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In My Own Backyard
In My Own Backyard
My heart is hard from evil’s rain
That pounds with daily fare
Of mankind’s calloused shafts of pain
Shot round me ev’rywhere
I can’t recall a heinous act
That gave me pause to cry
I simply watch and don’t react
To news paraded by
But ev’ry now and then there flies
A bolt, which I can’t stop
A piece of news seen through new eyes
And armor’s rivets pop
The phosphor glow burned in my mind
A mother marched away
Five tiny corpses left behind
Stark headlines for a day
I’ve viewed death indifferently
There’s thousands that I’ve seen
Conveyed to me conveniently
Upon a glowing screen
Why now? Why does this common tale
Spur deep within my psyche
A slow sustained and constant wail
My muse, a wounded nike
Perhaps, instead of us and them,
The way that I view life
I’ve looked upon the face of one
Who could have been my wife
This one has struck so close to home
That I have seen the gray
Between the black and white filters
That tinted life my way
But whether this or something else
Perhaps it only matters
My cozy world is redefined
My old one, left in tatters.
© 2001 Bart Breen
