Shadow Self  

silent shadow nudges
weary wisdom onward
pushing, pulling, dragging
heel, toe
heel toe.

speaking and surprising
knee to knee
pain's shadow core
looking for more
weeping release:
I am.

News Story: +Sangeeta Persaud, an African child, had stomach pain (most likely appendicitis). She was taken to her church where a priest used voodoo to cure her. He waited too long to take her to the hospital. Sangeeta died.

Sangeeta's Church

Sangeeta Persaud -- like mother before her
began to convulse.
Three hundred notches on the clock
weak and fluttering pulse

. .in
. . canta
. . . . tions

pat-a-pat, pat

tick-tock,
. . . tick-tock,
. . . . . . .ticking away
and that's how the church lost Sangeeta
at the end of the day.

+Sangeeta Persaud

News Story: A 15 year old girl sold her baby sister, age 7, for sex to men in a Bronx(?) tenement.

I wonder

was it the need for beads or just the day
to pawn baby sister away for food or tennis shoes, or?

I wonder why
why big sister plied consent with her own
freshly earned vajaja lucre--
a loving enticement to buy baby's surrender
Food, tennis shoes, a phone?

I wonder
where is this village,
this tribe,
where big sisters are the guides
thru days of black and onerous rites?

News Story: The Pope is implicated in alter-boy abuse.
Seriously?

What has this pope done for this old world:
Was even one tortured mind stopped
before his suicide
bomb dropped?

Seriously,
Huttaree plans made to kill our cops?
Haiti babies starved or raped?

Mexican drug lords and cartels
dismember behead in frenzied spells

Middle East peace?
Homeless waifs filling up the streets
African genocide?

Can you seriously say
this pope even tried?