REFUGEES

The journalists have done their work
Photographers have captured all
Decency has gone berserk
And brought compassion to a crawl

Now newsprint greased in gasoline
Ignites our souls in immolation
And I burn I burn for amnesia
And offer a crumb to salvation

Children march to a famine death
Bodies explode for god’s greed
I cannot think I cannot breathe
I sit and watch and inside bleed

Life is cheap now like other ages
I can forgive the wicked generations
But not my own whose promised sages
Are numb to grief and all damnation

The journalists have done their job
The cameramen have captured all
Amnesia now infects the mob
And my lamenting O so small

2/2017

About This Poem

Last Few Words: A context for the poem: "For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand" Yeats

Review Request Direction: What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How was the beginning/ending of the poem?
Is the internal logic consistent?

Review Request Intensity: I appreciate moderate constructive criticism

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Country/Region: Washington DC

Favorite Poets: D.Thomas

Comments

Eumolpus

A poets job is to open eyes and
indeed it seems the world is indifferent
to the suffering of others, a painful
truth.
An important, pertinent and striking
poem Sir ...

thank you for sharing

Richard

p.s. - If there was anything to be
improved upon, I missed it with
the strength of the content and
that is "always" a good thing.

always warriors

few kings fight battles
maybe street kings
yet the peasants get caught up
flag and country
or for money...education
trades taught
like the military does
at the ultimate cost sometimes

still ongoing....i got raised with protests
riots vietnam..then cold war nuke scare
nuke accident fall of wall in Berlin
and then watched Iraq cnn coverage all day
then aghanistan in seventies russians
then again americans...\
war never ends...its hungry ..needs to be
fed....the blood of innocents..

good poem...very truthful!
sad too...

thank U

You speak for me, Eumolpus

Thank you for gracing us with your passion and craft.

My cowardice is I seek too much amnesia.
Then we are of a similar age. I've protested the Vietnam War and others since, Apartheid, Corporations and more.

I'm tired. Tend to a few poems and Facebook aphorism these days.