heroes

Published in Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees; by LitNoire Publishing, 2006

At first there was nothing.
and God said, “Let there be light,”
and here we are, in the
dark.
The world began in nothingness
null void.
hardly different today.
dark night
blood in the streets
all i do in response is write this
worthless poem.
we live in a time of typhoons.
emotional whirlwinds.
we tear at each other’s throats like
wild dogs.
the world
– our suicidal world –
is on a transplant list
waiting patiently in line for a
soul.
we are the world
we are the champions
who crucified christ
who burned joan
who denounced luther
who imprisoned galileo
who called washington a rebel
who shot lincoln
who killed gandhi
who murdered king
we are the heroes
who have desecrated ourselves.
i mourn not the loss of our innocence
but that our goodness was stillborn.
i mourn that we are callow
that we serve the basest of human vices within ourselves.
that we gorge ourselves on the sour wine of
cowardice in the guise of self-respect.
we are gluttons when it comes to the bitter potion of
human intolerance
if there is such a thing.
we are broken.
broken beyond repair.
perhaps if we obliterate ourselves
we can begin anew
from the ash we become.