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This is my blog (now there is a surprise!). I will be sticking in it poetry, prose, random musings, things that take my fancy and more than likely lots of pictures of cats. I hope you find something to amuse and/or interest you here.

Wednesday 9 February 2011

One Shot Wednesday

Here is a propery entry for one shot Wednesday.

Guilt or Gilt?
Why am I being force fed second hand emotions?
Every day my mail includes another blaming plea,
Another tale of third world woe, a child in poverty,
Another blind or maimed person relying upon me,
A batch soft-eyed animals betrayed in their devotions.

Then on the television screen horrific stories harrow,
Tortured pictures, tortured souls as in some freak-show
Get their thirty minutes of fame although they do not know
In thirty second sound-bites, just a background shadow,
While well-chosen, performed words chill me to the marrow.

All these things, so I am told, are easily turned to joy,
All I have to do is hand over a small sum of money
Two pounds here, three pounds there, the outlook will be sunny,
No kids will die, no pets are hurt, and the world is full of honey
There's jobs and education, work for every girl and boy.

So I give as much as I can afford but not a day goes by
Without another leaflet posted through my door to beg
For another country in famine, another powder keg
Of misery and torment, the trapped gnawing of a leg,
Another person or animal condemned by me to die.

So is this about helping through engendering this guilt?
Or just to slap a band-aid on humanities vast wound,
Ignoring the many troubles with which the world's festooned,
That the ones who do the giving are emotionally marooned,
Is this about helping others or about raising the gilt?

4 comments:

  1. i hear you...i think you have to pick and choose and hope someone else picks up where you can...there is a lot of need...and i always check the back end on pleas...

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  2. Powerful message lies within your rhyme, bursting the seams of clothes worn thin. So how do we help without raising the gilt?

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  3. This is super. Powerful, and the rhythm carries it well. Deeply understood.

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  4. Dear Penny

    I could relate to it so much.. deep. Thanks

    ॐ नमः शिवाय
    Om Namah Shivaya
    http://shadowdancingwithmind.blogspot.com/2011/02/whispers-another-kind-of-valentines-day.html

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