Hand Puppets- For Contest
Hand Puppets
Hard, calloused and dirty, it pleaded with me.
It had no eyes, no face, no soul. Or so I thought,
or didn’t. Yellowed fingernails, dirt covered and
trembling faced upward as would a beggar’s
face. A sound, perhaps its voice, startled me. I
heard nothing but the plea from the open, soiled,
begging hand. It seemed to say: “please, sir, please,
I was once like you, one of you. I worked, as you can
tell by the sinewy strength now buried in despair’s dirt.
I touched – the cheeks of loved ones. I held – an infant,
a child, my child, and somehow lost my grip on all.
I have felt tears, my own tears, running through clenched
fingers yet not knowing whose tears they were or for whom
they were shed. I know cold, bone chilling, painful cold
and stiffness borne of pain, yet cannot, or will not,
reach for help and so I beg. Namelessly, facelessly,
but not shamelessly. For if I had eyes, I could not look
you in the face, nor could I smile or frown, or say thank you.
I am but a proffered hand in need, not of help but of
sustenance, not of kindness but of indifference, not of
awakening but of oblivion.”
I listened to the hand, looked not upon the face, and placed
a pittance against the enormity of the lifelines torment
and walked away. I looked at my hands and wondered
what story they told to those who took the time to look
at them, to listen to them. I covered my face with them,
and I too felt tears running through clenched fingers,
not knowing whose tears they were
or for whom they were shed.
John G. Lawless
2013
submitted to – Your best free verse poem –
sponsor – SKAT A
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