the edges of dreams are frayed from all those yesterdays such ragged edges have no chance of restoration nothing can be mended so they’ll just remain as free floating fragments in random moments of life’s memory
normally he would have ignored the bodies on the road from horseback one often sees such dried out forms along the border but these were smaller than usual emaciated hands and limbs of children grasping larger hands that were buried in the sand hands touching each other with such a sense of belief a belief wanting to deny that death could happen in this promised land of freedom
a game of cat and mouse observed by buzzards where two of the same species are convinced via history that one is the lesser but both have been told that the other is the lesser so in order to preserve the natural order of the universe one must be demeaned and destroyed at every opportunity and to the victor nothing but more of the same but the carcasses belong to the buzzards who instigated the whole damn thing
in
the
beginning
when death comes in large numbers all at once it’s like a sudden down pouring of rain that floods our consciousness shaking us to our very core but child death from hunger is more like a steady dripping in the background that we soon learn to ignore that sound we hear every ten seconds a child’s death a child’s death
for a brief moment in time we believed the dream could come true that our words could save lives and change the course of history but after all these years we are still counting bodies from war and seeing women denied the rights to their own bodies love one another is still really just the lyrics of a song sang by a few folks sipping martinis at the club house a sentimental relic of college days days when some of us watched our friends being dragged off by the police some never the same person once returned from captivity some souls are perishable war rape and police batons can do that they say just as bullets can end life and when the white sheets are replaced by dark uniforms of blue or black the murders are made justifiable lynchings without ropes nothing has changed but once we had dreams
the small space
between
his nightmares
and
his reality
has grown smaller
he no longer
stares out
his window
searching for
empty promises
to be fulfilled
nor
does he pray
anymore
he has grown
to realize
that whatever god
there may be
his lot in life
is not
a priority
for that god
or
any god
so why would he
expect
that his fellow man
would give a damn
to them
he’s
a homeless bum
not worthy
of
their consideration
for anything
just scrap paper
to be
swept away
before
morning rush-hour
but once
his hands
cleared the land
that fed them
then
they called him
an essential worker
till the land dried up
and
nothing could grow
the bank took his land
outstanding loans
the land still stands naked
hometown
a ghost town
and
he
a ghost
of
society
i lie here among severed spines from lynchings and shattered skulls from clubs and shotgun blasts so i’ve grown tired of all the rhetoric all the promises written on the wind words i’ve heard over and over and over again words that are no more than sterile seeds so i’ve learned there will be no harvest of freedom for only the chaff of hope has been planted into the cracking clay of tomorrow the husk of dreams left there along side these blood stained bones of mine
a child appears to be school-age the lifeless form was found lying in a hospital bed breathing tubes in place no evidence of foul play but the parents reported the child was forced to go to school without a mask governor’s mandate and although the governor’s fingerprints were not found at the scene of the crime on the child’s body given the passage of time to death he remains the prime suspect
what is the line between cruelty and kindness how is it that the same people who are offered blessings by some are easily murdered by others who have no compassion in their eyes just loathing sadly humans see what they believe
