CONFESSION ZERO

Famine.
Famine.
Famine.
Famine.
Famine.
Famine.
Famine.

We forget that we don't know hunger. Occasionally we stop thinking about the sun tucked behind the clouds, death, only a whispering wind cupped in our unbending hands.

Starving children aren’t front page news, their mother before them went unwritten.

We sense the famine folding near us, motionless, an army standing at the ready. It hurts to imagine, so we don’t as we sit for another meal, minds numb to the stars, eyes closed to famine.

O! What a world we’ve made!

© 2010 by mark prime

Toon Pool

Do not cry, dear children of today. The hunger vein rests near your lips, moving down to the hands as you sleep. When you wake you'll feel its teeth gnashing at your sides, hands of suffering pushing inward to knead the emptiness…

Hunger has ascended above the choir, punctured the stomach, emptied the fields and flooded nakedness with the scratching of death. (War and murder can’t compete.)

What are we to do with you, now that you’ve grown up and you’re still hungry, still moaning, weeping, breathing?

Your arms are lovely, flailing in the water. Your wet skin looks stunning. How long can you hold your breath?


© 2010 by mark prime
The Hunger Site Bread For The World Action Against Hunger

Dry mouths tear up the ground. Little remains to scream. The toxic beast has devoured the dove, the hungry winds are sopping them up with tongues as rough as death. They've shred the money into plastic leaving charity without clothes. Sounds like the end of them, faces without names or use, concrete beasts as far as the eye can see.

Used to be easier to tell when hunger reared its head, with each growl the sight that was old looked familiar,
shrunken, tattered and mad, even angels have turned away from our mess.

The hordes look sad, torn feathers line the streets, picture frames of a human family, dove’s blood smearing the glass.

Used to shock us, numb our eyes to the suffering, caused us to shudder, wince, scream and ache. Used to shock our bodies, these careworn faces now mirroring ours and twisting their bent limbs down like a song made of wire.

© 2010 by mark prime

The Hunger Site

This month (September), like last year on Confession Zero, will be dedicated to HungerAction.


There's more than one path to starvation, perhaps none seem as cruel as the empty belly, but they are cruel nonetheless.

Willful ignorance breeds contempt, yet it’s seeds cannot feed the hungry. Lies, when repeated, are believed to be truth, yet not a single bloom opens as a result.

The path remains open to us.

We boil our wits in the fatty waters. The ancient hearts decay and the rising truth draws near with the laughter of invention.

Where is our creation in this, our swamp? When might we begin? At whose behest if not our own? Why have we not thought of the human invention?

The warring of knowledge- Fear of our tenure of creation- Come! Let us begin! Let us feast on truth alone, the rest will follow.


© 2010 by mark prime

Hunger Action Month

This is the first poem in the month-long series of daily poems,September Songs, posted for the month of September 2010.