Launched in the first week of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Hellicane is the Web's most-visited site for original poetry by, for and about those affected by the tragic Gulf Coast hurricanes of 2005.
Friday, September 23, 2005
78. Put Those Cameras Down
by Maximus Parthas
For a while I thought that media circus should close tents
And take it all down
They were treacherous and treading on sacred ground
My righteous anger flared
Tears appeared
I was sickened and wishing they would just
Put that camera down
Stop showing me these images and sounds which abound
Revealing the hypocrisy of the factors before the disasters
Don't let
The slow...sad...pan
Of somebody' damn reality-cam
Make me examine my standing on the days before the tomorrows
Just leave me
To my sorrows
Of the days after
Yes, put that camera down, you must
Do not let us discuss our disgust in the spin being spun
From among the wicked web some have strung in their mixtures of pictures
Nor shall we speak on the fulfillment of the 66 books of scriptures
There's too much truth to be seen
Too much proof to be screened
So put that damn camera down
And let all sleuths be loosed from the scene
We really don't want to know what it all means
Let us slide our sins back under the carpet
We don't need nor want to know when this all started
Or how its all going end
Not when so many of our family and friends are recently departed
Can't you see we're broken-hearted?
Put that camera down
Please
Don't let these etched echoes of N'awlins blues
Be used to confuse the issues and tragedies we've grown to know so well
That racism, oppression, class-ism and poverty are killing us daily
And it seems
We've already gone to hell
Witnesses are always the last to know
Always the last to go or the first to be sacrificed and die so
I shall no longer subscribe to what you provide in this sly genocide slideshow
Put those cameras down
I don't need to see his story through your minion of eyes
Or through your legion of lies like some lord of the flies
My Lord is certainly willing.
And Yes, Jesus is Able
And any kind of Cain you may raise
Or Pilots you may praise can't kill him
Any Job you take won't shake his foundation of faith
And if there were but one righteous soul in the whole doomed Lot
It would be his face above all others
Paint him my Savior, my Maker, my Brother
My Father, King and Caretaker
The Shepherd who leads mine blind eyes to see
Beyond the tainted images you would keep sending unto me
So put that damn camera down
hellicane category: faith
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1 comment:
An excellent commentary on the role of media in covering crises. How many of us have felt sick of the endless barrage of images with little or improper context? A very refreshing read; very talented poetry.
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