CRIES THAT GO UNHEARD

CRIES THAT GO UNHEARD

No one ever says a word,
Of plaintive cries that go unheard.
The murder of a homeless man,
The shooting of an unarmed teen,
Of violence that erupts unplanned,
The modern urban death machine.

No one dares to tell the tale,
Of the pirate ship with its ugly sail,
Venturing from the harbor of God knows where,
Marooned and cocooned, how thin the air,
Of the passengers and crew once so fair and cared for,
That vanish in the haze and through the trap door.
The lone and dusty trap door of time,
A minute until nothingness,
Out of sight and out of mind.

No one ever talks of morgues
Where corpses lie unclaimed.
Of missing persons lost to ones
Who silently mouth their names.
Once a year we lay a wreath
On the tomb of an unknown soldier.
Each year his parents grieve for him, 
Much grayer and much older.
Veterans Day and its pomp and circumstance,
Survivors' sage advice,
Hardly seem to compensate
For the unknown and his sacrifice.

Yet the wars wage on, the soldier dies,
His single mother wails and cries.
No one ever talks of grief disturbed and wild.
Alive in the eyes of a parent who alas survives a child.
No one dares disturb the quiet,
Of the morning after the sobering riot.
The bottle in the alley and its careless broken shards,
The white sheets that adorn the heads, crosses burnt on yards.

The gay man beaten and left for dead
Or ridiculed as a teen in school.
No one speaks in the midst of this,
The citizenry can be so cruel.
The injustices they are seen and heard,
They feed on life like some carrion bird.
But alas, we are a quiet bunch,
The southern belles, the ladies who lunch.
Eyes vacant and dead look straight ahead,
And mum is the only word.

No one mounts a podium,
No one takes a stage,
Except a few brave mavericks
Who dare to turn the page.
Into a new and righteous age,
Where the dead they have their day.
Where the slaughtered gay child and the unclaimed corpse
And the unknown soldier at last have their say.
The change we seek is sometimes weak,
But the day is dawning when at last we speak.

Where someone dares to say a word,
Of plaintive cries that go unheard.
The murder of a homeless man,
The shooting of an unarmed teen,
The violence that erupts unplanned,
The modern urban death machine.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED