Guest Poet Crystal Bertoncini
UNTITLED
I find it strange sometimes
that those who need help the most
don't believe that they do
and refuse any attempts
to better their person.
No attempts at change
will be accepted
all charity
refused.
And yet they take refuge
in the corner of the room,
doing their best to hide the
cataracts
of tears that fall
in steady streams of
clear, salty liquid,
imperfecting
the niches of their face.
The streams of tears
find their way to the
corner
of their mouths
where at once they are
accepted into the skin and
absorbed.
Their pain is a cross
too heavy to bear
across the unrelenting
deserted plain
of Life.
For Life is cruel and unforgiving
to those who refuse to open their eyes
to his lovely face, and do not listen to his ire,
Change.
For as much as Change is responsible
for the destiny these people lead,
by riding her coattails you may find
happiness
in her dark void - Life -
which envelops her,
sometimes inversely so,
when Change holds
Destiny
so tight to her bosom.
For they are forever inseperable,
Sister and Brother, Mother and Son.
And yet the encouraging words of
Change fall upon deaf ears,
her song of happiness
forgotten
once the damned turn their heads,
so preoccupied with fondling Life
that they forget his forever companion. And
friends
though they might be,
enemies they become
to those who forget them.
And so I find it strange sometimes
that those who need help the most
don't believe that they do
and refuse any attempts
to better their person.
October 1997
Crystal Bertoncini's Questions:
Do you understand the point that I am trying to get across, or is it hidden
too much in the words?
And what title should I give it?
Correspond with Crystal Bertoncini at
KhepriKa@aol.com
with your ideas about this poem.
The Albany Poetry Workshop