Tag Archives: POETRY

Poetry

Publisher: Kuumba Books

 

Uplifting, motivational, and empowering, the poems in For Orphans, Lost
Children, Youth, and Whom It May Concern celebrate resilience, compassion,
spirituality and, above all, the power of dreams to spawn hope for the
future.

Rolly Lambert Fogoum’s second poetry collection clusters heartfelt
and passionate poems speaking to orphans, the deliberately silenced, and the
ignored. By turns lyrical, introspective, and epistolary, the
collection’s force builds as the poems appeal to our compassion. Often
directly addressing the forsaken, this collection takes us on a journey
through empathy, chronicling painful times, but also heralding hope for
better times to come.

EXCERPT

Introduction

She walked and reached out to a human:

Please help, I am starving, she said kindly

It was freezing as she spoke to the man

She looked both tired and sleepy.

 

She was trying but she couldn’t walk

She was in pain, with blisters on her feet

It was a miracle that this little girl could talk

She was exhausted and had nothing to eat.

 

She was pale, like a rat in a trap

Her journey must have been a long trial.

The man wore a coat, nice boots and a cap,

She had been waiting for him for a while.

 

Her clothes had holes, her shoes were gone

On her shaky little legs, she was standing.

The man drank coffee, giving her none

“Sir, please” looking at him, she was mumbling…

 

But he didn’t hear or he pretended

She muttered: “Please sir, can you help me?”

Then, the man looked annoyed and offended,

As if this little girl he didn’t want to see.

 

And before she sighed, the man walked away.

Bending on her knees, she fell on the floor

He was her last hope, it was her last day,

She died in the old clothes that she wore.

 

Oh lord, this is a sad and painful story

Was that man really a human or not?

For that little girl I feel so sorry,

I want to give her everything that I got.

 

This is why I write this little book

In the world, many children die every day

For some kids, mom is not there to cook

Others are abandoned on the way.

 

This book is for the lost children,

It’s for the orphans and kids who suffer

For the humans who treat children badly

For a parent wishing a child to be greater.

 

This book is for those who lost their brother(s),

You who have no one to laugh at your joke

This is a book for those who lost their sister(s),

For the little bro and sis who are hungry and broke.

 

This book is for the children who are crying,

Crying for being abandonment sadly;

It’s hard to have lost parent(s) or sibling(s)

And have no food, no shelter, no family.

 

This book is for all the children, everywhere

It is for them that these lyrics I feature

This book is for everyone, anywhere

Children are the hope of the future.

 

This book is for you who are now a widow

And for you who live alone as a widower

For men and women who live with sorrow

Your children are gone, their days over.

 

A man is not his words or his surface

A man is his heart, his deeds and actions

Same goes for women at any given place

We are defined by our social interactions.

 

This book is one of my actions indeed

And I encourage you, dear readers

To keep giving, and help those kids in need

The world will be better, children are future leaders.