Can You Hear Them?

Can You Hear Them?

by Elyssa Issel

for Cab Calloway’s Poetry Slam

Can you hear them?

I can’t get them out of my head.

I cannot escape those silent wails of the unknown who plead for deliverance.

I cannot escape the jabbering souls of those who are deaf to the cruelty which they inflict.

What joyfulness is left for those yet to come?

When the sun brings forth the warmth we desire, it comes out as a winter’s wind, consuming the hearts of all it passes.

Yet none can feel the chill on their hands, even those hands that carry with them destruction and grief.

Cries are lost to the unending shadows, and we walk forward still…as THEY bathe in empty basins and sing silent songs of longing…longing for life in the sunshine of summer.

But summertime NEVER comes and OH… what earth we stand on; decrepit and brown.

Mouths whisper words of comfort with poisoned breath, the heavens look down with shame on the advanced race of evil we have become.

Because in the sight of the brightest star, this is the blackest hole, ripping all life in our grasp to shreds and corrupting all good to the crushed sense of despair we constantly renew.

AND…my dear, hopeful future may I say you are looking pale.

A strange sadness twists your expression, what haunts your taunted gaze; could it be the ground that quakes beneath our feet, but NO, it’s sorrow for the lost, the gone, the murdered that held your hand so tight.

The most innocent smiles have faded from view and I can hear them leaving; leaving in powerful gusts to sit on heaven’s knee and weep for the home they had naught to create, because the CHOICE WAS A LIFE THAT NEVER COULD BLOOM.

And in my ears rings the music of what laughter could have been.

CAN YOU HEAR THEM, BECAUSE I CANNOT GET THEM OUT OF MY HEAD!