KarMel Scholarship 2008

 

Poem

“Green Glass Prisms on a Bed of Cobblestones”

By Neil Schleifer

 

 

 

Desciption of Submission: “A poem about a random hate crime” - Neil

 

 

 

The silence of a blue-black night is shattered by an explosion of green glass

A Heinekin missile launched in anonymity from the safety of the dark alleyway

Punctuated by the hoarse pronouncement: FAGGOT!

I stand, dazed, when logic tells me that safety lies somewhere else

I don’t even bother  look around to try to find the stealthy terrorist

But stare into the dozens of shards of broken reflections

Trying to see

What in me

Could provoke such hate

My face .. plain and average

My clothing … GAP mediocrity

There is no shift to my hips when I walk, though I do not walk;

No lisp in my voice when I speak…though I do not speak.

I see nothing in the jagged green mirrors to provoke such hate

I cannot find logic in broken glass for there is no logic to be found

Should I feel relief that this attack was random

Or sadness that some poor soul

Shivering in the shadows of a dark alley

Needs to reclaim his power

in a shower of glass.

 

 

 

 

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