the secret music of the children
tears my flesh
spirit journeys of a newer time
unknown
in dreams all empty nights long
darkness
without pity
the lost children
the ones whose poetry is
untried
bare limbs torn from mothers
torn from homes and lives
torn
from the breasts of those
who only wanted to give them more
and better
the abject tortured poems cried
in the dark
innocent/not innocent
Terror
the death of journeys
death of hope
the echoes of the heart
the deepest memories
the never
never
never
our land forgotten
left behind with older dreams
with Nothing but barren fields
empty streets and tumbling cots
wizened shrunken faces
of the ancient ones
sprung from the soil
roots deep in a place called
Home
haunted sleepless obscured
night skies
stars lost in lowering
bleakness
no moon to give us back
the songs we left that place
with
and disembodied footfalls
loud voices
words not understood
and then the tearing and the
screams
and then the blackness falls
all round
the soundless dreams crushed
together
with no language
driven
beaten
raped and broken on the lathe
of hell
the horror of those moments
when we believed the good
the open loving arms
arms now
tearing
demanding
no whispered loving sounds
but taunts and hideous laughter
as force gives up no names
no
identities
no longer innocent
nightmares without names or
faces
the screams filling all
orifices
leaving no room for light
the holes left in bodies
psyches
spirits
deep wells bottomless
in the night of cries and evil
almost-whispers
like grinding gears or ripping
clothes
deadly whispers calling ugly
names
and putting hands where hands
should never be
soft untouched skin
deep gravid eyes
wounded with forgetting
wounded with the need for
oblivion
what will become of these
children
calling out their agonized refrains
in the deepest time of night
where dreams go to die
the promised borning burning
torched
by invective
the delicate skin
the trembling flesh
words ripped from center
by naked claws
ever since the mother was torn
away
where is the mother, the father
where?
do they not love me ever any
more
why don’t they come
where is that lullaby
that song that let me sleep at
last
why
did they go and leave me here?
with just this crying
endless crying
words are told to me but all is
din
discord
voices layered and overlapping
hard hands and harsh impatient
touch
names lost
exchanged
for numbers
I, in safety
hear
and plead for torture to stop
there is no remedy, no
sanctuary
and the poetry of children
tears my soul
I am
complicit
my age will not forgive me
I am not forgiven
tears fall and mingle
with rivers and lakes of laments
unceasing streams
weeping for what’s been taken
there’s
no giving back
it’s gone
fragile lives melt into other
lives
and older times
forgotten times
the young hatched from these
caged birds
know no sacred touch
no
love
can words half remembered
buried deep within the memories
of long ago
when mother held them
her soothing bell-like voice
sang sweet unworded nothings
into tiny shell-like ears
the promises
lost promises given
can
forgotten words still heal?
we can only give them poetry
and broken promises
but maybe poetry will be enough
© 2018 pamela
twining
