Who Speaks for the Children?

I am dishartened every tme I read an expose` of child services in the cities. Ir seems that the sheer number os these cases are overwhelming the system and these children get lost in the shuffle!'' Surely, there must be a better way...these children ar

Who Speaks for the Children

 

Living in hell

Battered and bruised

Who speaks for the children

Frightfully abused

By parents who beat them

For trivial things.

They live in fear

Of what the next

Punishment brings.

Surrounded by alcohol

Drugs, poverty and strife

They don't stand a chance

In this wretched life!

Sent to some foster homes

Where the motive is greed

They are merely tolerated

That's not what they need.

 

Where are the gate keepers

The watchdogs of hell

Appointed to monitor them

Wherever they dwell.

Overwhelmed by the numbers

They finally lose track

Of some of these victims

And never look back.

The headlines read

"Children found dead"

They could have stopped it somehow

Can you tell me, someone

I'd like to know

Who'll speak for those children NOW?

 

Copyright© 2004 Beatrice Boyle

(All rights reserved)

 

Reviews

[Legion]

No one. I gave up on child services years ago while I worked in a Texas school system after I tried to get their help to get a young girl out of a home with an extremely abusive father (possibly sexual as well, but not proven). They did nothing. She finally ran away. Still, all these years later, don't know what happened to her after that. Hopefully she found happiness and someone who cares, but in this world, I am not holding my breath. I feel your frustration. I really do. Well written.

[Shellie]

I really love this, it hit home for me. I am fostered, well...was... from when I was 10 days old and I'm still at home nearly 25 years later whn it was supposed to be temporary placement. I have one biological brother, one foster sister one foster brother and an adopted brother, adopted sister and my other sister is my foster parents biological child, but we are all treated the xact same...other children have come and gone and some of the cases were very sad ones. The people I call Mam and Dad, they are the ones who fought for our rights...the right not to be MADE see my real mother when it was so upsetting and confusing, they are the ones who found the right school for my dyslexic and ADHD brother and sat for hours with him until he was happy in his new school. I gave up on the services years ago, i do not point at them all but the ons i know do nothing, and I was one of the VERY VERY lucky ones, I thank God for my lif and where I am, but if we were ignored what happns to all the others in bad situations? Your poem will hit a few of those you speak of in the face and I hope it hurts. I love this so much, your compassion and voice is heard and spokn aloud. This is one of those pieces that 'shouts' out. Love it, well done.

[Wildecat]

Way to go Grandma Bea, we need more people like you who aren't afraid to speak their minds. Well done.

[tinalouise]

Such a heartfeld piece Bea, done with all the passion and frustration the subject deserves. We currently have an advert on TV that shows a young woman committing a crime for drugs - we are made to feel she is part of a decayed section of society.

Then the advert flashes back through her life again and again, faster and faster... starting with a small child slapped about and made to feel useless, through her teenage years in a war-torn house with abusive parents until eventually we see her again as the advert started. For me this is so important.

We view the abusers as evil - yet the abusers were (I believe statistically) nearly always abused. The cycle repeats and repeats. For each abused child that needs saving - the abusive adult needs helping. Each of them was someone that had no gate-keeper, no protector and no-one to speak for them. Once they were small, once they were innocent and full of the potential that life gifts us with.

I love your compassion Bea and I love how it translates so well to this art of poetry.

Namaste,
Tina x