Shame About That Poem by Neil Graham Marsden

Round every corner on every street,
just beyond our comfort zone,
Children cry themselves to sleep.
invisible to the Mothers and indifferent,
innocence gets slowly turned to black.
Frantic tiny hearts will tear alone tonight,
In silent emptiness only the dark will shield them,
Through their desperate hours of need.

Behind thick velvet curtains,
barbed wire hands molest
our babies as they sleep.
'How can that be? ' 'I can't believe! '
clawing for some ugly moral ground.
For sure you would have spoken out,
if only you had known?

Tomorrow you will greet the day
from safe warm arms and beds of feather down.
Perhaps dark dreams or pain invaded overnight?
Forget all that, you must prepare to fill
your conscience and your hearts brim full of you.
Pour the cereal in and adjust that grin,
you have a standard image to maintain.
Me, myself, and I.

Such ugly blame, by choice denied,
falls so un-squarely at our feet.
So easy then to disregard
the things we think we might have heard or seen,
So best drown out the truth with louder music,
Celebrate with a waltz to blind indifference,
as you hide there in the heavy shadows,
Humanity tucked well away from any accusing light.

So tomorrow as you turn and lock the door,
to quickly skip your merry whistling way.
Be sure to keep your head held pointed firmly at the sky,
For, living on your street, although a universe beyond,
That see through child that just quickly shuffled past you,
with her expression and her heart fixed on oblivion,
Might be her Daddy's 'special' little beauty queen.