Termites: Gnawing Pockets !!!

I saw this lady in a metro train with a baby collapsed in her arms and the myriad of people passing by her, with not a single kind heart taking a single step towards her to offer her help.... We, the supposed "Samaritans"!! Huh!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw her from a distance, perched on the footpath,

Hardly draped into anything

Shreds of clothes hanging loose on her body

Disheveled hair, strands flying away revealing the receding hairline

Heavy eyelids burdened with the cruelties of life

Blues of eyes colorless with harshness

Rolling drops acknowledging the inadvertent acceptance

Parched lips parted in a futile prayer

The soul pleading silently for the life of the inanimate body of the child, laid in front of her

Living or dead, hard to make out

Not older than ten years

An uncorked empty bottle of medicine tethered to the uncontrollable wind

Some bread crumbs littered around his body

A flock of crows eyeing at the sumptuous food

While dogs licking it clean taking breaks only to sniff at the almost lifeless body

An old brass plate sparsely filled with some dried fallen leaves

No nickel shines from the plate

No one from the passing crowd seems to have even noticed the shattered lady awaiting the end of her child’s life

As I come closer I find her body paralyzed with pain

I give her a sympathetic look and move on with the crowd

Just like everyone else, disappearing from the pitiful beckoning sight

Ignoring, if any urges to help, spare two words of kindness or stroking the cold bodies breathing life

“I can’t let such things gnaw at my pocket and neither do I have the time for something so unimportant, after all it does not help me get a new business deal or does it!”

 I just move on like everyone else.

 

 

Reviews

[The Outlaws' Song]

This is absolutely brilliant and heart-breaking!!! I've been in this situation many times in my life..Romania, my country, is known all over the world for its strays and beggars!! Many of us pass them by, ignoring, not even noticing they are there...dirty, hungry, helpless, dead!!! Many of us think they're just pretending!!!! We pass them by regardless to their fate..without any regrets or second thoughts. Sometimes, but very rarely, someone would give them money or ask them if they're okay...but these people, probably used to our ignorance, are savage, they have probably forgotten how to receive someone else's help.
Even scientific theories have proven that the more people there are around a stranger in need of help the less likely he/she will receive actual help. You know why??? Because each person will think the same "Why should i help him. There are so many people around...someone else should do it"...hilarious and cruel in the same time.

Your poem is a great lesson about how selfish and self-centered we are...and we don't even know about it.
We pass the helpless by....the regrets pass us by ...so fast!!!!

I loved your creation and i will definitely save it in my library!!! Awesome work!!!!!
Many many kudos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Nicholas Hallows]

This is a case of the message being more important than its container. However with your words you create the picture very vividly. I agree with the other reviews.
It is sad (understatement) how selfish we can be. Wrapped up in our own lives and our own 'problems' we become distracted from the rest of the world.
Well said.
NH

[Brenda Sue]

So heart-breaking, yet people do it all the time. Just pass by while others hurt. I agree your poem is a great lesson about how selfish and self-centered our world has become. I remember when it was different but now people are afraid to help it seems. Wonderfully penned. Great job.

[Candle in the wind]

We carry the burden of so many such pangs of guilt in our heart , so often have we looked away refusing to acknowledge such cruel reality! It so ironical that we stifle our desire to reach out as we are scared of I don't know what - maybe the ordeal or the embarrassment or the hazards of humanity!The vividness with which you have have recreated not just the scene but the usual dilemma and the final failure to answer a call is uncanny. You truly have a beautiful soul God bless you!you have raked up many memories of such instances when i have run away and cursed myself and yet thanks be to God once in a while I have summoned up the guts to reach out.