When I read about and watched the news reports on this tragic happening, I recalled how throughout my life I had refused to let any person, notion or substance take charge of my life and cause me to give up outcome for the path I had been given to travel at birth.<\/p>\n
The first time I read it in public, two people wept and told me that they had had nightmares about this for years. They also hoped that my poem would give them some release from the horror of such mindless turnover of so many lives to some mindless fool like this \u201cHitler-type messiah with no place to go but down into the depths of human weakness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jonestown Wipeout<\/strong><\/p>\n
Buy-off on the message and the messenger
\nCultivate this \u201c900 followers plus five\u201d
\nDeaD\u00a0 \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u00a0 DeaD
\nDruged\/Dead
\nLed\/Dead
\nFollow\/Death
\nCrazy\/Poison
\nSeek\/Find\/Kill
\nDeaf
\nDumb
\nBlind
\nDead<\/p>\nThere\u2019s always a \u201cJim Jones\u201d lurking
\nWaiting to rape your senses with (what(?)
\nA need for power?\u00a0 A power for seducing sheep?<\/p>\nI\u2019ve been led down many a path
\nBut I always had an eye on the gate
\nKnow that the love of the sound of
\nOne\u2019s own voice is a cause for alarm.<\/p>\nWhat those sad 900 souls wanted
\nOr never knew, could not be
\nFound or learned on a farm of isolation
\n\u201cThe senator and his staff are dead
\nOthers will come to take us away
\nWe must take this poison now and quick
\nMen, women, children \u2013 all\u00a0 – now\u00a0 – quick\u201d.<\/p>\nAmazing grace how sweet the sound
\nThat saves a wretched soul like mine
\nI am lost, will not be found, am blind
\nSo you can see \u2013 can you see?
\nCan you see?
\n1978<\/p><\/blockquote>\n(This poem originally appeared on <\/em>PoemHunter.com<\/em><\/a>. More information about Mr. Boone can be found on his <\/em>page<\/em><\/a> on that website.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I read about and watched the news reports on this tragic happening, I recalled how throughout my life I had refused to let any person, notion or substance take charge of my life and cause me to give up outcome for the path I had been given to travel at birth. The first time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":34357,"menu_order":30,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-34232","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34232"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48472,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34232\/revisions\/48472"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}