps and  
poison, come to strike them dead.

Don't shoot the dull and shabby voices  
that shout down birdsong, too dumb or proud  
to tell loudness apart from truth.

Don't shoot the addict, or the dealer;  
those with too many homes or none at all;  
the agents of a cruel and careless state.

Don't shoot when the barrel stares you down,  
the whole of your life narrowing to a point,  
and angry crowds burst into laughter like

rifles that have lost their minds. Don't shoot  
when you, too, have lost your mind, and you  
are told that what you saw is not what you saw,

and witnesses change their story, and history is  
re-written, and prophets tell that every valley  
shall be bombarded, every mountain be made

more deadly, and the *One clothed with a robe* 
*dipped in blood* be detained and disappeared.  
Don't shoot the messenger.