POETRY:  The Curse

Abdal-Hayy Moore

Posted May 2, 2003      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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THE CURSE

All the efforts they took to conceal the ancient curse
only made it worse

All the efforts they took for example to hide the
fact that water out of their faucets ran red
—well enough said

Every effort they made to conceal the squawk of chickens
which sounded like people being shot or a man being whipped
was eclipsed

Young girls presented to young men but who looked so old they
resembled hags
even covered with bags

The horrendous vibratory wobble of a bicycle down a normal bike path
that resembled more a vehicle in an earthquake
for God’s sake

Every effort went to waste like spitting in the wind
a foregone failure
said the drunken sailor

Because each soul was complicit now in deaths far away
in someone else’s world of them and
their whole world as well
and their feet dragged through hell

Violence turned against others was only
sooner or later going to rebound against themselves
even of they looked like cute little elves

No one’s safe now when they run water or
call chickens or present their daughters or
ride even something as
innocent as a bicycle down a bike trail
to no avail

The heart breaks to see this it breaks completely in two
because it could have been avoided it
could have never come to pass this way
no matter what they say

Water runs like blood through their world now
and a strange smell of death overwhelms the
atmosphere
of their stratosphere

Their hands are stained now and will always be stained with the
blood of others
fathers grandfathers daughters sons mothers

4/15/2003

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