To Lose a Son
It seems, in this harsh and callous world
There is no room
For the sweet, the soft, the gentle
Too many compromises to the inner self
Too many cruel realities pierce the heart.
How do you love
When survival bids you
Case your heart in an iron cask
Seal your skin in a titanium sheet
Fulfil the code and not yourself.
With pleasures locked in an inner chamber
Love hidden beneath a smile
Desires crammed in secret corners
All protected from the discordant demands
Of a rapid moving, confusing, pitiless world.
Where do the sweet, the soft, the gentle, find solace
Where can the heart float free
Where can the inner self blossom
Open for all the world to see
Accepted and un-threatened?
Fashion Conscious
Pretty pretty butterfly people
fluttering in the midst of
Armani, Gucci, Versace,
aimlessly ambling arrogance.
Each, a born again narcissus
who venerate
their own frivolous existence.
Hearts saturated in self-adulation
oblivious to a brother’s cry of anguish,
wrapped in a mind that failed to grasp
the concept of the other.
Pretty pretty butterfly people
fluttering in the midst of
Armani, Gucci, Versace,
how I long to see you live
for more than one brief moment
in reality’s rigorous narrative;
perhaps to see Serbia’s plight,
hear the Kurds cry,
feel enough of Iraq’s pain
to make you question why.