on white ribbon day (poem: guns can never love roses)

I’d like to dedicate this poem to victims of domestic violence.
It’s one of those silent terrors that is rarely spoken about and if you do, you are often stigmatised or otracised. For our men to take action on white ribbon day is a great initiative.

Have you ever seen a gun marry a rose?
I witness this every day.

The silent trigger whirs and shoots the
Bullet through the anticipating cathedral
And hits home with the sound of “I do!”

However,
The wounds are hidden;
Covered by the merriment of a
Vacation in the Bahamas
And buried by the euphoric
Tides that sweep the opening retreat.
And as the curtains close on the
Maiden night of a newly-decorated home,
The damage dawns

The morning breaks with a trickle
And the thick red of a primus rose sets itself through -
As the quarrel over money
Echoes itself through the bony walls

Have you ever seen a gun marry a rose?
I see it being staged every day.

The rose is only a bud
Her white dress is dragged
Down the aisle;
Her arms clenched firmly onto her fathers
And the thorns on her stem protects her

She stares at the gun at the altar

He is dressed in black

His trigger behind his back

Then “bang!”

The noise unheard

But the pain is shown
as the rose blooms
For merely awhile –
Allowing the tourist of the Bahamas
To see the dew drops gleam
On her pretty petals,
But the residents of her hometown
Will only see the wilting flower

Advertisement