Raped
Dead beat train, full of zombies (Poem based on a NY Times recent article about a woman raped on a train, near Philadelphia, U.S.A.)
Twitter tweets; birdie sleeps; freedom with no responsibility
a blue birdie flees; chirping free; she glees: “It’s a free world!”
Is it really? Not for you and me
My dear characters; I remember your story; how you struggled from 150 to 280 characters and still you survived and let the people of the world speak their minds!
Breaking free from traditions; for a voice to be heard; measured by word count; short formed is the measurable deal
and then the co-founder of Twitter; founded a Medium to hook us with more words and for that we all are happy
were 280 characters not enough to find ourselves? On this losing bet, we did surrender ourselves; what will we say on our deathbed?
a blue birdie flew away; once selling bittersweet feeds; stat beats
drawing in people, from across the world; a genie in a bottle; our Twitter feeds
cultural feasts, release the beasts; world leaders and their tweets; celebrities, joined the blue birdie flight to rise high and fan the sky; hanging from clouds of fame, to their name; Oh, so much to sell, too much to tell!
O what treats and world war three; broke the internet; in pieces so tiny; an algorithm picks the numbers so easily; stacking up against all odds; the mighty lords
the hunger games begin; he fished, and the onlookers banked on a few chips; fish and chips with nasty dips
bring in the popcorn too; we’ll not take sides and watch one burn an aromatic flame out; a born fire, his desires; roasting marshmallows of shallow emotions; O what a shame; your averting eyes
O but why shall we intervene; Oh, no! Let someone else clean up the slate, for we prefer our peace; so we’ll be like the three lost monkeys; not seeing, not hearing, not speaking about any atrocity!
let me break the news to you; I will write the truth and nothing less than what I believe; you can hide, but you cannot run from the police
what to believe; how to relieve? A young woman boarding a train in Philadelphia at 10 pm was sexually assaulted first and then raped
but the onlookers looked, and they shot; O yes they shot a video frame; shame on them; complicit to an ongoing, horrific crime that lasted eight minutes
no one called 911; until a new passenger boarded the train and the police rushed to the crime scene and caught the man red-handed
the 35-year-old man was convicted and charged guilty, but what about the onlookers who did nothing to stop the crime; for the convict was unarmed and homeless
O humanity; you failed women yet again! Now I see the wisdom behind; what my mother always advised me about: “No place is safe at night for a woman to be; lonely places, dark nights, barren alleys; monsters lurk in the moonlight’s shadow, ever so stealthily”
we are just dummies in this ploy; shall I buy the book for dummies?
You stand still, watching silently while a woman was violated in a moving train; no emotions strained; my heart, drained by your disdain; Oh, what a shame; no one to protect a helpless woman calling for help
O but why would you display such ignorance; no one cared; what if she was one of your own and you had not known; would you do the same and look outside the window again?
O people on the train; you ignored a woman’s plea for help and failed humanity; you showed no kindness and no mercy!
Maybe; I need to read the book for dummies and master the psyche behind zombie behavioural patterns; how do I become well-versed and reach the brain dead through my moving feeds
a few souls slumbered for so long that they died without passing on to the next world; they live in a purgatory; alive yet dead; the living dead, in their head; no need for ‘Woke’ rallies, when folks are in deep prerogative, REM sleep!
let them sleep; the next generation will not care on your deathbed as well or listen to your consistent pleas
karma is not kind for those who are blind; what you sow, so shall you reap
life is a bullet train; you never stopped to save a woman; no cries for help reached your ears; your eyes deflect what you fail to reflect
life’s speedy train will board on many more passengers and will not stop for you to shake off your beliefs
sleep in peace tonight for ignorance is bliss or else how will you ever sleep
you did nothing to stop a monster from slashing an angel's white wings short; no freedom to fly away, she is but trapped; strapped on a moving train!
a dark night; no knights in sight; on a moving train, she lost her peace while you proceeded to the next stop; what will it be, still asleep or finally woke to face reality?
dusting away your responsibility; life is dusk; you dawned, too darn early!
© Dazzling Shene 2021
Thank you for reading my poetry :)
Thank you to the editors of ‘Genius in a Bottle’, for publishing my poems. Thank you, Victor Sarkin, for this beautiful publication.
A special thank you to the editor, Raffaella Ferretti, for her meticulous editing advice on this piece; she has an eye for detail.
This incident about a woman raped 4 days ago is real; read the NY Times article here: