Read Poems by Anita Joyner

Poem

Hope

Here I lay for all the world to see.
I am gutted,
Faded;
A dying phenomenon.

I used to be on the tip of every tongue.
Now I crouch in the subways of your minds.
Your children do not know me.
It is hard to teach them what you yourselves have forgotten.

In days gone by, I made the stars shine for you.
When you summoned me, I was there;
Standing as the negotiator of wishes.
When the seas of expectation were bone dry,
I was the trickle that "sprang eternal".

Now children see me as "family" in gangbangers.
Teenagers inhale me from cans of paint.
Parents say they never knew me.
Here I lay; broken, saddened, but never beaten.
I am still the great negotiator.
                                          .abj.

Copyright © Anita Joyner | Year Posted 2018