Poet’s Corner – Can’t You See?

(I’m worn.
I’m torn.
And like porn,
I’m left empty.
Because…
Because…
Can’t you see?)

Can’t you see the politics?
Can’t you see the scams?
Can’t you see the hunters
Sighting sacrificial lambs?
Can’t you hear the bullets
Clanking as they stack?
Can’t you feel the pressures
Splitting souls as if to frack:
Deeply for the nothing;
The desperate need to find
A whiff of what is human;
To refashion and to wind.
Wind us up; wind us down;
Wind the rope around our necks:
Beheading families for their crown,
Spurring life to genuflect.
Let the twine unravel;
As if it is to say:
Forget the sounding of the gavel,
It’s now a stowaway.

Can’t you see the water
Boiling up around our heads?
Can’t you see the birds fall
From the sky into our beds?
Can’t you see the children
Look into the lens?
Begging for a morsel,
From those who say they’re friends?
Can’t you see the ghettos
Sprouting up from souls and earth?
And can’t you see it when I say
That lives are betting on your worth?

Are you worth the wager?
Are you worth its bait?
Are you worth the yarns you spin
Creating nothing more than hate?
Are you worth the tales we share,
Where we worked it out?
And do you speak in tongues of value?
Or do you simply spout.

Spout the wisdom said by fools
Spout the poisoned tea
Spout the ugliest of ghouls
While praying on your knees.
Spout what’s disingenuous
Spout the winner in the game
Of what’s manipulation:
A politician’s shame.

Are you worth the water that you drink;
Or the rivers that you wade?
Are you worth a family dinner
Where your Elders once had prayed?

I ask you, one more time my friend.
Why is it you can’t see?
When God is pounding on your door,
With your prayers of Sanity.
Blessing you with sight;
Blessing you in grace;
Still, you stand and hide behind
The ones dressed in disgrace.
Can’t you see, walls tumblin’ down
From wrongs, we’re told are right?
Can’t you see? Can’t you see?
Those weary of the fight?

Can’t you see…
Judas top his Texan Steed
Betrays what we’ve been taught?
With the snapping of wet leather
On goods he wants to wrought??

Oh, Can’t you see? Of course you can.
You just follow on, like sheep.
Stop it. I said stop it now.
You’re making angels weep.

Top photo: Bigstock

About Robin Clark (62 Articles)
Robin, born in Talent Oregon, now resides in Bellevue, a community outside of Seattle Washington. She is a published poet, OP-ED writer and Children's story author. She is currently in partnership with a composer who has asked her to write the book for his next musical. She is also being courted by assorted Directors to write a stage play and her dream is to leave a legacy in words, where you come to realize anything is possible.