Skip to main content

THE DISTANCE CALLS



Nothing from me has been forsaken, I have not stopped. I tried, Heaven won't let me...

~

The distance calls to me
I answer with gladness!

(What have you done to end world hunger?)

Nothing worth noting.

(What have you done to solve thirst?)

Nothing notable.

(What have you done that is notable?)

Let me ask you something, mr high n mighty, what have you done to solve our hunger?

(I have given you food.)

What have you done for those that do not see your food?

(Silence...)

What have you done for our thirst?

(I gave you water.)

Have you yourself quenched their thirst upon clean water?

(Silence...)

What of your name being evoked in war? Are you not beholden to set the record straight after all this time?

(Okay! You win! You're ruthless, Scribe! I heard about you some time ago now, you're all right in my book. )

Thanks.



© 2016 Mark Richard Prime

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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
32 comments
read the poem
........•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...
Post a Comment
read the poem

Waiting for It

Why do they stay there, between war and peace? Sky’s tapestry doles out guns, bombs and rocks while flesh and bone swim away from the ache yet live on as the food for the murder of peace. Why do we hide from the truth as if it were an ogre while death makes a home inside their living and war dispatches a raven to their door, smirking with the teeth of empire? Why do we wait, stooped for another wink? The sky’s drapery has tossed down ample clues, peace is breathing in harmony with war. (Road-maps are useless to blind leaders.) Why do they hold there, hunched in the gloom? Hatred’s bird cackling with bereavement needs end. Are we not rightly dishonored when we fill its trough with blood? © 2007 mrp/thepoetryman
12 comments
read the poem