Portside

Protestation

By B.L.P. Simmons

“They (Good and Bad) change with place, they shift with

race; and, in the veriest span of Time,

Each Vice has worn a Virtue’s crown; all

Good was banned as Sin or Crime:”             “The Kassidah” by Haji Abdu e-Yezdi

I am dark, a shadow

obscure.  The unseen,

the feared, unknown.

Against me the pallid are visible

a mist; we are mist and shadow.

I am hungry, it’s a crime,

but I am not the criminal.

I have no home, this is a crime,

but I am not the criminal.

I cannot read, nor write,

am I the criminal?

I have a voice, only to wail,

to shout in strangled protest.

A crime, but who is the criminal?

I, inheritor of rags and empty solicitations

am heir to an idea that diminishes,

for the lording over by strangers.

I am female, scorned mother of all life

I am child, helpless in a vast place.

I am animal, rock, plant;

I will not bend to man’s doings,

by the unseen lords of avarice.

All being appears a crime,

but who, who truly,

is the criminal, and who the judge?

B.L.P. Simmons, a semi-nomadic St. Lucian, lived and wrote in California.  She now lives and writes in Costa Rica. Her writings appear on the blog Mango Musings.