days blur and lose their names
nights coagulate into darkness
leaders lack vision and direction
heroes can’t provide any cover
the plastic oceans all lifeless
flooding coastlines with debris
famine, cholera, dengue, ebola
stubborn bothersome third world
luckily all my stocks are now up
our arctic oil wells are gushing
finally, nothing to worry about
All those
American citizens
With no food
No water,
On an island
Surrounded by
Big water
Ocean water,
Are getting
rowdy and unruly.
Let the wild winds howl,
Let the flooding rains run.
And we all said, “Save the children!”
He was born to a mother
Who didn’t want him
And to a faceless father
And we all said, “Save the children!”
She was moved
From home to home
Her mother wanted a chance
But couldn’t care for her
And we all said, “Save the children!”
He has no one
To depend upon
Or defend him
No one to be his friend
To save him
He barely remembers
Each new address
Or each in a series
Of new schools
And we all said, “Save the children!”
She was beaten and bruised
Her self-esteem zero
That she awakened
Each morning
Was a miracle
And a torture
And we all said, “Save the children
He acted out
In every home
And in each school
As if to say
How far can I push you
Before you
Abandon me too
And we all said, “Save the children!”
Once there was a boy
About to be adopted
But he was hospitalized
For no apparent reason
And the adoptive parents
Got scared and left
And we all said, “Save the children!”
Once upon a time
There were many
Throwaway children
And we all asked
Are we saving our children
—–
From 1981 to 2006, I worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District as a psychologist and administrator of District Psychological Services. As an LMFT, I trained medical personnel in disaster preparedness via a FEMA grant awarded to Harbor UCLA Hospital and provided pro-bono bereavement counseling to those whose family members were dying of various forms of cancer and other disorders. Additionally, I earned a certificate in gerontology. Currently, I facilitate obtaining mental health services for the aged and others who need mental health or educational support services. I provide consulting services with regard to mental health needs/referrals and the education of regular education students and those with special needs. I have a great deal of experience as a presenter specific to at risk youth, including, but not limited to, suicide prevention, intervention and postvention (i.e., what services to provide after a completed suicide). In addition to having obtained a license as a Marriage and Family Therapist, I have Master’s degrees in Reading/Special Education and School Psychology and obtained a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. I have written poetry most of my life.
This morning everything
Tasted like dust
And the lustful blast
Of life and love
Was just a blushing
Empty husk of
Ashes
Plastic melts
Copper unwinds
Lights clears through smoke
Filling chambered hollows
With fiery ghosts
Fitted with the latest gear
To roast the souls
Of the gangster kings and queens
More at http://www.dantindall.com.
Nobody stands up for the left behind
No one cares if they live or die
A surplus human rubbish pile
Whose suffering is quite sublime.
Who will stand up for the left behind
The lonely, sick and much maligned?
Society is willfully blind
To the stranger lost outside.
It isn’t an unpleasant feeling for those of us
who are overweight and pamper ourselves,
tuck into two or three full meals each day,
fridges full and pantries aplenty, we get by,
know the feeling from our days on a diet
when a little groan of hunger marks progress
or we know it when it comes on us just before
dinner or a snack, delayed longer than expected.
So, it’s no wonder when we don’t “get” the news
when they show us the hungry all around us,
families wandering into resettlement camps,
stick figures stumbling along, or the child with
a distended stomach lying in his mother’s lap
and the lost looks in their eyes as the watch
the camera watching them starve; their hunger
holds them, while most of us shift uncomfortably
in our chairs and wonder what’s for supper.
You can tell when the first frost is on its way…
the Down-And-Outs don’t talk in the soup-run queue.
Instead, they stand there in silent huddles,
like mourners at a bewildered funeral,
at the back of the opened-doored, volunteer van.
Steams of breath floating up into the evening, Winter air,
mostly statue-like, apart from the shivering.
It’s a shame to have to park down on this quayside,
the wind rips straight up this river from yonder estuary
something mercilessly and almost with a vengeance.
But, the Council have banned the Homeless
from the City Centre, whether sober or not, doesn’t matter.
The sight of them was upsetting the Christmas shoppers…
as they vulture in and out of the decorated stores,
tasting free wine samples and spending thousands.
Stocking up on more than enough ‘Merry’
to see them safely through their warm, magical, full of love
and gift-sharing Holiday Season… God bless us one and all!
More at https://paultristram.blogspot.co.uk/.
Of course, they’re always with us
inevitable parts of that puzzle
we’re in, the games we’re playing
but, if we look around for a day
select where we walk, the shows
we watch, the people we listen to
it will almost seem like they’re no
longer with us, like lucky Houdinis
we’ve disappeared them; it’s all
just selecting and organizing things
thinking good thoughts about our-
selves, our exceptional selves, folks
who so easily solve problems they
spent a few centuries griping about
trying this and that, till they ended
up inevitable, without a solution
till now, of course, wave our wand
and they are gone as easily as that
– it’s so good to be that great again.
The indigenes of Papua New Guinea share
a bond with the capitalists of Wall Street,
for they are both cannibals. In the highlands
surrounding Port Moresby and far into the
hinterland, taking heads and eating human
flesh was considered sacred, part of the
native cosmology. Abolished too late for
Michael Rockefeller, it is no longer practiced.
But no such ban has been imposed on Wall
Street, where the cannibalism derives not from
religion, but greed. Greed IS the religion. One
fourth of US children are poor, many mal-
nourished. Greed cannibalizes resources that
should be passed to them and future generations
intact. Greed installs nuclear Armageddon into
tubes of steel far beyond any rational definition
of defense. Each dollar spent on folly is a theft
from the poor. The word for it is cannibalism.
Tossed ashore like driftwood on a beach
Unable to steer a course, your humanity they beseech
Stripped bare, they crawl forth naked, newly born
Will you draw them to your breast, or will leave them forlorn?
The old familiar fears creep in as you clutch your pockets
And turn away from imploring faces and sunken sockets
This is a time for casting judgments aside
For moving forward with arms open wide
But instead the gates are locked and the entrance barred
While the castaways desperation grows, their psyches scarred
No short memory deprivation, your conscience laid clear,
Never will it be forgotten, the events that transpired here