Poetry

Daniel van den Berg photo

By

Norberto Franco Cisneros

Madness

“Skepticism, the poet told the woman,

is contained in human reason and can never divorce itself from it,

because human reason contains the truth.”

The woman whispered, “And what does truth contain, sweet poet?”

“Truth contains doubt, my love

for without doubt the truth can never be revealed.

The truth is to be feared.

It brings disquiet to blind, ignorant minds,” the poet responds.

Sometimes the idiotic happenings going on around me

give me a feeling of fathomless, constant anger bordering on lunacy.

My mind swims erratically at the immensity of the fucked up-side-down universe

that is my troubled country.

Unjust treatment of the destitute, the old and disabled

makes my heart bleed.

Peaceful, loving thoughts swirl in my spirit,

but bad dreams hang on grasping in this hypnotic trance we’re living.

Dogs bark at the moon late at night

Others howl at ambulances screaming by,

I am not concerned with approval or disapproval,

I write to amuse and inform those who read and can think critically.

Peace.

I bear no ill will towards you the innocent, who toil endlessly and are forgotten,

but I talk to the moon late at night hoping to enlighten the blind and the deaf.

The moon responds with the silence that the covetously powerful possess.

Norberto Franco Cisneros

My poems have been published in the following publications: Indiana University Journal Chiricu; Avocet Review (Avocet Press); Snow Jewel (Grey Sparrow Press); Ilumen (Mouthfeel Press/ Sam’s Dot Publishing) and several others, including e-zines, Black Petals, Ruhatish and have been a Featured Poet in Poetry Soup