When Earth waged war
against poor Port-au-Prince,
warm air,
once pervaded by Creole tunes of school children
and the smell of baked beans,
turned to chalky clouds
suffused with groans from beneath the rubble
and the stench of crushed corpses.

Newborn babies—some unscathed,
shielded by the shell of their cribs or the configuration of collapse,
others mangled, tiny skulls cracked, agile limbs severed—
barely manage a cry.
Orphaned toddlers roam streets
teeming with the homeless and lined by the lifeless.
Outside of town, massive pits welcome backhoes delivering
decaying bodies—nameless—to their final resting places.

Urban search and rescue crews
heroically extricate the almost dead,
but know they must inevitably yield to
the reality of life’s limits.
Others perform less glamorous tasks tending to the more living:
watering the thirsty, feeding the hungry,
sheltering the dispossessed,
healing the injured, treating the sick.

And now despair turns to rage
as looters ransack the little that still stands.
Brandishing the sharp-edged tools of destruction
that are the surgeon’s tools of resuscitation,
the strong subdue the weak,
proving once again
the maimed and meek
shall not inherit the Earth.

ScoopDaily has compiled a list of organizations accepting donations to support the Haiti relief efforts.

ClintonBush Haiti Fund – www.clintonbushhaitifund.org

American Red Cross – http://www.redcross.org

U.S. Fund for UNICEF – www.unicefusa.org

Doctors Without Borders – www.doctorswithoutborders.org

United Nations World Food Programme – www.wfp.org

Catholic Relief Services – www.crs.org

Salvation Army – www.salvationarmyusa.org

I’m late, very late, said Alice.
To what? the Mad Hatter replied.
Got a date, she said to her friend.
Without me? he replied with a sigh.

You’re invited if you’d like, she said.
To come with me or a friend.
We’re off to a super tea party,
To stem Barack’s commie trend.

There’ll be other birthers? he asked.
Oh yes, she said with great zeal.
Well then count me in, said the Hatter.
Sounds like a really big deal.

I sure hope so, Alice averred.
Better than dinner at Sardi’s.
I can’t wait, said the Hare, Hatter’s pal.
I just love a grand old party!

C’mon Annie, the Hatter called.
It’s time to go get your gun.
I’ll round up the other right wingers,
And we’ll all take part in the fun.

Bulky bulldozers stampede the lush landscape,
which quickly crumbles into a graveless cemetery.
Lean bodies cascade like dominoes
into a river suffused with the red liquid of life.

Their innocent minds corrupted by a daily joint,
male youths are shoved by the mighty hands of the rebels.
Eyes of sweating slaves, hypnotized by the soft ruffle of the river,
detect stones of heaven concealed beneath the murky water.

Alas, a stone of heaven!
The rebels rejoice over the precious gem,
like mothers who rejoice when they bare new life.
The masters do not smell the poison of the rotten peach.

Like litter,
the economy and foreign matters are tossed from
a witless mind,
into a wastebasket of paper promises—
doomed to disappoint.
Balancing the scales of overdue justice,
he hauls a heavy load of obligations
on his shoulders.
Dusty and dirt-speckled,
these are nasty pieces of work, but
promises nonetheless.
Soldiers forsake sanguine thoughts,
settling for suicide.
Pleas to quash Iraqi and Afghan quagmires are
postponed;
vows of healthcare reform are
laid waste to consensus—
bipartisanship beautiful in his eyes.
These remnants of reform are left for the termites of Congress to
pick apart—
exploiting his relinquishment.

–

ScoopDaily is pleased to announce that it is inaugurating a Poetry Section of its website. We are hereby soliciting works of verse that grapple with the political and/or cultural issues of these complex times. Submissions may be sent to submissions@scoopmediainc.com.