Wasted

Nothing that this pen sets down

can even begin to describe

the story told by a picture worth ten thousand words

no meaning can it ascribe

when inhumanely shut doors

wash up a three-year-old body -

A hapless, blameless victim of wars

in a shameless political battle of custody.

The ink will only blur these pages

in writing of his last painful breath

too young yet even to dream or hope

the only truth he knew was death.

What if he had grown up to become

a peace-maker with a touch to heal

or if he had a future writ of altruistic zeal?

Who had the goddamned right to steal?

And who will stand up and be counted

amongst those who slammed their doors?

Did the white man's back break with its burden

after centuries of raping our shores?

Will this picture worth a million words

speak to cruel humanity, or be wasted

as one did decades ago of another child,

crawling, soon by a vulture to be tasted?

Perhaps this was not a wasted life

but one spared the indignity of seeking refuge

in cold lands, from chilled hands

whose tight-fisted treasuries are huge -

from bellies distended with surplus resources

but hearts as small as mice

spared the agony of watching his family drown

as the wealthy watch with eyes as cold as ice.

What power on earth or sky will judge

Such a vicious sodomy of childhood -

those that can only write vitriolic verse

and no longer distinguish evil from good?