Poetry

Lukas Vasilikos

By

Lianne Kamp

Stacked in the News Feed

It was a typical morning

drinking coffee reading the news feed

wondering, was it stacked this way on purpose?

Found my coffee hard to swallow

choking on this news.

In a Pennsylvania neighborhood

a twelve year old boy ran into a burning building

to save his dad –  who was safe outside,

knowing his son was dying,

trying to save him.

In a Tennessee trailer park an

eleven year old boy asked an eight year old girl

If he could play with her puppies.

She refused – he fired a shotgun

into her chest.

She bled out in her mother’s arms.

He will bleed out in the system

for nine years.

Seems both boys died for love.

One because he felt it,

the other because he couldn’t.

For a moment they were caught in the media web

and just as quickly fell through the net

into a growing pile of – no longer news –

which settles like so much sand

into the bottom of my cup.

A Body For A Soul

Who will speak for the wordless

when fear has split our eardrums

and rendered us all deaf to the

beat of a heart

Who will comfort the mourning

when hate has destroyed our sight

and left us to stumble in the dark

seeing only strangers

Who will carry the paralyzed

when ignorance has stripped our nerves

and left us dangling on strings

guided by invisible fingers

Who will give this world a transfusion

when we are gutted by fear

and an eye for an eye, a body for a soul

has left us all bleeding out

Lianne Kamp

I came to Boston many years ago to write poetry.  Although I never abandoned poetry altogether, life had different plans for me. I have rediscovered the importance of writing and over the last year have been published in a number of Prolific Press journals. Mainly, I write poetry to make my world more panoramic by watching it more closely.