The destinations you wouldn’t want to visit
Wouldn’t want to vacate your precious time to visit
Wouldn’t want to exert yourself examining your findings
Only to struggle with fathoming the scenery
Blissful is a conscience glittered with ignorance
To venture to these places
Requiring the ability to relate with
Least of all stomach the poverty is paramount
There’s a crass stench of adversity
Apply an empathetic lens for your snapshots of these foreign lands
For beneath flow great wonders
Secrets
Tales
Fantasies
All precious gems waiting to be mined
Yet to the naked eye
The earth appears barren and depleted
Marred by an eerie over-glow
Crusts of stale negativity
Misleadingly trite to the touch
Have formed overtime
But buried by the ash and dust
It’s marrow is rich and wholesome
Awesome and intriguing are the layers
But you’ve got to patiently chisel away at their flesh
That is if you want a glimpse of their soul
Hidden beneath the accumulation of experiences and influences
Confusions and dismay
There was once fresh stretches of morning dew coated pastures
Now succumbed to pollution
Deterring even the inhalation of it’s air
You instead opt for a distant stance
Where-from you point and stare with others from the coasts
(If there’s a chance it even fortuitously catches your gaze)
Lacking true desire for close-ups
Unless to report back to the more fortunate minds of their dire states
Empathy is not equipped for common voyages
You tell yourself
‘It’s bad enough where I’m from’
But that’s home
‘I don’t have to live with this’
Many take U-Turns
When they judge these books by their covers
Usually ‘weird’ or ‘crazy’
Not a soul has sojourned long enough
To look past an unpleasant motel room stay
No real effort to find potential
True essence and vibrancy
You lend only momentary thoughts…
What did it entail to be bred in such circumstances?
You see the smog of issues rise from the town
Turn your nose in disgust
With bias comparison to the aromas of your own
It’s dysfunctional
Who will sacrifice their time to tour their streets?
Sight-see the architecture of their structures?
Muse the halls of the museums and galleries?
The histories that paint the bigger picture
Try the local cuisine of their ideas and feelings?
Instead to fall distracted by the socially-deemed crimes
Malfunctioning road signals causing erratic thought traffic
Busy lives reel you back to one’s own cerebral fortress
Whilst in these forgotten places
Residents sit on their stoop
Doors open behind them
Watching the tourists roll by
Nobody wishing to delve inside
Believing their mind has a brand inviting…
‘Don’t Go There’
The Dark Horse 