This poem is a response to the photo prompt above from Friday Fictioneers.
It is also influenced by recent events: the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police, and the resultant furor in the streets.
This poem made me think of a white suburbanite, busy with her own life and only barely aware of what is going on, closer into town. I imagined that in her lily-white world, there might be no reason to get upset about it. And I wondered, what that indifference might say, about her.
The city streets erupt.
I hire a painter, watch his toes,
As further up the rungs he goes.
He’s done before I sup.
The city’s turmoil seethes.
I wander round my garden bed,
A thousand notions in my head,
And contemplate the leaves.
The city’s blood is spilt.
My knees are cozy-cushioned. Small
White indentations in black soil
Don’t bother me, a bit.
Much like the Christ-child’s foot
Upon the snake, upon its neck
(Enough to kill it, I suspect)
All in the name of Good,
This weed, I’ll wrench up by the root.
A cull will do it good.
Copyright 2020 Andrea LeDew
For another poem on the subject of the recent Black Lives Matter Protests, see Dominate.
Your poem is chilling.
Thanks Liz. It is frightening to see what lies beneath the surface in all of us.
Yes, it is. We seem to be reminded of that fact on an ongoing basis.
Excellent poem. Quite a trick getting a poem iinto an exact word count, too.
Ronda
Thank you, Ronda. Double bonus points, this week! Had to do some re-wording to keep it within the limit.
Great, powerful words.
Thanks draliman!
Dear Andrea,
A powerful statement of the times. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Thanks Rochelle!
Escape is the last resort of the helpless, I guess. When we are not aware of our power, we feel powerless. But I think this lady is slowly waking up. Nice work, the rhyming lines and the face-off between the serious and the placid.
Thank you justjoyfulnesss! I think that many of us, who belong to the most privileged groups in society, are slowly waking up from our self-serving dream, in which we told ourselves, that our place in life was somehow achieved at no cost to others.
She may be clueless, but the story makes the connection stronglu
Thanks Neil. Sometimes our actions speak for us. 😊
Really excellent. We all have to examine our response to recent events. I hope she will open up her view of the world and find a way to make a contribution. We are all learning we can do that without necessarily having to take to the streets.
Thank you Iain. You’re right, closing yourself off, even in an idyllic world, is no way to live. It is often our failure to self-reflect that gets us into trouble, especially when we delve into experiences widely removed from our own. And Sometimes self examination reveals things we don’t want to see.
Excellent and powerful (sorry to echo Susan but she chose well).
I think it can be one of two things: She really is clueless OR she is in the know but unwilling to take any stand and live away from it all – not that this is good nor bad.
Thank you Dale, Im happy to hear such words again and again!😊. It’s fairly easy today, to live remotely, vicariously, entirely through the lens of our many self-selected media outlets, and never forge any real connection with the actual events of the day. I fear, in this woman’s case, turning a blind eye to police misdeeds may be, at the very least, a deliberate act, if not an outright stamp of approval.
It definitely comes across as such.
Excellent, powerful poem, Andrea.
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
Thank you, Susan!