Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Question by Sheila Jon Pritchard

This poem is by Sheila Jon Pritchard. It is published somewhere, and I'll try to figure that out and post a link to buy the book.

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Trying to write about my life and how I came to love poetry is like trying to structure a London fog. I suppose I have to thank my eccentric parents for this because they taught the family nothing about reality. We were only invited to ask questions. This we did by creating our own family plays. I, being the youngest, was assigned only to minor roles, always fumbling my lines. Our scripts were saturated with imponderables like, why are we here? Who are we? I told my father I knew the answer. I found it one night while talking to God. "You couldn't have," he informed me. "He doesn't exist. He died in the eighteenth century. In England."

Question

Who shot the bullet into the heart of the world?
Where are the secret saboteurs who stab the will,
shatter resolve, choke the life flow in a single thrust?

Where do these destroyers hide, these inconsequentials
who power nothingness into the seat of God
In you? In me?

Does the massacre begin at home?
A silent grievance, a flush of humiliation,
a slight forgotten,
or so you thought!

Does the blood spurt from a ruptured belief,
a man lost in the bewilderment of the age,
a woman betrayed?
Or does it birth in the seed of a child
planted and nurtured in a world
kidnapped by its own fear?

Sheila Jon Pritchard

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