February 2021


HUM OF HUMANITY

Universal wailing rainforest burning
choking up the atmosphere -
Rivers clogging newsreels spinning daily
global grinding gnashing of hungry
Children gulping polluted air just hoping
to stay alive whilst mothers desperately
kneel in dark corners begging for open
borders so their innocent children
can be saved from starvation sickness
and zero nutrition hoping desperately
for charity angels to soothe their daily
lament maybe even miraculously
Create healing smiles to brighten young
eyes and sing, jump, shout, with glee
in an imagined childhood expected
reverie but that was not meant to be as
Power hungry rulers insist on continued
global crashes stifling words
halting progress destroying
humanitarian bridges causing existential
seizures
A cry, a prayer, a melodic lament,
hands raised to the heavens, a plea for invading
forces to end their tyranny hopefully
embracing humanity but what about
the children? They beg, they crawl, they cry,
they die, they plead, they bleed -
Come, join in this global chorus, add
your notes to the hum of humanity...


© Don Beukes WARPED CHIRALITY


We are meant to be part of the same species
yet you forge your own warped realities
pretending confessing announcing
orating your alternative existence from ideas
born from your elected ignorance -
Listening absorbing accepting broken lullabies
from hoarse false poison-tipped
tongues of larks whispering untruths
spinning words
But you allow your essence to soak up
its negativity garnered from deformed
misguided
mentalities now so twisted you just
cannot resist owning that leaking, lying
Legacy -
You see me as an unknown racial oddity
not knowing my true mixed race
Genealogy
As you burn your obvious dislike for me
through my startled pores but I see you
as a lonely lost soul indoctrinated by
spiral ideologies bleeding through you
for
generations whose voices now whisper
even taunting you to throw that stone
clutched in your shaking hand. Your conflicting inner rage I can somehow
understand, even pity you, but here I am,
about to become just another statistic
of divisive rhetoric and there you are,
contemplating my fate - just
another unfortunate fatality in
Our
Warped chirality


© Don Beukes Don Beukes is a South African and British writer. He is the author of 'The Salamander Chronicles' (CTU) and 'Icarus Rising - Volume I' (ABP), an ekphrastic collection. He taught English and Geography in both South Africa and the UK. His poetry has been anthologized in numerous collections and translated into Afrikaans, Persian, French and Albanian. He was nominated by Roxana Nastase, Editor of Scarlet Leaf Review, for the 'Best of the Net' in 2017 as well as the Pushcart Poetry Prize (USA) in 2016. He was published in his first SA Anthology, 'In Pursuit of Poetic Perfection' in 2018 (Libbo Publishers) and his second, 'Cape Sounds', in 2019 (Gavin Joachims Publishing) . He is also an amateur photographer and his debut Photographic publication appeared in Spirit Fire Review in June 2019. His new book, 'Sic Transit Gloria Mundi/Thus Passes the Glory of this World', is due to be published by Concrete Mist Press.