LEONARD DABYDEEN

LEONARD

DABYDEEN

VILLANELLE FOR

CALIFORNIA EARTHQUAKE

From panic to pandemonium

Where Richter Scale measured impact

People screamed in delirium.

Californians cried in a hum

Packing, running with lives intact

From panic to pandemonium.

Earthquake roared like a rattled drum

Shattering buildings, all ransacked

People screamed in delirium.

Hurriedly people packed, fearsome

Of next tremor earthquake  attract

From panic to pandemonium.

Some paused, hoping the end did come

When earthquake rattles made more tract

People screamed in delirium.

Californians  live this hum-drum

Of an earthquake, yet on contact

From panic to pandemonium

People screamed in delirium.

SONNET ON MEXICAN BORDER CRISIS

Where children looking for food everyday

Hunger speaks louder to malnourishment

Their hope beyond expectation, they pray

Listening to their dire predicament.

Where Border guards reveal much hopelessness

Either in pretense, without much caring

About children in cages defenseless

This unbearable cry is perturbing.

Where children hallucinate a dream world

Without shape of what the future may bring

Their inhuman conditions are unfurled

Even for a blind eye to see their suffering.

Ask, Oh man, what has God wrought unto you

To suffer our children in this purview?

CAGED CHILDREN

(a fib poem)

Can

you

hear them

crying loud

voices echoing

caged children are starving for food.

Confined in abominable

space beyond freedom

to breathe air

their breath

lost

hope.

HAIKU ON HUMMING BIRDS

Glowing dawn sunshine

heralds humming birds to chirp

with refreshing breeze.

LEONARD DABYDEEN

LEONARD DABYDEEN, Guyanese-Canadian  poet and member of The Society of Classical Poets (USA), Life Member of MetVerse Muse (India); member of Muse India Journal; member of Muse-Pie Press (Shot Glass Journal and Fib Review), contributor to Gandhi Way Newsletter (UK), contributor to Pratilipi blog: https://english.pratilipi.com/ My blog: https://ldabydeen.wordpress.com/ Free-lance writer and book reviewer; author of Watching You, A Collection of Tetractys Poems (2012), and Searching For You, A Collection of Tetractys and Fibonacci Poems (2015).