Karma Poem by Bob Bowers

People get what they deserve
My neighbor said,
Through teeth stained
Coffee brown
Our national betel nut
His version of karma
Payback
Lost lives lived badly
Even nations have karma
Isabelle Allende tells me
From National Public Radio
Explaining how
September 11 begat September 11
The right wing Chilean coup
That is
Bringing down upon America
Fury and flames
Flaming twin tower
Armageddon

Perhaps they are right,
It is karma,
Payback,
The right thing
That Valerie Charlene Lucie hanged herself
Alone
In her bedroom
A karmic product of her vanity
For it all came down to her hair
Her long flowing locks
Her angel wisp threads
cascading down
Her back
She didn’t want her hair cut
So she succumbed
There
In the shower
To her father
Who raped her
Upon threat of cutting her hair
Her long, golden, angel’s hair
If she did not
Did not
Suc-
Cumb
To him
There
All alone
In the shower.

She was eleven.
Karma took her away.


10/16/03


Dateline Syracuse, NY. October 16,2003. An 11-year old girl apparently hanged herself in her bedroom after being raped by her father earlier in the day, the police said.
Valerie Charlene Lucie was found dead on Sept.30. Timothy Lucie,46, was arraigned Tuesday on charges of rape and sodomy and released yesterday on $35,000 bond. Lucie told the police he raped the girl in the shower after threatening to cut her hair unless she did what she was told, authorities said.