Barry Prize Poetry Winner - Never-Coming Peace (A Golden Shovel Poem inspired by Maya Angelou)

Can we

Ever live with this

Never-coming peace? No. People

Going on

A sad journey, with a

Bunch of small

Minded people and

Those few lonely

Souls, lost on this planet,

Traveling, through

Trying to act casual

As we drift off in Space,

Thinking about our past

All others aloof,

Soaring past stars

Across

The universe. The

Difference between our way

And theirs, because of

This we were indifferent

To our suffering, burning under the heat of a thousand suns,

So we journeyed to

A

Place, a destination

To where

It’s safe, all

Of it. The signs

Sent from the heavens tell

Us,

Is it

Even real? Is

It really possible?

And

Why is it so imperative

That

We must go now and learn

Their way, a

Marvelously brave,

Way, and

The most startling

Way. It’s the truth,

It is. And

Soon when

It comes we

Will be ready, it will come

And wee will go to

The battlefield, but this time it

Will not win, this time we will send it to

A place where it will never see the

Light of day

The final day of

Peacemaking

Will come, but not when

It’s all fake, we

Dream. We will release

It, our

Hopes are gone slipping through our fingers

Coming from

Beating fists

Harmful, full of

Hostility!

It will never end and

Hopefully we can allow

Pure

Hearts to finally breath in the air

But NO! We can only go to

The deep, clean, cool

Air in our

Dreams. With grave cuts in our palms

From when

We

Were hurt inside, for no one will come

To

Rescue us. They are all scared of it

For right when,

As soon as the

Curtain

Drops, falls

On

The poor people, the

People acting as the minstrel

Putting on a show

For it, although all it can think of

Is its hate

And

All of those faces, our faces

Have been sooted

From work and with

The beatings from its scorn

All of us are

Tired as we are scrubbed

Free of pain, scrubbed clean

And when

Those bloody battlefields

Are clean and

We are no longer trapped in Coliseum

We will stop saying NO!

And we will take the longer

Route to heaven, no longer have to rake

Ourselves free of happiness, but our

Happiness doesn’t matter to it, it is unique

And

Will never love a particular

Person, not any sons

Or ever us, and

It will kill daughters

Without waking up.

Even with

The

Hurt, pained and bruised

It will leave you dying and

Bloody

Lying on the grass.

Now without the slightest idea where to

Go, you’ll just lie

There in

Pain, identical

To the people lying on the plots

Next to you. They feel as if they are in

Foreign

Countries, dying in their own soil

Then when

That thing, the

Thing comes, that rapacious

Way of life, storming

Away, for all of

The

Days spent in churches

I know this is wrong

Days have turned to nights with screaming

Children causing a racket

And all the days I have been in

The

Temples

I know that soon we will all have

Ceased

Died, when

It comes the

Ship’s pennants

Will sink, we are

Scared, waving

For someone, anyone, to find us, not waving gaily

But instead waving when

All is lost, when the

Sun never shines, when banners

Never wave out in the open air of

The

World.

While we slowly tremble

Next to out stoutly

Shaped buildings out in

The

Harsh world, there’s no good

Here, we are never clean

Of our guilt, we are slowly drifting in the breeze

Soon when

We

Are done drifting and we come

To

A place without it,

It will come! We won’t be ready when

It does, we

Will let

Our people die, we will watch the rifles

Fire at our people as they fall

From

Their lives, ripping our

Joy straight from our hearts…Our shoulders

Are tired and

The children

Are dead, we will dress

Them in hurt and watch their

Pain spill out, we will put on faces of dolls

To hide in

Someone else’s skin. The flags

Of death have waved, there aren’t any flags of

Truce

When

It is here. It has taken over our land.

Planting mines

Ready to explode, ready to bring back all of

Our pain, our death

It will have

Been

Removed.

It will always be lurking and

Hunding

Us in the

Shadows even the aged

Will be targeted and cannot escape, whether they can walk

Or not, they will still be plunged into

Eternal darkness without mornings or evenings

Just full of

Never-coming peace!

WHY! Why does everything hurt, why when

Joy comes it’s ripped from us, why does our religious

Ritual

Matter it is

Not

Being perfumed

It is not being sugar-coated. We are really dying by

The

Pain, the smoke, the incense

Of

Our pain, our burning

Pain, as our flesh

Is torn right off our bodies and

Our childhood

Is destroyed, our dreams

Are

Not

Existent. As we are kicked

Awake.