As the sullen figure of a woman sets alone in her room
You can feel in the atmosphere all the gloom
As memories rap on the doors in her mind
They well remain there for all time
For her they will never depart
For even if time erases them from the mind,they are written with scars in her heart
She sits there shoulders hunched over
A river of tears sliding down her checks, no longer able to hold her composure
She had slipped into her room, her sanctuary
The burden of being the strong one, for the moment she could no longer carry

In the underpass sat a hunched male figure
wrapped in an old blanket
a woollen hat pulled down over his head
beside him his scruffy dog
his sad eyes following those walking by
listening his silent cry.

In front a small sign written in large letters
simply read please help me
a chipped tin mug placed close to his feet
some people showed him pity
putting loose change in before moving on
never asking what was wrong.

Not until that day man and dog were gone
was it noticed the empty space
at the same moment on a lonely riverside
a dog was barking frantically
running alone along the slippery wet bank
where a body had recently sank.

A blanket laid half submerged at the edge
definitely something was wrong
a couple ran oven concerned about the dog
spotting a body drowned
another life lost where nobody really cared
yet sadness they both shared!

The Foureyed Poet.

I haven't slept for two days now. The nights pass by slowly as I am in deep thought, my grandmother’s radio plays at full volume in the other room, and my parents and uncle talk loudly into the ears of their loved ones an ocean away.
I hear my father tell his brother to search for his son among the bodies of the dead, I hear my mother asking for the latest news and picture her standing there holding her breathe as she listens to the tired frantic voice of the person on the other end of the line, and I play the scene over and over again where my grandmother walks slowly into my room, with a back, hunched because of years of hard labor. She stares at me with a wrinkled face and a look in her eyes that I recall seeing only a few times but only when she speaks of her past, during the rough times.
She asks me if I know what's going on, and I tell her yes. Then she begins to summarize anyways, speaking in a lowered voice so that is just above a whisper enunciating each word clearly and I understand despite the usual misunderstandings between me and her, I nod my head, and release noises known worldwide to reassure someone who is speaking that the audience is listening.
And as her words become separated by seconds that tell stories in themselves, and that look in her eyes, she says in a grave voice and in a language that seems so familiar yet foreign, “chi we dak, chi we dak” then she turns around and walks out of the room in the same fashion in which she came in.
I ponder her words as I sit there.
“The world has broken, the world has broken.”