Healthy children

They are glitter in the wind
Their voices - a shower of leaves blown over open fields
Caressing the sprawl of life with
Vulnerable dreams and shameless expectations
Butterflies mad with beauty, running toward sea and sun
Unafraid to be free - balloons drifting away
Kites escaped, forgetting holding hands
Dreamers of smiles, laughter
And heaven

Their small, quiet yawns
An innocent song of life lived
Nothing saved - happily exhausted
Babes asleep in moon cradles
Warmed by the woolen clouds of worn out intentions
And evening’s cooing whispers

The light always raising their view
Even in the darkness they hold onto the sky
The promise assumed in the fact of their being
Possibility simply a patience waiting to welcome them
Small hands soft with love
Bright eyes knowing everything beyond their sight

A face full of sun
Eyelids closed in the warmth of contentment
Swinging back and forth into the air
Pushed by the arms and legs God gave them

Naked in the daylight
Hands and feet soiled with curiosity and adventure
Palms and soles medaled with indentations from climbing trees
Mouth, chin and chest stained with busted berry juice
Teeth white with happiness
And eyes innocent enough to make you believe

Make you believe in Good

Forgiving the cold of the world
Sure of the coming of spring
Always hoping in love
Safe, sweet sighs leaving their mouths open
Against the bosom of the earth

Curious adventurers
Peeking around grown up corners
To discover what is more important than playing
A mystery they will learn in time
Making them forget their wonder for life

Tiny feet in the middle of the square
Crying like the lost
For the lost
In us all

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Memory

my spirit stood there
in the breath of life
eyes closed
inhaling the wind

shed its billowing cloak
let it fall and blow away behind it
and rushed, naked, out to the horizon
racing the swift air over the dunes
like music at the end of a movie

freedom laughed at death
who looked upon her with the eyes of a lover
pitying the love that has lost her mind -
the innocence of a forgetful child
oblivious to the fate which awaits her

and the sunset howls in the voices of old men
who sing by the crackling fire
even as angels hang stars in the sky
and the sand softens, cool with evening

losses are easily covered by the earth
but the dream is still remembered

the cord plucked
leaves behind a tone
a water drop whose ripples are a melody
and the melody haunts the desert forever

Heathen

They should be ashamed
under the entire sky, hiding nothing
not even their empty bowls

children in need of a savior
who would teach them to believe in what they haven't got
and want it enough to trade my version of hell
for theirs

theirs
are infant eyes
pleading quietly against the stunning beauty of their nakedness
I am ashamed, looking at them
for wanting to be like them

... free, under God.

Starving children searching for insects to eat, Sudan
From 'Take it Personally' Anita Roddick.

Marched

Nearly there, we fell to breathe
And the world ran away from us
Like a bunch of thieves leaving
Us in the middle of nowhere

Beneath the collapse of our hearts
Our determination buckled
We used the rubble to brick ourselves in
Eyes paranoid with a false sense
Of accomplishment

When they finally found us
We were spoiled with fear
Our disgusting ripeness
Unbearable

Every moment of silence
Remembers us

Sacrifice

We get caught up easily
Losing our integrity in subtle ways
Making excuses for our denial
Slowly dying of an open mind

Ignorance becomes our innocence
And knowing – the sin of our conscience
Our consciousness traded for an ideology
Of optimism in the face of jeopardy

And in the end, lovers martyr themselves
Suffering the bliss of others
Because they knew not
What they did

Translation

Perhaps I waited too long
Behind the window of life
But I did smile
Watching the raindrops crash
Gather and stream

I realized I had taste buds
Drinking my tea
Without any sugar

Listened to the calm chaos
In the music of voices around me
As a squirrel waited for its chance
To dart to the next tree

I noticed the flirting of the sun in early spring
And the tiny brown ant on the edge of the table
How much room I had left over after
Taking a deep breath

Perhaps I waited too long
But when the time came for me to get up
The most wonderful thing happened
A stranger noticed me and smiled
And said, “Good morning.”

Daddy

It is a little thing
that you would keep me close to you
in the lamplight of late night
in silence or quiet melody
and remember how much I loved you

that everything that matters most
when you begin to forget the little things
you will remember in God

and in the heartache of your missing me
know that I too
missed you
very much

Survivor

She will do anything
and others will die for not
being so convinced of their
desperate state

the mirrors break first
offering an entire world to conquer
in substitute

the further her reach
the weaker she becomes
having acknowledged everything is nothing
but herself

Righteous

Every day I am
reminded of how much I have it wrong
and how much I have it right
and am convinced that I should at least
listen as much as I speak

listening, I have found myself in others
speaking, others have found themselves in me
admitting this, we put down our arms and wept
discovering our divine relationship

Beggars

The needy are
the sum total of their choices
and decisions
exempting the able
from the guilt of walking past them

Nigger

The word is bloodshed
sentimental bloodshed
remembered as the last images from a shocked mind
dazed and smiling with an emptiness
that is too deep to hurt anymore

like a rock removed from a shoe
placed in a pocket
and fingered from time to time
endearingly
in the beauty of gratitude

Exhibit

Beauty was butchered by illiterates
piecing together unwashed consonants
and mechanical phonetics
that looked like wreckage called art
redefined by parasites
posing as people

The Sellout

I have stood
with my back straight
head proud
a dollar in my hand
ignored the scent of my reprieve
chosen to believe in the illusion
this temporary freedom
even while I was already forgotten

Evicted

I do not know myself anymore
and you are like a tree in a hurricane

even in the quiet
the dust I come from will not speak to me

I am made to feel ashamed
but I do not know what for

Through the eyes of a photojournalist

The distance of my life can barely be measured in years
but now, in these final inches
a camera steals me away
even now
even in these final moments
to prostitute me in the afterlife


Kevin Carter was a South African photojournalist. The picture of the vulture stalking a starving girl is real and was taken in Sudan in 1993. He was awarded Pulitzer prize in May of 1994 for the picture. He received a lot of criticism for not doing anything to help the girl. No one knows what happened to her. Two months later he connected a hose to the exhaust pipe of his pickup truck and committed suicide.

Sex Slave

I remember looking up at the stars
the white, brilliant lights of darkness
out of breath, looking at the end of God
and falling into the beginning of a forever
that would swallow my mind
and leave me lost in traffic

Soldier

Killing became easy when I gave my life away
to the promise of a paradise once and for all
and death - a quiet step brother
kept his word never to leave my side
kissed me goodnight
after I was already asleep