Questions for Hunger's Messenger (The 10th September Song)

On Tuesday September 11, 2001, at least 35,615 of our brother and sisters died from the worst possible death, starvation. Somewhere around 85% of these starvation deaths occur in children 5 years of age or younger. Why are we letting at least 30,273 of the most beautiful children die the worst possible death everyday? Every 2.43 seconds another one of our fellow brothers and sisters dies of starvation. Starvation doesn't just happen on Tuesday September 11, 2001, it happens everyday, 365 days per year, 24 hours per day, it never stops.

Alongside the sheen of uncertain sunlight, my stomach’s alarm floats a bitter pang like an omen. Low down, it rises.

Ahead of nightfall, grumbling loud, reminding me its there, “Remember the hungry”, it clangs, “You’ve enough to spare.”

Running in like a frightened child the messenger stumbles ever so briefly with news meant to feed me, afford me a message of affection. My face feels most ancient. My love feels new. I smile upon the runner with joy and open my arms to her.

Her breathing is even and bold, she stands before me, shimmering, like the questions I hold. “Why has hunger shown itself to me?” “Why must hunger take a child?” “Why does it wed with greed?” “Why won’t hunger die?”

Her breathing is even and bold. Looking as if she's about to leave, she turns to me and asks, “Why won’t you slay it?”

Stunned, I counter, “Bring hunger out to face me! I will smother it! I will devour its wrath!”

She smiles warmly, “Is that all?”

I feel daring and my feet are steady yet my stomach aches for more, so I ask, “Isn’t that enough death for now?”

Starvation.net

........•SHRIEKING MACHINE•........ •HEAD-LINES• •RIP• ---(“Russian missiles blast Ukrainian military academy and hospital, killing more than 50, officials say”)--- There are no more lessons to learn here, no more beds to hold the human wounded, just missile’s shrieking their grotesque ode, The Death of Humankind! RIP, children of God… ---(“Hundreds attend Mercer Island vigil, march for murdered Israeli hostages”)--- Dear mourners, this is the brutal vacuum of a genocidal, terror-filled, indiscriminate war-machine made of fear and we are all hostages to its deafening roar! RIP, children of God… ---(“10-year-old allegedly confesses to fatally shooting 82-year-old man and his daughter”)--- I must confess, this is part of war’s shrieking, children lost with a we...

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sdrawkcaB nruT (Turn Backwards)

I have been witness to the four pillars and see no reason to carry death there. Doesn’t the world know that life moves for more than just the sons of Abraham? O! I see the stunned throats floating by in the dusk to their stiff-limbed sleep as metal rains down over the Jordan’s western prophet, children dying there. I am here, waiting, breathing in the dusk under the shadow of the patriarch, asking, can we again build the shrine inside the soul and leave our flesh to time? © 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

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Per Plex Ed

PER+PLEX-ED When you haven’t heard the truth in so long, when you do, it rings a most familiar s ong. That’s the human song, the truth rolling out exactly when it should. (If a truth is told and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound only to the one that spoke it?) Yes, but our ears aren’t strong enough to hear it. [a perplexed silence] © 2017 Mark Richard Prime

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CONFESSION ZERO

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