This was written for the poem spark of last week: the Political Poem.
What we know about poverty
On the street
the mouth of the world
asks: whose mother is this?
Whose baited hook tore
the smile from her cold cheek?
Crows fly above the invisible
hands of the sidewalk (cracked
in mourning). The country’s lips
are pursed. The difficult breaths
of the people blow like scattered leaves.
There are tears. Missing books and no water.
The burden of so many locked doors keeps
the tongues still. The skill of learning has been taken,
removed, amputated until there is no belonging in this place,
no where to rest but in the cramped shoulders of the buildings.
No one claims the mother’s body. No one staunches the blood
though the crows keep flying like madmen in the sunken cheeks
of the sky.
© 2006 Christine Klocek-Lim
Christine Klocek-Lim 
well done
Thank you, Kai.
Christine this is an absolutely fantastic poem!!!! “Whose baited hook tore the smile from her cold cheek?”, great line!!
thank u
enjoyed.
Pat, thanks. I heard the phrase “baited hook” in a song and wrote it down months ago. I was very pleased to find a poem in which it would work.Dustin, thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed this one.
So many souls left untouchedeven by the winds.The world seems so snobbishand so pale.
ufukhati, thanks for stopping by. And yes, this poem does seem terribly depressive, doesn’t it? If I truly believed that the world was hopeless, however, I wouldn’t write this way because I would feel it’s pointless. Instead I write in the hope that others recognize that this can happen, does happen, and in the hope that they do not let it happen in their own lives.
Christine,Anyway, so many more have the golden hearts.
ufukhati, yes, thankfully you are right. 🙂