What Thunder Hides

Thunder, it has no mercy.

Such raucous behavioral potency of politicians expressed 

as loud-voiced, booming, commanding clout 

as they ask for sponsorship to fill the coffers and the purse. 

Overwhelming the weeping of the indigent. 

The bawling pomp of entertainers, 

the grandiosity of names in opulent letters 

on mammoth marquees, sidewalks. 

Blatant, boorish buoyancy

while the homeless sprawl 

next to these vulgar monuments. 

The foolish roaring of those who are imagining oppression,

misreading persecution and false strife into all things.

Rendering inaudible the feeble cries of those hard broken,

the keening of those whose struggle is real.

What thunder hides is misery, like knives that slip into the heart:

Bring mercy unto them; the lost, the hungry.

Let your gentle voice be heard above the boom,

for those who have none.