Posts Tagged ‘Poverty’

Chapter II – A Sister’s Faith

Posted: March 22, 2016 in Poetry
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Intro: I had neglected to actually give context to Chapter I and what the story is about. Truth be told I hope I’ve left enough clues for it to be known. This chapter focuses on the sister in this story. Much of the inspiration came from a Nashville, Tennessee based band named Hammock.

This song in particular inspired this writing:
“The Silence”

Their website:
http://www.hammockmusic.com/

I try to draw inspiration from many places as experiment. This song in particular really is something…

1st Chapter: https://silentscholar.com/2016/03/15/once-upon-a-time-chapter-i/
And so it continues…

Chapter II – A Sister’s Faith

I see…
A beautiful woman…
Hides her face…
She refuses to tell…
So I’m forced to dwell in my thoughts…
Caught in my own sense of lost time…
I fail to realize that her story is being told through those eyes…
Peel back the layers of disguise…
Her eyes tell me so much…
Her Faith…

When she was young, she was betrothed to an animal…
Whose mandible dripped lust…
Spoke corrupt…
Each thought erupts as if the thought of being stuck with this animal was enough…?
No…She had to bear more…
A father who who struck her at his own whim…
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…”
The community refused to own their own…
For all had sinned and refused to partake in the righteous deed of helping to set her free…
So she was left alone…
Waiting to be taken away from the only home she’d ever known…

Now she’s with the animal whose rage could no longer be caged within the confines of his brainwashed soul…
The vote that his soul took was to be the tyrant of the household…
Each night the case closed with him violating her in shadows….
One wonders if she could even consent to this act…
With the pretense that she would face his wrath if she didn’t oblige…
Still to have a child is the content of many a women’s dreams…
To comment on the means to achieve this dream should be a travesty…

He pierced her hard…No love exchanged…
Just the excrements…
Much to the detriment of what the relationship should’ve been…
This was just the beginning of the many ordeals she would endure…
Yet it would be faith that kept her feeling secure…
A belief in a better day…
Yet…As the fluids keep flowing, loud sounds unaccompanied by the serotonin…
The seed is released…Deed is done…
In 9 months we should see the newborn…

She is now with child…Yet still her life is still an unending trial…
“Husband” is vile all the while the child grows…
The child can hear the fights that happen day and night…
He shakes…shakes…
She feels the pain…Red from the abuse husband the lays onto her beautiful face…
The baby feels her pain…Continues to shake…
Released… many weeks before he was due, due to the pain inflicted as he grew within her womb…
Born too soon…
He struggles to breathe…Mother can’t believe what she sees..
He came too early into this world to be saved…Soon after he’s laid to rest…
Wife now faced with the blame…
“You can’t carry my child!?”
“You’re weak and worthless!”

He continues to beat his wife in plain sight of the community with such impunity that he seems to be the only judge and jury…
Husband marries again…
Continues and unjust trend of unrepentant hate towards this sister in faith…
Cutoff from all her family and friends, she’s forced to dwell in this hellhole that’s also her home…
But in reality her husband “owns” her…
All she has is this corner she uses to pray for a better day…
For she is not so quiet after all…
On her knees…
Praying to the Lord to please let her be free…
All done in secret…

Once upon a Time – Chapter I

Posted: March 15, 2016 in Poetry
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Intro:

One of my earliest attempts at writing a story spanning multiple songs. Inspired by instrumental Raujika – Fairy Tale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4AhdzxFung

A total of 3 chapters were written with a 4th one on the mind, but for years I left the story unfinished. Until I stumbled across this gem from one of my favorite composers on YouTube: July – 되돌아가다

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCW_6ON33aU

I expanded it to a total of 7 chapters to complete the story. However I feel that there can be much more added as side stories and/or character studies. This is territory I’m not so familiar with lyrically, but have always wanted to take part in. I’ve changed my writing style over the years and that will be reflected greatly as more chapters are posted.

I’ve also written smaller stories in songs before such as Intensity:

https://silentscholar.com/2015/07/28/intensity-story-in-a-song/

But this is different. Hopefully it’s a worthy attempt on my part; certainly a heartfelt one for sure.

And so begins…

 

Chapter I – Little Boy’s Story

Once upon a time there was a little boy who wanted to go to school…Wanted to be something…Wanted to be a doctor…Wanted to help…Wanted to do good…

Father was farmer…Who’s Karma should’ve meant he would prosper…Instead the land lay decrepit…Father’s cheerful remarks remain tepid…Seems he stepped in too deep…Too poor to make ends meet…Dust lays under his kids’ bare feet…Dustbowl repeats…Is this the only life they will see? What a tragedy this story may turn out to be…

A man shows up to father’s “home”…Wanting to take all that father owns…Failed to pay back the loans…Little boy doesn’t understand the angry rants that the father must stand to hear…The Man leaves…Father stares…Little boy wonders…

While this little boy watches his father toil…The soil decays…It seems there is no way…Each day the sun’s rays seems to burn the family that still prays for rains…Physically drained…yet everyday they still pray….spiritually starved…How hard are their lives…? Once again that man appears…strikes fear in the father’s eyes…Tells his kids to go inside and be with mom…Through the paper thin walls, they can hear the sounds…As the father hits the ground…Stained with blood from the bruises and cuts he suffers at the hands of this merciless other…

Little boy goes to the local place…Tries to strengthen his faith through patience and prayer…Some of those around proceed to say that there is a way…As he listens closely…

There is a way to gain an education…Put food on the table…Finances to keep the family stable…Almost sounds like a happy fable…With a moral that says faith rewards us all…Stay Strong! Stay Strong!

That’s what the teachers say…Nothing more amazing than seeing that smile on the little boy’s face…Knowing today he could stuff his face full with food with no bills due…No more loan sharks…The days that were so hard are in the past…With the math and reading the little boy’s face is teeming with light and hope for the day in which he could serve his community and his Lord in the right way that’s personified through his dreams…Wishing he could help those with few, if any means…Such an innocent boy with so much hope…

Every day he goes home and smiles…Father can’t believe his eyes…Their prayers have finally been “realized”…”Angels” provide the “beginning” to a new life with less strife…Little boy learns to read and write…Each night his eyes close, confident with path he’s chosen…Connected by the beams of light in the night sky…A wondrous sight indeed…Yet thoughts in his mind continue to chide him for a reason we will all see…But for now he drifts into a peaceful sleep…Mother tucks him in…For a little boy requires love to become a man…Love is often the last piece that stands to fall when all else is lost…

As the days pass…

Little boy keeps learning more about the world…His thoughts shaped by those who teach…Molded into a human being with a belief that can never be breached…Now preaches to the princes and paupers on how to live proper…Surrogate father approves of this “son” and wonders if he could be another one…A beacon of hope to the masses…A hero…

“Do you want to be a hero?”

“Do you want unmatched praise?”

He offered him a way towards unlimited praise that would permeate through all the societal cracks and crevices…the beginning of his genesis into a legend…He makes the suggestion…Little boy’s mind, heart, and soul are now all torn…What to do…? What to do…?

I…I choose…

Surrogate father prepares him for more lessons to learn in this life…Shares heart-wrenching stories of sin and redemption…Little boy feels so much apprehension…realizes the only way his ascension would be secured would be to endure this “rite of passage”…

Starts to learn a Sacred Text…Passage after passage…Perfecting his inflections…Never ending attention is paid towards each divine line…He becomes a mental scribe…He trains his thoughts towards the words of “God”?

If Poverty was a Man

Posted: January 22, 2016 in Poetry
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Finished draft.

If Poverty was a Man {Draft}


Wonder if the original message was maintained…
___
Imagine this problem…
One so prevalent…
Were to be condensed into one so malevolent being…
How would he be perceived…?
We say he…
As one known tradition…
Tells of how he has caused so much pain…

Yet we tolerate him…
Let him wreak havoc upon so many…
As if their lives are not worth a bit of sympathy…
Not even a silent cry…
So quickly we forget the real victims…
As we often blame them for his sins…
Rather than those who have helped him…
Us along with the system…
Built with his blessings…

Telling us the world is ours to take…
Make…and of course break…
Leave nothing but scraps for the next generations…
Often wondering who in the end will be paying…
For our misdeeds…?
Those damn shortsighted needs…
Leave so many aggrieved…

Watch their pleas…
Perhaps silently glee…
At just how great our own lives can be…
Not knowing…
Or perhaps ignoring…
The truth…
That we are He…
____

If Poverty was a Man {Draft}

Posted: December 31, 2015 in Poetry
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Intro: A line from an old text re imagined…

Imagine if this problem…
One so prevalent…
Were to be condensed into one so malevolent being…
How would he be perceived…?

We tolerate him…
Let him wreak havoc upon so many…
As if their lives are not worth a bit of sympathy…
Not even a silent cry…
So quickly we forget the real victims…
As we often blame them for his sins…
Rather than those who have helped him…
Us along with the system…
Built with his blessings…

Have we no sense of what’s happening…?

Poor People’s Song

Posted: May 30, 2013 in Poetry
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Introduction: This is a little more political, but strong feelings nonetheless.

Dedicated to those ravaged by poverty…

To all those of so suffer so much…All that carries people to next day is necessity…Struggling to survive…Each night is so beautiful…But when we have a neo-fuedal system…We end up with inevitable victims…The ones who grow and harvest for us…from the farthest corners numbs us to their pain…We care more about what we crave rather than them…So we “immunize” ourselves from their suffering…Letting them fend for their own…Leaving them prone to be hurt…hurt..

Another one of those deceptive nights…Disaster strikes again…The earth shakes…And in its wake, more poor people again suffering sad fates…People just trying to maintain their lives are subjected to more strife…So many die…So many disappear…Next day will confirm their worst fears…All is lost…
So much rubble…Couple that with the lack of help from the haves…They don’t care about the things like Richter scales…Screaming for help but to no avail…They wonder why do they have to suffer the wrath when it’s always the rich who take…? When will justice come their way…?

The next day we see bodies strung up…crushed…eyes flushed with tears and blood…Trying to parse through the puddled mud…Trying to picture some of their last moments…Hoping some passed in peaceful sleep…But with such damage so steep that hoping requires me to suspend belief…A moment so brief now feeds so much grief…Products of fiefdoms or castes…What ever you call it, it’s the math that factors into all disasters…When will we, the guilty be held accountable for keeping all that’s bountiful…while leaving the poor to be hit by disaster…

The cost of our materialistic privilege is their lives…We blind ourselves to the dirt mixed with blood, sweat and tears…to produce what we eat and wear…We never think twice about the pain that so many must bear…Then we blame them for their predicaments…Or pity them…Not understanding we are the “humans” who did this to them…We forced them into danger zones just so they bring their needs and our greed back to often shattered homes…Many won’t even grow…Taken too soon…I look at myself…Ask myself…
How could you…?
I have no answer…