Silent Tears Poem by Job Ombati

Like those of a fish
Mine I have shed a plenty.
At the altar of love.
At times
In the market place of hecklers.
Most I have shed
By the rivers of destitution.
Where hyenas converge for restitution.

Those that I have shed a plenty.
Deep in the forest of nights.
When cats mourn in love.
But for me nothing to mourn about.
Though still I mourn.

Many that I have shed a plenty.
Most in silence.
Some drip inside.
Several concealed.
For the face must conform.
Isn't that what all do?

Most that I have shed a plenty.
Of the unborn child.
Mother's squashed with their child at suck.
Father's strip-caned before their children.
Food snatched from starved children.
A child waiting for a vulture postmortem.

Often those that I have shed a plenty
For a ten-year-old mother.
Plucked from her mother's teat.
For the destitute boy in an unforgiving street.
All alone to father himself.
And later on a city morgue table.
Body 2-2-4-5-7...
Male...of African origin...cause of death... lynching.

A lot more that I shed.
Poems for Humanity