How have we been downgraded?
Posted by: adonis49 on: April 29, 2020
- In: humor | Poems Mine | Poetry | social articles
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How have we been downgraded?
Note: “Re-edit of “Downgraded Gypsy by late poet Mohammad al Maghout. Apr. 17, 2010)
I am a hero… Where’s my people?
I am a traitor… Where’s my scaffold?
I am a pair of shoes… Where’s my road?
I walk Downtown mixing with busy souls
I am in no hurry; the masses don’t carry me:
I am a leader and I am searching for my way.
I rest a while on the pavement; is it illegal?
I rest my eating tin plate by my side;
A learned to recognize the chimes of dimes and nickels falling in the plate
I don’t complain.
I say thanks when I feel reprieve, tired of my condition.
I am a downgraded gypsy who burned his caravan
Quitted my clan, lured by greed in the city.
I extend my arms feeling for a sheltered wall
What’s a clear stream to a blind deer?
What’s horizon to a caged bird?
My ears learned to screen off piercing sounds
I can’t hear the wailing of bereaved mothers
I can’t hear the howling of frenzied mobs
I hear the moaning of latent pains permeating the smog
I hear the soft whistling of permanent suffering
Converging from all directions
From far away scorched lands.
Slaves who chewed off their chains:
They are nostalgic for chains smelling molding bread.
Up North terrors; down South famine;
Dusty winds are clouding the east; and crows are obscuring the western horizon.
A little girl is sitting by this modern gypsy;
She dips her left small hand in a little bag and takes out a handful of dirt;
She grabs the dirt containing a strange specimen of earth wealth;
Dirt holding half a wing of a butterfly, a decapitated bee,
Shreds of shrapnel of cluster bombs,
A whiff of blood, a stench of urine;
Concentrated dirt of fear, human degradation,
Contaminated greed of a dying earth.
No more revolutions, no drastic changes,
No activities demanding Eternal God to extend a few human rights;
Mankind is on his knees, in abject humiliation
Begging pardon of his executioner
For the swiftest relief.
Note: I borrowed a few images from the late Syrian poet Mohammad al Maghout.
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