Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
Tag Archives: Abuse
Homes
Trust
ANOTHER DEAD DEBBIE POEM
ANOTHER DEAD DEBBIE POEM
I’m remembering
that scar you had
full across your throat
The kind of scar one gets
from bad thyroid surgery
or a husband with a knife
Most intimate of orifices
no-one was allowed to touch
You let me touch
Thinking it was something about me
I failed to fathom the depth of the gift
A RIFF ON INVICTUS
A RIFF ON INVICTUS
A great poem
and a wonderful title
they may use it
in a Mandela movie someday
My reverence however
does not prevent further musings
like what it would be like as haiku
Black as night god
bludgeonings of chance
bloody but unbowed
Or note in the human condition
the deepest silent plea
to those we love
That no matter
the many thousand ways
we have failed to pay the rent
they will continue
to invict and not evict us
Buds
BUDS
At the age of three or four
her bike hit a sharp ditch
pitched her into a fence
and broke her jaw
The tooth buds were damaged
and never grew in right
At about the same age
something else happened
She can’t remember just what
the family wouldn’t listen then
and the family won’t talk now
But the trust buds were damaged
and never grew in right
THE UNCAGED BIRD
THE UNCAGED BIRD
(For Maya Angelou)
Sometimes we read
because we cannot not, because we need
to find that one story, one friend
one note of truth
Sometimes a young girl, repeatedly abused
hides
“I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings”
under her mattress
And keeps on living because
she takes it out after he has gone
and talks to Maya, who understands