Sunday Poem Series
Photo of Darfur refugee by Flickr user Hoisaeter used under a Creative Commons license.
(Freddie would like to remind you that the views expressed in the poem are the views of the poet and not necessarily the same as his own.)
Once in Awhile a Protest Poem
by David Axelrod
Over and over again the papers print
the dried out tit of an African woman
holding her starving child. Over
and over, cropping it each time to one
prominent, withered tit, the feeble
infant face. Over and over to toughen
us, teach us to ignore the foam turned
dusty powder on the infant’s lips,
the mother’s sunken face (is cropped)
and filthy dress. The tit remains;
the tit held out for everyone to see,
reminding us only that we are not so hungry
ogling the tit, admiring it and in our
living rooms, making it a symbol of starving
millions; our sympathy as real as silicone.
