This is Christmas

my friends,

and you are full

of joy and too

much drink.

 

But a child is dying

on the street,

a child is dying, my friends;

a child is sold on the streets,

grabbed with hands

soiled by greed.

 

Can you really stomach

your Christmas lunch;

I guess you can,

if you turn the other way,

if you turn the other cheek.

 

If you turn and say

that it’s just another day

of living in this world of

contradictions,

in this wonderland,

where children are

stricken with poverty,

hunger and disease,

or given a gun,

or used for fun.

 

A child is dying on the street,

but I have nothing to say,

and there is no will

and there is no way,

across the borders that divide

this lonely child

living on the street

from us,

from all of us here.

 

23/12/2016