CONFESSION ZERO

I tried to hide myself in there wasn’t room under stars, I mounted the sky, but fell below instead, no sanctuary within. Believe in man, though he’s dying. I see an orange streak of failing light, a star flung across the heavens, the growling tummy held hostage, emptiness writing a ransom note. Believe in man! Raise him up! Peace walks the land without legs, war strides without joy, one moves minus hope, the other, flesh to let slip our struggle. I smile upon another and pray to remember. Do the thinning ranks fall short of the seed, the kindness imbued in all things? Might I recall the love I’ve missed or the goodness lodged inside me like a map? I dance on the ground, pray upon the air. Allow me to honor you, to put bread to your lips, my mind to climb the truth of a shared seed, those that are hungry, those fed. Believe! They are waiting for me to choose. © 2010 by mark prime

World Hunger Is Not for Sale Here in this country, this world, that gathers in the streets and chants with dream-filled tongue, rivers of our hunger-honed devotion speak of lifting our love where children are dying of greed as they search for our hands, there under the bridges, here on the streets, bowing in decline, our decay, greed and agony hemorrhaging deep in our nature © 2010 by mark prime Treehugger

In the United States, 1 out of 6 children faces hunger, children of all ages and all races.  Hunger in America is a difficult issue because it's often invisible. They’re seen more clearly at night, rising in the glow of neon to dig in filthy cans for a meal so they can see the sunrise another day. They’re behind the doors I dare not pierce, doors that open out, a sour noise behind them, the stench of dismissal. Like the moon, they fill the landscape- naked, hungry, moaning, with hands raised in class, with eyes burning new trails, all just beneath my radar, my senses numb from the deluge of self. They are there. They are reaching out to me. They are calling to me in the fog, saying goodbye to all of this, wishing it would stay a while longer. Years after the last has disappeared, the moon and the sun will remain as a sort of testimony, but what of humankind? What will be here as evidence of goodness? Will there be signs that I tried to stem the tide of loss, wil...

On the sidewalks, where breathing marches, humans gather together and sleep on concrete mattresses, frantic life whistles by, gadgets jangling like side arms. Men, dressed in their Sunday best, women swaying, clicking about like gunfire down an alleyway, children making night sounds with their sneakers... A man stands on the corner holding a cardboard sign- “Repent! The end is near!” scribbled in marker the size of madness. He proselytizes at the top of his lungs, he points his index finger to the sky, the same finger he used to pull the trigger in Nam- oiled the barrel of his rifle with more affection than he ever showed another human being, blasted the gooks to smithereens, split their chests open like firewood, stacked them four feet by eight feet; a rick of red and yellow lumber. This finger, that now points to the sky and rumbles of God, found its mark long ago stained in blood. Following orders, seeking salvation in the air, above the busy sidewalk, the din of malnourishe...

(Credit: Liam Hysjulien of As It Ought To Be ) Greg Plotkin : ...The unfortunate reality is that we produce many, many times the amount of food to adequately feed the entire country, but have been unable to direct this excess to hungry stomachs. Expanding federal food assistance programs and developing regional food systems would go a long way towards correcting this mismatch... ( read the complete article ) When we’re finished, withered neatly away, eyes, sunken as the cheeks of ready cadavers prone on the coroner’s table, mouths drawn tight and dried up like a sailor’s knot, as if our lips had nothing more to say, hands firmly at our sides like doors closed tightly in the rush to feel safe, the wish to remain innocent, as if a war torn wall had shifted and the support beams moved forcefully together. Living we seem to stand the same way, yet with mouths open, hands clinched in fists, unwilling to give, to love, to offer our ope...

Knowing it won’t find us seems a nervous half-truth as we can’t begin to imagine or even grasp the weight of it, a pang so low it easily slips inside our bellies unnoticed, a nest of baby bird’s mouths yawning their silent cries, peeking inside our certainty of ‘never’ and ‘impossible’ . Sidling up next to our confidence, emptiness bridges the gaping doubt, bit by tiny bit, until the pang seizes our awareness with the pounding of famine. Never. ...Impossible. Never. ...Impossible. Never… © 2010 by mark prime Click to Give @ The Hunger Site

(The Emergency Food-shelf Network) (Shouldn't everyone who has the resources strive toward this goal?) Walk to End Hunger WHAT: Walk to End Hunger is a Twin Cities Hunger Initiative developed to raise awareness and funds to end hunger in the nine-county metro area of Minnesota. The event will include a Phone-A-Thon during the Walk to raise awareness and funding for the initiative, a Food Drive to collect non-perishable food items to be distributed to local Minnesota food shelves, and a family-friendly Walk on Thanksgiving morning that offers the community an opportunity to participate together and contribute to this important and worthy cause. WHY: One in ten of our neighbors don’t know where their next meal is coming from and are not readily identified. Organizations that work with people on an emergency food basis see the escalating trends and the critical issues around hunger, a condition that is intolerable, but solvable, and one that must be addressed. ~ We...