Summation of the Heart
Whites kill blacks
Sometimes blacks
Even the score
But when it’s four centuries
In one place
(there are other ages,
other places),
How can the pit be cleared
And turned over when
What we fill
Never bury
Is horror for horror?
Charity
Forgiveness
May we start again?
Will blacks offer it?
Will whites accept?
There are more races
Hatred, fear, and anger poured
Into pale ears
And, yes, sometimes in sable
By a devil poisoning
Thought,
The varied arts in creation
Rather making a mob
(this is not protest)
That has no sight
Or strategy
Asian, African,
Australian, Caribbean,
Flesh from Europe’s people
Not white enough, the
Subcontinent
First people in America,
Australia
Any native people whom
Developers have eyed
And power-mongers
Calculated
This is race
The human race
Racing humans
There is crime
Sometimes it’s organized
Maybe it’s exciting
To put one’s life on the edge
Of a knife
And live along mortality
Easy money, maybe
For a life
For a life
There is disease
The flu, Ebola, AIDS
The virus we have crowned
There is no treatment
No vaccine
There are measures
People are tired of following
Them
So don’t, and the sickness
Spikes again
We cannot learn
We cannot go back
All we want to do
Is go back
The children of the world
The world that is our child
Those of us in charge
Fully grown in measure
Also charged
To leave a planet
To the generations after
Who watch us now
Who see corruption, profiteering
(another word for politics)
Cutting, razing everything
We should retire
Giving them a chance
With all shame in leaving them
A world they saw us taking down
Our best option
Waiting for another
C L Couch
Photo by Lara Puscas on Unsplash
281 – ATOMIUM, 1020 Bruxelles, Belgium, Bruxelles
The Atomium
clcouch123 
June 16, 2020 at 7:08 pm
As you point out, the problem is not (literally) black or white. It’s about power, economic and social domination and it all boils down to the group of the richest, most powerful keeping the rest in a state of dependence. These are the people who will crush revolutions or within the democratic process will slide change to the bottom of the heap of matters to be looked into. Once we sort out the problem of different ‘communities’ slaughtering one another, we’ll still have the deeper, more insidious problem of how to get the rich of all colours, all religions, all political persuasions to share what they’ve grabbed.
June 16, 2020 at 11:13 pm
Yes, I think so. If there hadn’t been such horrible subjugation of people, we might at least have encountered each other more eye-to-eye. Yes, there still would have been war, and we must get the reality of slaughter out of our blood and our vision. And then the rich need to be shaken of the excess they should not have had. There is the notion of wealth coming from working hard, but I think we know it doesn’t really go that way. No one is deserving more. Everyone is deserving more.
June 17, 2020 at 7:59 am
I can’t remember recently where I read ‘nobody earns a billion dollars’. Hard work is hard work, and nobody works harder than the cleaners who start work in the dark like Victorian servants, cleaning up luxury hotels and offices for the very rich, and going home to misery.
June 19, 2020 at 3:35 am
Your description of the rich and poor is powerfully expressed. And it’s accurate–how many (thousands? millions? too many) work to clear up night and the start the day for the rich? There is a lack of perspective and lack of awareness of connection.
June 17, 2020 at 12:00 am
A truthful write and a awesome bridging of thoughts!
June 19, 2020 at 3:36 am
Thank you! I appreciate your use of “bridging,” a favorite word and concept.
June 19, 2020 at 6:07 am
Thanks and you are welcome close!💕☕️☕️
June 18, 2020 at 9:03 pm
This poem packs in a lot, Christopher. Yes, it’s all about power, money, greed, subjugation. In an ideal world, everyone would have enough, but not too much. No one person needs a billion dollars! What for? And why do people continue to build their empires on the backs of the poor, especially those of color? Asking those greedy rich people to give back what they’ve robbed from the world, that will be the most difficult thing. Obviously, there is no appealing to conscience, because I don’t believe they have a moral backbone. I just saw the documentary “13th” about the profit prison system, and the way people of color are still enslaved today under a phrase from the 13th amendment. It’s criminal.
June 19, 2020 at 3:45 am
Yes, there’s too much that horribly goes on. The Eastern Penitentiary near Philadelphia was built to realize a vision of actual rehabilitation. Things worked well, too, until the building and the vision were ruined by stuffing people inside, beyond working viability.
And you’re right about the rich giving up the excess of what they presumably possess. The fact that the rich are self-obsessed and self-destructive and among the unhappiest people ever doesn’t seem to be compelling. Or the fact that nothing is ultimately possessed by anyone. And there are those who don’t have anything–often because of what they had by right or possession was taken by the rich and those presuming power–who live in dire, basic need that could practically (more than ideally) be resolved. We could feed the planet, have the planet drink safe water, have everyone securely sheltered plus with an opportunity to learn.
Sigh. So much, Cathy, to write about and talk about.
June 20, 2020 at 7:01 pm
I agree with all you say. Just imagine if all that wealth hoarded by so few were spread out over the entire world. We can only wish.
June 20, 2020 at 10:24 pm
Yes, we can wish, and thank you. I think once the commitment is made, we’ll find it surprisingly strategically easy to spread the resources we should have been sharing all along.
June 19, 2020 at 4:22 pm
You describe the human condition well, Christopher….but…..what to do, what to do. I do not begrudge hard-working tycoons their wealth. Building their empires affords the opportunity for job creation and earning a wage to provide food and shelter. We are stuck in this consumer/technological age and have to find a meaningful way forward without burning the house down. A fair wealth distribution system has always been a desirable goal. Don’t forget about governments and their squandering of our hard-earned taxes. What a complicated world we live in.
June 20, 2020 at 10:35 pm
The moguls and the politicians are hand-in-glove, anymore. I doubt the government will see the way until we vote them to start looking. And it would be better if the rich would make up their own minds about un-choking what the world needs for basic life and how about a little more. Rich people are not happy; I know that is an aphorism that is suspect to many. But I’ve had the chance to meet and work with many wealth people, and they’re not happy and, in fact, are quite inwardly screwed up. The lack of perspective they have because they’re keeps them away from reality and real sources that are positive. Which means that ultimately there is a win-win for everyone in relinquishing excesses and hoardings.
I know one can be poor and screwed-up, too; so why not be rich. But the inner lives of poor and rich are apples and oranges.
I agree with you, Len, that hard work leading to success is a good thing. I only wish we’d stop perverting the process and what happens to the product. I suppose a catch-and-release approach to wealth is too much to hope for.
Well, we can write and talk about it all. That’s something. Two things.
Happy official start to summer, Len!
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