Disgust for Humanity

Overseas...a thunder roars

As we sit and watch TV

Working 'til the clock strikes

Whatever it needs to be

~

While bodies lay in streets

Like those on Normandy’s beach

Yet we pay for doorbell rings

That bring boxes of relief

~

We scroll on manmade screens

For hours of each day

Clicking, clicking, clicking

Filling our brains with decay

~

A sickness grows inside my bones

Is this how we were raised?

To know harm is happening

And simply turn our gaze?

~

A boiling bubbles up in me

With disgust I have for thee

…And myself too

How can we sit here and wait for…

While overseas a thunder roars

~~~

* I wrote this the morning I learned about the invasion in Ukraine. I couldn’t believe what I heard and what was happening. I also felt like people I knew thought it was horrific but lived their lives as though it wasn’t happening. I couldn’t stop thinking about how can people do that with something so atrocious happening in Ukraine to people just like me. After writing this poem, I felt I had to do more. I wrote to my Senators. Additionally, I remembered I knew two people from a long time ago with family in Ukraine and reached out to both of them. I hope this poem serves as a call to action more than anything else. If you feel this bubbling up in you as I did, please do something about it. Complacency accomplishes nothing.