Photo by Ian Espinosa on Unsplash
The Lucky Ones
Tina says we do it to one another, every day,
Knowing and not knowing. When it is love,
What happens feels like dumb luck. When it’s not,
We’re riddled with bullets, shot through like ducks.
Every day. To ourselves and one another. And what
If what it is, and what sends it, has nothing to do
With what we can’t see? Nothing whatsoever
To do with a power other than muscle, will, sheer fright?
–Tracy K. Smith, an excerpt from Life on Mars, Pulitzer Prize winning poetry collection.
1.
What is the nature of a single soul?
How can one measure its worth?
Do we weigh it by the hearts it formed in life,
or perhaps the void it leaves behind?
Terri Ann whispers, but I can’t quite hear.
Dad just smirks. He knows, but won’t tell.
2.
Put throngs of souls through hardships,
deny them dignity,
basic human comforts,
heap tragedy upon disaster
upon blight upon humiliation
upon their collective shoulders,
and I promise the plural response
won’t remind you of anything from
the Book of Job.
Oh, there will be outliers
of philosophers and saints
embracing quiet intangible dignity,
but the mass majority will go looking
for someone to blame.
Often those very same fringe
philosophers and saints
resigned to their fates
become targets.
Wanton cannibalism is an outrage
in civil societies,
and yet… and yet…
3.
After the Great Kantō earthquake
and before cyclone winds
begat fire-tornadoes,
a helpful policeman took charge
guiding four-thousand survivors
to what he thought was safety
but what inevitably became
mass immolation.
There was no way he could know
and nothing he could do,
their fate
inexorably twisted
among tails of fire dragons,
but in the policeman’s eyes,
he led the masses to their fate
the sum of his heroic intentions
now ashes.
Despondent
unable to bear the shame,
the officer committed seppuku,
increasing the countless body-count
by one soul.
4.
Is there something after this realm?
I can’t find the answer in math, science,
not in faith, not even in poetry.
If I contemplate for too long, the voids
of my departed soul-hearts cause
my body to ache like overused knee-joints
that signal pending monsoons.
Dad knows, but won’t tell. He always
insisted that I find things out for myself.
Terri Ann crossed over once, came back,
when her heart stopped, she just saw black.
That’s what she said, anyway. I suspect
that she just wasn’t paying attention then.
I’m sure she knows the answer now,
but I can’t quite hear her anymore.
5.
Danielle said it was too bad about
that rock-n-roll guy who died.
I nodded grimly, but said nothing more.
The soul of that rock-n-roll guy left us
for God knows where, assuming He does exist
and not just as some embodiment
of a salve for aching joints.
The rock-n-roll guy left a void for his wife,
children, family, and close friends to
contemplate, celebrate, or mourn,
depending on where they fall
on the afterlife belief spectrum.
Rock-n-roll guy bequeathed
to millions of us musical fans
a soundtrack cipher, unlocking
precious memories,
possibly including moments when other souls
left voids for us to contemplate,
celebrate, or mourn.
I hope there’s something after this for him,
and for us as well. I hope the blackness Mom
claims she saw was nothing more than a cosmic
practical joke that Dad is already in on.
6.
I watched it on accident.
Wincing, I looked away,
but I could still hear it
the lone automatic weapon.
I listened to folks in the aftermath
yelling that this shouldn’t happen
in civilized society. I also heard myself
joining this chorus,
yelling into the void.
I listened to opposition shush us,
as this is not the time to discuss
people dying needlessly because
those people just died needlessly.
So I shut up and listened
as others failed
to listen to each other,
instead they turned and
devoured each other’s message
like we did when this happened before
like they’ll do again.
Wanton cannibalism is an outrage
in civil societies,
and yet… and yet…
7.
The leader of the free world
Said we were lucky
For only fifty-nine deaths
It could’ve been much much worse
Rejoice in our good fortune
My soul hurts
***
***
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Shared at dVerse’s Open Link Night # 205. Go here to read other poet’s contributions.
Hephaestus’ Waste & Cosmic Rubble 
I think you’ve really captured this meandering need to reconcile the unreconcilable in this poem.
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Thank you. Sometimes you just have to shout into the void, I guess.
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What especially made me sick is the saying that it’s the wrong time to discuss it.. You have an issue there where only thoughts and prayers are used… to me it’s like band-aid for bullet wounds.
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Band-aids for bullet wounds… well-put. It also sounds like a killer title for a new poem.
Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
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‘What is the nature of a single soul?
How can one measure its worth?
Do we weigh it by the hearts it formed in life,
or perhaps the void it leaves behind?’
Interesting questions and the answer is definitely not putting:
‘…throngs of souls through hardships,
deny them dignity,
basic human comforts,
heap tragedy upon disaster
upon blight upon humiliation
upon their collective shoulders’
and of course, ‘the mass majority will go looking for someone to blame’ while others do their best to help, sometimes doing more damage in the process. Sadly, it’s a human predicament we can’t avoid.That and our souls hurting.
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I agree. Thanks for reading.
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The “leader of the free world” speaks from a void. Wind him up and he says the wrong thing … invariably. Souls hurting cannot be assuaged by tossing paper towels. Your words are insightful. Prayers for us all.
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Thank you. And I agree.
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I liked these lines: “the sum of his heroic intentions
now ashes” I also suspect it could have been much worse.
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Yeah, but it shouldn’t have happened at all. 59 murders is too many. One murder is also too many.
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Apologies for those who are going to be offended by this politically incorrect comment.
The ‘lucky ones’ are the progeny of the original cruel Puritans and white Protestant sects who colonised America. Not only did they derive their enormous wealth on the backs of the black slaves, their entire culture was injected with a back culture of warmth, vitality and joy through music dance and theatre. Without black Americans the ‘ new world’ would have ended up financially poorer and a cultural wasteland as well.
Instead of showing ‘true ‘ Christian values of atonement( not the puritanical bogus version ) by publicly thanking and recognising the great black contribution to the most powerful country on earth…
instead of making substantual reparations and giving the due respect and gratitude to the black community, we, the rest of the world are bombarded with tales of US government sanctioned black murders by a racist police force.
This attitude of white supremacy and psychopathic narcissism spills over into irrational government policies e.g. lax gun laws which result in thousand of American deaths each year. At which point is the value of human life significant or rather at which number of deaths does it reach before it becomes a problem worth solving.
I do not live in America and am not American. I am a middle class white Anglo Saxon. I have only known two black Americans on a personal level and the only real compassion and support I have known was from both of them.
A happy coincidence?,…maybe not.
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Your passionate empathy is always welcome here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
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‘Often those very same fringe philosophers and saints resigned to their fates become targets’.. this is sadly true.
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Indeed. Thanks for reading.
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