Two Poems by Michael S. Morris

WHERE ARE THE KNIGHTS?

Where are the Knights –
that’s what I want to know?

When half a dozen young men
are raping a woman and people

are standing and watching,
a mob of giggles, leering.

where was the Knight to ride
into the fray? Where was the

human being who could see
their sister being pillaged?

Where are the Knights of old?
The Knights we need to day

to ride into Holy Cities to make
peace between ancient tribes.

Where are the Knights
riding into the ghettoes?

Who is their Arthur? Who
is the world’s, and the world’s

alone, sworn defender? Is it
not you in the pulsing

of your thoughts, you who would
cry out and wade into the fray?

No matter the odds, no matter
the day, having on bended knee

sworn to defend to the death
those who are defenseless?

***

KODACHROME

There is in a life
a wall of photographs,
those frozen moments in
time that have studied
you growing older, locked
in our smiles, our serious
poses, faces of character
who will have to awaken
that character to survive.
A mother’s unsmiling stare
peers through all the bull
but there is a softness in eyes
that have seen father-beatings,
husband-cheatings, children-
leaving: the whole crux that says better make friends
for we are alone in the end.
In between, gather at Friendly’s
Ice Cream and have family photos
shot of when you were young
and hot and cut and tanned
and smiling and holding hands
with those we soon go to war with.