This is Where I Live

In Baton Rouge there is blood in the streets.

In a small Midwest town, children are ravaged,
beaten, battered, belittled,
and worse, forgotten by the very people
they trusted the most.
.
In New England, a woman’s heart is systematically
shredded, each word a weapon,
harsh. lethal.

In the great Northwest, a man,
middle aged and hopeless cries
a single hopeless tear
before he pulls the trigger and ends his life.

In your town, and mine,
someone’s grandmother withers away
alone. A lethal loneliness.

In the city people, police, all
are targets. In the same city,
politicians look over charts,
demographics, numbers
and decide the fate of those who believed.

This is where we live,
where people are no longer people,
but groups, objects of desire
or hate
or things to be used
and discarded.

In the coffee shop,
two strangers talk,
heads together,
intimate. Real.
There are tears.
There is laughter.
Small as it is, it is the beginning and
there is hope.

About this poem

I am sad this morning. I am tired. Too much violence. Too much hate. It’s caught up with me. I am feeling vulnerable. I am feeling angry. I am feeling helpless. It is hard to pray, yet pray I do. I want to hate. I need to love. Like everyone else, I struggle.

The picture was taken in NYC. That’s water on the sidewalk, not blood. But there is plenty of real blood being shed. Too much.

Tom