deepundergroundpoetry.com
Hope (less)
I pick up the newspaper.
Scan the front page.
Fuck!
I turn on the T.V.
Shit, I can’t get away from it.
Rape as a weapon of war in Sudan.
Politician shot in Arizona,
others killed
Including little girl.
Washing in the river where they shit in India.
Juarez runs with rivers of blood
Drones over Afghanistan
IED’s in Iraq
Millions of dead fish
Birds dropping from the sky
Boy kills mom over fifty bucks.
Man rapes and kills 4 year old boy
Women for sale in every country you can name
Burning in Thailand
Revolution in Tunisia
Israel
aiming at Pakistan
Pakistan
aiming back
North and South Korea
rattling their sabers
Mexican people dying in the desert while
Looking for a way to put food on the table
So their children don’t starve.
Little boys and girls with AK-47’s
In Colombia
and Africa
And other places
Homeless in America
Cartels killing with glee
To assure that more can die from OD
Or destroy their dreams and dreams of their families
Babies in dumpsters
Cholera and smallpox in the modern world
Amputated hands to prevent resistance.
They said WWII was the war to end all wars.
I can’t fathom how people can do these things.
How do I give my children hope
When I lost it a few hundred murders ago?
Scan the front page.
Fuck!
I turn on the T.V.
Shit, I can’t get away from it.
Rape as a weapon of war in Sudan.
Politician shot in Arizona,
others killed
Including little girl.
Washing in the river where they shit in India.
Juarez runs with rivers of blood
Drones over Afghanistan
IED’s in Iraq
Millions of dead fish
Birds dropping from the sky
Boy kills mom over fifty bucks.
Man rapes and kills 4 year old boy
Women for sale in every country you can name
Burning in Thailand
Revolution in Tunisia
Israel
aiming at Pakistan
Pakistan
aiming back
North and South Korea
rattling their sabers
Mexican people dying in the desert while
Looking for a way to put food on the table
So their children don’t starve.
Little boys and girls with AK-47’s
In Colombia
and Africa
And other places
Homeless in America
Cartels killing with glee
To assure that more can die from OD
Or destroy their dreams and dreams of their families
Babies in dumpsters
Cholera and smallpox in the modern world
Amputated hands to prevent resistance.
They said WWII was the war to end all wars.
I can’t fathom how people can do these things.
How do I give my children hope
When I lost it a few hundred murders ago?
Published 25th Jan 2011
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25th Jan 2011 2:47pm
I knew from the first four lines that we were on the same thought pattern - I choose to turn it off. I know it's ignorance, I do but I think maybe if we all didn't take such a curious interest in each other the bad things wouldn't happen as much. Murderers love the attention and we feed it to them, everyone wants the limelight in whatever way possible these days.
I think you wrote a stunning piece on the effect it will have in ten years. I thoroughly enjoyed it; beginning to end.
I think you wrote a stunning piece on the effect it will have in ten years. I thoroughly enjoyed it; beginning to end.
28th Jan 2011 7:50pm
Of course, you've raised issues that are constantly in the news, headlines, television, whatever, and you did a graphic and pessimistic portrait of it all--who is arguing with that.
But to your last couple of lines? How do you give your children hope when you have lost yours a couple of hundred murders ago?
Hope doesn't emerge from the headlines but from the best qualities within people. Perhaps I was expecting to see something along the lines of, "sure, the sensational news we read everyday does indeed impact us, make us weary and so forth, but, on the other hand, what about the multitude of joys that are available on a daily basis, not to all, of course, but certainly to a lot of us from the simplest thing to looking at a pretty girl, holding your child in your arms and smiling and laughing at something said? Perhaps a more beneficial ending--just my thoughts here, actually--might have been inspite of the turmoil and death and slaughter we see everyday, there is also the indefatigable spirit within people . . .
But to your last couple of lines? How do you give your children hope when you have lost yours a couple of hundred murders ago?
Hope doesn't emerge from the headlines but from the best qualities within people. Perhaps I was expecting to see something along the lines of, "sure, the sensational news we read everyday does indeed impact us, make us weary and so forth, but, on the other hand, what about the multitude of joys that are available on a daily basis, not to all, of course, but certainly to a lot of us from the simplest thing to looking at a pretty girl, holding your child in your arms and smiling and laughing at something said? Perhaps a more beneficial ending--just my thoughts here, actually--might have been inspite of the turmoil and death and slaughter we see everyday, there is also the indefatigable spirit within people . . .
20th Feb 2012 3:21pm
