My answer to Would you share a poem with me?
Answer by Desmond Last:
What would the world be like if we were alive only for one day?
You gave him his pain.
You let him endure
24 screaming hours his long day’s death.
You watched him die.
As you watch so many die.
His 24 hours of Hell your gift to him.
He never knew
what it was like to see the eruption of colour
welcoming the new dawn,
to wonder
at the welcoming sounds of nature
to feel the warmth of humanity.
He was born for that one day blind.
The megre sustenance
of a United Nations corrupted
through the self-interest
of those who sought to profit from his pain,
not sufficient to stave of the inevitability
of the price of Western apathy.
He never knew the end
of the eternity of the agony,
only its enduring relentless path
to his painful screaming death.
Born with pain,
to live with pain
and to die with pain.
His life condensed
into one short struggle to live.
To never enjoy the gift of life.
He the profit of broken promises
and false hopes.
The AIDS in his blood
already its death flood
of anti-immunity rushing him
towards his inevitable end.
His tiny fingers a vice-like grip
on his silent numb mother.
His whole life
his whole world
One day.
But in that one day
he endured all that Mankind had to offer him.
He suffered the greed
the apathy,
the selfishness,
the corruption,
the hypocrisy.
The mother
no longer alive in her spirit
Her soul a torment.
Her life now nothing,
but as the dust swirling
choking her.
No joy for this mother
only a dullness of heart
now to be with her forever
Later his father
No longer numb with emotion
His anger now stirred.
Marched the steps of revenge
AL Shabaab at his side
Al Qaeda his shield
Boko Haram his weapon
ISIS his fighter.
And you?
later you died
On the Metro
In a crowded street
In a busy Hotel Foyer
The aircraft a fireball
A knife in your ribs
With your family
Your Government said 'Sorry'
Would you share a poem with me?
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