#20 (on hearing about the latest murder, this time at Sheraton Mall)

 

nowhere is safe
never was
paradise is lost
a figment of some fervent imagination
them vs us
blame and prayer pointless
we have inherited
this
life and living lost 
like video game massacres
like whips and words
belts and belittlings 
flailing souls
because spirit has no anchor
in oceans of morality
and so drift 
astray
shackled
by centuries’ old trauma 
birthing this island covered in blood
we have inherited
this
ancestors calling
from motherland, ocean bed and new world
unacknowledged unnamed unrecognized 
crying for offerings
sufferings falling 
on hard-ears
like mourning sirens
wails of freshly childlost mothers
drowned 
in broadly cast blindfolded sensitivity

so they take what is theirs
and burn the village down
an island covered in blood
then ashes
then dust

march 21, 2019