Sunday, March 18, 2007

Though I Walk...

Five years gone and I still see myself
Running down those streets
Of our middle class estate
One bare breast
Hanging out of my torn blouse

I feel the pain of every step
Beat like a bongo drum
As blood jets out of a nostril
And trickles down my torn lip
Teeth marks sting my punctured cheek

I hear the shrill cry of our
two-year old daughter
As you fling her
Against the wall in your anger
And the eerie stillness thereafter

Then once again your tears
Begin to fall as you whisper
‘I’m sorry’
‘I’m sorry’
‘Please forgive me’
Your chest heaves
And the tears continue to fall
Until the next time your anger
rages


PoP © 18 Mar 07

5 comments:

Anna said...

This poem is very powerful and communicates a very strong image. I liked it but it also made me concerned. Is it true?

Unknown said...

@ Ann
This can be true. Don't you hear of abuses that or atrocious that you wonder if people are human?

Lioness said...

@Ann, KIPUSA - It is true - it happened to me.

symo said...

You Heard Her Cries

You hear her anguished cry
You know that she hurts
Like hell
And that he is an ogre
Who will sweep the homestead with Devastation

And you raise your voice once
He sees the tigress in those eyes
For a brief moment he is seized With fear
Then he remembers
The Actor in him starts to show
Then the actor in him comes up
And he is all tears and pain
The pain he gifts others with
And 'I will never do it again...'
It slips from him easily
He is the master of apologetics
And you hear him
And you listen to him
And you hear him
You do it
Your voice is no longer the growl of a tigress
But a whisper of the defeated one
he has lived through
To another sunrise
To maim and kill

You know what this means for you
You have signed for pain
I am seized with longing
Oh Womankind
How art thou be smitten with such
Lack of good will to self
Oh womankind
Why will you not run,with you own
When its known to you
You have to run to save the least of you.
It consoles me to know
Its a wide wild world
Its ways have a shine of baffle in them

Lioness said...

Great, great rejoinder Symo - definitely worth a standing ovation. I did run...