I cannot take the weight,
the world cannot bear it, victimize the mother
and the children
suffer.

A tide of red, a tide of divided
familys, an endless ebbing of
lifeless bodies, numbed
hangers-on,
gushing casualties rush at me,
arms thrust out, wrist dripping,
mouths moving, saying everyday things,
their own wounds
just tinder...

A world aflame, mass blackness,
the streets of nations run like
perpendicular rivers of hopelessness,
maps are books of boundries, despair
intersecting all
latitudes,
and even the oceans heave up death
and swallow it again.

I cannot take the weight,
the images of gnashing teeth, the
earthquakes of falling skylines
and broken bones,
the hunger of ten thousand million
is upon me,
the cancer of the wretched consumes me,
the glassy unclear eyes,
the insatiable mouth,
the tearing fingers
of the desperate world
are my own.

And I cannot bear it.

11/03/2004

Posted on 11/03/2004
Copyright © 2025 Vikki Owens