melissaahowells

      Poet's Home             All Poetry       Sign Up!  Login
© 2000-2022 Individual Authors of the Poetry. All rights reserved by authors.   523104 Poems Read.

Search for Poetry

   


Read Poetry
The Petty Player Who Rarely Sleeps

I'd Like A Taste (The Wolf Said)

The Crow Is A Black Bird

When I Start to Bloom

I'd Like To Be Your Shirt (when you wake up in the morning)



All Beings Considered

Words Between Edward And Jane

Nothing's Sadder Than A Rose

The Great Tsunami Of Our Growing Grief written 3/2.2021--retitled 3/14/2021

After Wide Sargasso Sea ( For Those of You Readers Who Have Empathy For the First Mrs. Rochester.)

WAITING ON THE WORLD (March/February 2021 poetry)

Wild and Unraveling

What Must Be

These Hands Exist July 4 2023 rei-edited 7/12/2023

I Am The Color Of Black

The Tide of Your Lies (2019-2023)

How I Wanted Your Pearls 6/24/2023 WRITTEN DIRECTLY TO THE PAGE

Love Wants What Love Wants re-edited 5/31/023

Winter's Been Too Long.... 4/18/2023 (LONGING)

The Dreaming Life ( A Series Of Dream Vignettes)

Like A Small Street Dog Lured In By The Promise Of Meat

This Is What Mermaids Dream Of

At Night, As I Dream of Vampires Who Have No Bad Intentions

And You Will Be Called Ashes As You Leave ( from a dream)

Certainly No Bread 3/16/2022

Someone Send Out A Search Party

THE FAN , AT NIGHT, GIVES GOOD ADVICE completely re-edited, an entirely different poem

What Is The Price For Your Touch? re-editied 5/31/2023

Where Is My Bed With The Pleasing Tree -Lined View(NOW REEDITED)

Oh What Fine Physics (Before Me ,Lies) re-edtited @4/17/2023

If Prejudice Were Dumb And Could Not Speak

THE COMPANY THAT WE KEEP WITH THE ONE WITHIN

More Poetry >>

 
Features

  Sign Guestbook

Read Guestbook

 
   

Human History is Pockmarked With Tragedy


human history is pockmarked
with tragedy
some so great
and some small--
none are small

how is it that I am
no longer safe
comforting myself
unable to wipe the dried
tears from the corners
of my tired eyes

why is there an expired vial
of medicine in the refrigerator
nearly four years after HE has gone

I search my heart for a picture of him
to give me comfort--
most times I find him there
yet it is often,
not enough

humans are odd creatures
simultaneously sentimental and cruel
fool-hardy and obeying but without rules
or perhaps those who only apply indiscriminately
at the dictator's indulgence
or with the prevailing favorable winds
brothers don't forgive brothers
when they are different
mothers and daughters wear petty resentments
like badges and outfits
siblings and parents and children
are forgotten
as the live alone outside
floundering and foraging to get by
some die in the cold forgotten
until they are found


Guernica
the Red Revolution
Tustis and Hutus
Poltpot and His Killing Fields
Pinochet dropping his enemies from airplanes
Death camps and Gulags are a cold fixture of life
in Russia and in China and in North Korea
Elephants murdered for ivory when there are stockpiles
One Coyote dies every minute
Wolves and Bears hunted with explosives
And America lets murderers come to us
and get all the medical help they need
others we let fly fly away


Old Men and Kings and Queens and Presidents
decreeing wars while young men and boys
become fields where poppies grow

now deliberate disease
and we scoff and exclaim
we've have not seen something like this and so....
others have
and it has left scars
and legions of skulls
and deep mournful silence in its wake

sometimes I feel
all of this is much too much to take
I would rather be an animal
there seems to be so much more
dignity in that

at least now they have a reprieve
from us
I would lay odds
they are much happier

human history is pockmarked
with tragedy
so much of it unnecessary
so much of it planned
so much of it watched
observed
and a known quantity
while we are manipulated
into believing the message

they are wrong
no one life is a statistic
no one life is meaningless
every time someone dies
especially every time an animal dies
the world is forever changed

see how the little of explosions
of light
that are souls
make silent fireworks
there are no brief candles
The Great Spirit
knows and cherishes all.


LEGAL COPYRIGHT FOR THIS POEM 11:03 am 4/16/2020
TIME AND DATE STAMPED AND ALSO FOR THIS WRITER
MELISSA A. HOWELLS
AND ALSO FOR THIS LEGALLY COPYRIGHTED SITE TITLE
MELOO STRAIGHT FROM HER TILT-A-WORLD

STRAIGHT FROM THE LIGHT OF MY HEART TO THE PAGE

I AM AWARE THERE ARE MISPELLINGS OF CERTAIN ETHNIC GROUPS HERE
IF YOU CAN ENLIGHTEN ME, GO AHEAD. WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO
ME IN THIS MOMENT IN TIME IS MY MESSAGE...EDITS CAN BE MADE LATER ON.





Vote for this poem