Even a ripple makes a difference

Knead my anger to bread
      of common wheat  
Salt my wounds 
      red with fresh thyme
         
Against killing fields of innocents' blood
Against greed of tyrants & power mad leaders

Puncture through my chest 
      songs of hurts & injustices
Petrol my voice  
      to ripple through dark alleys 

Let me wear your
      grease of sinful shame
      graveyard of sadness

Keel me with rain-
drops 
of compassion
clouds of forgiveness 

Born in me,
person, 
not a beast nor coward

Let them not make me a stone 
and let them not spill me.

Otherwise kill me



“Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.”
⁃ Louis MacNeice
from, ‘Prayer before Birth’


Posted for dVerse Poets Pub - Bold Tributes hosted by Amaya  Engleking.   Join us when the pub doors open at 3pm EST.   Here is the prompt:   We’ll pay tribute to a non-violence or social justice poem by embedding a powerful quote into our own poems, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Please come join us as there are several example quotes to use, from Thomas Hardy to Margaret Walker, or you can find your own quote inspiring peace.