poetry / writing prompts

The Hungry Mouse

Chris Hall51 Comments

The image shows a tiny mouse sitting in a wicker basket. There are a couple of grocery lists and some dry pantry items in the background.

In the world of plenty
a few crumbs falling
from the rich man’s table
is enough to sustain
a little hungry mouse.

Few crumbs fall
in the hidden world of shanty towns,
and now-idle factories;
gold mines and coal mines,
and drought-stricken farms.

You bemoan the closure of
your favourite restaurant
the theatres and the bars;
all the absent opportunities
for late night fun.

While the poor child huddles hungry
in his weeping mother’s lap,
you watch Netflix munching popcorn;
playing pointless games
on your fancy flashy phone.

Written in response to Sadje’s What Do You See #39 photo prompt.
Image credit: S Hermann and F Richter on Pixabay

51 thoughts on “The Hungry Mouse”

    • It’s a small outpouring of guilt although words don’t cut much ice. But I’ll shake myself and scurry back to fantasy land, like a little mouse back to her hole in the skirting board.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  2. What an pertinent reminder Chris. We complain about our lives which are full of plentiful and forget those who have so little. Love your take on the photo. Thanks for joining in the challenge my friend

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Oh yes, Michael, of course. It was just that I’d previously made up my mind to rise above the ‘Covid negativity’. This is different though and the injustice and inequality will still be here after all this is over; probably worse, in fact.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  20. We can remember to be kind to our neighbors. But I cannot ‘doom-scroll’ – there will always be inequities. And those who can, will do what they can. Our family has always been involved with volunteer fire-fighting and other areas to help the general public (as well as some older individuals).

    Guilt that pushes one to action can be a good thing, but we must take care of ourselves first in order to be able to help others.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Good for you for volunteering and doing what you can. That’s so admirable. We try to do things in small ways but it’s never enough, especially when you live in the most unequal society in the world. The cracks are widening and so many are falling thorough. I was reminding myself of that.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • It does get difficult when it seems the monkey in the middle who was or seemed to be anyway hold up both ends, isn’t even in the middle anymore. Disproportionate cracks for too many…

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

Leave a reply - I'd love to hear from you.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.