grown tired of going hungry
on Gospel Sundays
while the word was freely given
as the grass the cattle grazed
in their barbwire-penned pastures
grown weary of doing nothing
on welcome Sabbaths
and the rest of the week
while nothing seemed to work
too proud to harvest bottles
score gullible alms
solicit offerings from garbage cans or rummage
through hopeful landfills
hats ties and churches
choke and confine the spirit he said
they are straightjackets that control the manic
until subdued and sacrificed
to barbiturates of doctrines
public confessionals of ignorance
and professional walls
proudly diplay diplomas and degrees
from colleges of illusions
with promises of salvation
the shaman’s incantations and charms
like his childhood dentist
may have been unnerving even disarming
but certainly not charismatic or charming
relief he wonders while he wanders the world
is it worth the trauma of exorcism
a child’s suffering is a mortal sin
to suffer in silence
to be heard and ignored
to be trapped strapped and shouted at
stop crying
or I will give you
something to cry about
Copyright ©2002 by G. Newton V. Chance
- G. NEWTON V. CHANCE
- George Newton Vivian Chance (Trinidad and Tobago) -- member of the Poet Society of Trinidad and Tobago, http://poetssocietytt.blogspot.com/ and the World Poets Society, http://world-poets.blogspot.com/ -- born in Tobago on 3rd March 1957. While residing at Rio Claro was inspired to write over a hundred poems at the turn of the Millennium. Hobbies include playing wind instruments, building computers, observing nature, reading and writing poetry. Believes that the power of a song is in its ability to evoke emotions by the marriage of lyric and music but that music without lyric can be just as powerful, that lyric without music can also be just as powerful, that there is music in the lyric and that lyric can be simple yet profound. Also, in this the age of computers, would like to model his lines after simple and efficient code and, analogous to Object Oriented Programming, achieve most of his imagery from nouns and verbs, avoiding the bloat and excess of unnecessary adjectives. This is what he aspires to attain in his poetry.
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