Perspective

Another Kenyan kid lies dead
As flies buzz round his dust-strewn head.
His mother cannot cut the thread,
And cradles him so gently.
A girl out shopping in Iraq
Is maimed in an unnamed attack.
Her stump is charred and sooty black
And bleeding quite intently.

And mothers, kidnapped in Brazil,
By those who choose to steal and kill
And trample on God’s Holy Will,
Recite the paternoster,
While Arab girls are sold as slaves
By Rolex-clad and gold-toothed knaves,
And rot away in shallow graves
That human peddlers foster.

And we, with passioned howls of rage,
Conditioned by the headlined page,
Disciples of the football age,
Are roused to fierce invective.
Oh, how we shake a righteous fist
At penalties the linesman missed
And diving victims harsh-dismissed,
With closeted perspective.

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Shortlisted at the Kiltimagh In Search of Raftery Poetry competition 2006