Bari_Hochwald
  • Home
    • Contact
  • Directing
    • Contact
  • Acting
    • Contact
  • Teaching
    • Contact
  • Poetry
    • Contact

Poetry

Our Legs Are Strong from The Global Theatre Project on Vimeo.

She told her mother to give
them all her organs --
all — 
to someone in need.
So that her life
All of 19 years lived
And four in torture
Would have meaning
Because God on this planet is also in prison
She saw him there behind the bars.”
- After Patricia
To Alan Kurdi Of Syrian Birth
I will pick that child up
I see him
Gifted onto the shore by the wailing sea
I see his chubby calves
not yet grown into limbs he would have paced the earth with
He was rushed upon the shore in nature’s pity
Not for the death of this little one
But for what was to come

The death of one innocent filled headlines
And video clicks
The death of Alan Kurdi
   of Kurdish descent
    of Syrian birth
    of Human flesh
    of Universal Soul
    began our decent 
Again
And yet again

The sea is filled with the dying
She is buoyant with tears salted by neglect and apathy
She is turbulent with the death throng of the dark-skinned
    and light
Grabbing for holds which have abandoned them
    a solid thing of
    heart
    and home
They splash a desperate cry for living 
In the darkness of her bosom
In the frothing of her tears
They drink all she has to offer
​They fill themselves toward peace


I will raise them out of the water
I see them
Bodies clothed and bodies naked
    beautiful black-skinned young men
    arms stretched toward the familiar sun
    eyes wide in questioning
    opened for all to see
To witness our indifference

We do not know their names
These floating islands of hope and desperation
These dead young men
—--
This
Globe
Rotates

It lives
Regardless of our warring
Our hate
Our fear

This globe
This floating wonder
Tolerates our ignorance
Our cruelty
Our devastation

This globe
This sea

This desert
Speckled with carcasses of gasping
    human beings
Dehydrated
Lost
Seeking family through the spines of needled terrain
The burning hot step and breath
The clung-to photo of 
Mother,
Father,
Husband,
Son,
Wife,
Daughter.
The bodies covered in white in a freezer
in Arizona
Two Thousand
One Hundred
And Counting.
Tagged
Unclaimed
Lost.

We drown
And scorch that which we won’t embrace
​

The bombs fall through clouds
Vertically
And humans move 
Horizontally
    It is a natural response

The rebels enter the village
And families flee to the forest
    It is a natural response

Alan Kurdi
It is a cruelty to say you died for nothing
It is an inhuman act to live in a country where 2,100 and more bodies lie in cold-storage amongst an apathetic and ignorant populace
For those of us 
Who see your deaths
In video
And photos
Who are willing to look
To see and read and read more and learn
And know 
And know we can not help
Know our species has lost its way into the airless cave of fear and saber-rattling
We only
Can lift you from the shore
    raise you dripping from the waters
    bury your fragile bones
    pray at your shroud-covered bodies
And know - and yell - and scream our 
Witnessing

That these human beings have lived
On this Rotating Globe
Have passed time breathing my same air
Have smiled
Have cried
Have dreamed
And have been abandoned
Into the sea
Into the desert
Into the dark cave of fear and apathy
As we — those who for now 
Know no vertical bombs
Or rabid rebels
Close our safe houses
Our borders
Close our very essence of heart and life . . . 

Nature’s pity crashes on our Soul
Begging us to alter course
To remember our Selves
But
The sea is dark
The desert scorching

The Pity needed is in our very 
Pulsing
Blood-filled 
Heart - - -
Picture
Proudly powered by Weebly
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
    • Contact
  • Directing
    • Contact
  • Acting
    • Contact
  • Teaching
    • Contact
  • Poetry
    • Contact