the stench of racism …



1.


when rancid racism festers in cocooned fungal minds, narrow and deep,



the insidious venom of prejudice begins to seep,

infecting the consciousness of the ones who choose to blindly sleep.

 
2.


espoused beliefs held so true, seem stripped of feeling,


appearing feigned, designed, and branded as compassion,


while holier-than-thou conceit leeches humanity out of chests swollen with self-righteous passion.


3.


the racism, the prejudice is deeply entrenched,


enveloping the afflicted like a comforting shawl,


needing little to fester, and even less to mutate,


into doctrines of cultural superiority, jingoistic bigotry, religious intolerance, and racist hate.


4.


am I guilty of succumbing to this virulent plague?


sipping my tea, shovelling more onto my heaving plate,


falling into comfortable oblivious blindness,

without care,


as the stench of prejudice, of racism, of spousal emotional, psychological, physical abuse, of neglect for the old and ill, of homophobia, islamophobia, female-genital mutilation, xenophobia, of fanaticism and extremism of all shapes and forms,



of the cries of the multitudes in despair,



floats, unnoticed,



a deadly pathogen in the evening air …