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Mike Martin | + Follow Poet |
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Residential Schools

Take Heed

It was said unto the elders that their homes would be secure
Had they only known what their children would endure

Take heed of all the decades of residential schools
Believe it if you will, the elders are not fools

Forcibly removed by a team of red and blacks
Torn from loving arms from their shanties and their shacks

Disappearing from their homes, every child in turn
Never to be seen or heard from, never to return

Take heed that in these schools, times were always grand
The money flowed in freely, you can understand

Take heed that children perished though, each day another one
In the hands of a priest or the clutches of a nun

Consumed as if a meal, a carcass here or there
Discarded as if trash, without a single care

Take heed that someone could inflict, on any living thing
A fate so horror-ific, that death is welcoming

Take heed that someone else could live it, never mind a child
Then perish to the wind, no death decree compiled

Take heed of all the the fees, for every child in school
But only for the living, that was the golden rule

Take heed, a child of three, whoever that could be
We haven't lost someone that young, a mystery to me

To implicate God's hand in ways to make you cringe
Epitome of hypocrisy, a rape and killing binge

Take heed all you poli-techs, you own the sins of others
Those who live on pedestals, and murdered their own brothers

Yours to make amends, not just to be sorry
Yours to try and heal, while they still bask in glory

Take heed as they topple, it might help ease the pain
Chisel at the emptiness, wash away the stain

Take heed all you bigots, you never walked a mile
Never saw the other side, never beaten for a while

Take heed all you mounted reds, your reckoning is near
Take heed in the Vatican, I can see your fear

Copyright © Mike Martin | Year Posted 2021

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