"clubfoot" poems
Some are lissome, jowly,
blossomed or pocked, teeth
of old horses—eyes white as flour,
a few clubfoot with sisters
pregnant as October gourds. Not
Norman Rockwell’s Americans,
but they are us and live in lopsided
bungalows with leaky roofs,
heaved sidewalks, bare
refrigerators.
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 7:59 AM UTC
Come and learn to dance with the clubfoot children,
the lame and the deafened who hear not our beat.
Come on! follow their steps, fractured, untimely
and see where they take us on our broken feet –
for we too are fragile, distorted, un-mended;
we too live life with offence, are offended
and struggle with dancing while missing the beat.
Listen for their song beneath the cacophony
loud and un-metred, assaulting our ears.
Hear in their song the snippets of clarity
telling us how it is they fight their fears.
Improvise counter-point, fit to their melodies
affirm what they sing with our fractured harmonies
and struggle to sing though it bring us to tears.
Look on their visions of horror and cruelty:
swallow the ***** that threatens to choke.
Glimpse now the messages in the ***********
recognise what they are asking is hope.
Then in the vision, the dance and the song
reach for their hand and help them belong
and though then both hurting: together we’ll cope.
Apr 24, 2012
Apr 24, 2012 at 10:22 AM UTC