Sunday 13 July 2008

Friday 5 from Poefusion

Every friday at Poefusion there is a prompt of five words, for you to write a poem or story to. Last fri the words were:

grandfather
photo album
post office
broken window
folder

This poem is rough but I've no time to rewrite it (it's a bit hard to write whilst also entertaining a 3 month old), and as I said in the last post, if I think about it, I'll never write at all, so this is my way of trying to get creative again.

The boy with no ties
to family,
no mother to praise him,
no father to encourage, no
grandparents to spoil him; this
boy watches the social worker
with the folder
and wonders why
it isn't a photo album
for him.

If it was, what
would they look like, his family.
Would his mother be pretty, his
grandfather kind?
All he can see when he thinks of family is
a broken window where bullets came in,
a stained and dirty mattress to sleep on,
the t.v. that never was quiet.

The social worker glances at him;
the woman who can read minds.
She's seen it all before.
When she thinks of his family
all she can see is a rage
as red as the post office van
that passes the office.
Her thought to strike them down in vengeance.
Instead she offers this
boy a present,
a book instead of an album.

Knowledge instead of pain.
Love in place of indifference.

3 comments:

poefusion said...

Thanks for stopping by Lenore. Welcome to Poefusion. I love your poem. It was very good. I felt the boys struggle with his living arrangements and certainly felt the love given out by the social worker. A little kindness can go a long way. Nice job. Have a nice day.

Lenore said...

Ah, cheers for that. :-)

Anonymous said...

the boy w/no ties... it is sad, very sad... but oh so much better w/a caring person and a book