Promoting Healthy Youth

Using Haiku Poetry and Creative Expression


Delaying Sex

You get little when 

                                               

            You give it up and it ain’t

 

 

       Appreciated!

 

 

    (Sex without love is empty.)

Creativity & Building Self-Esteem

Re-inventing my-

 

 

Self is the best way to fly

 

 

Into my future.

 

         

(Don’t get stuck – change how you approach life)

Violence

When he pulled back his

 

 

Fist, he starred at the lifeless

 

 

Face of his best friend.

 

 

(Use your brain and not your fist.)

HIV/AIDS

Feelings explode in

Multi-color passion so

Fashion this, AIDS kills.

 

(HIV can be the consequence of unprotected sex.)

South Africa Poem

Tears for my Sister

 

She had no face

She had no name

Her arms like sticks

Her legs the same

 

      I felt her pain

     Though probably long gone

     I felt the stain

     Of a country  war torn

 

          AIDS and TB in South Africa

          Epidemic proportions for real

          Hasn’t anyone told them that

          These preventable diseases

          No one should still feel.

 

The cemetery across from our hotel

Expands in proportion to the

Growing epidemic.

Outside the clinic a sign reads

“One stop funeral shopping”

How convenient.

 

     Had only the treatment

     For AIDS and TB been as convenient

     Had only the doctors been plentiful

     And the natural herb of South

     Africa – Sutherlandia

     Not been pirated and

     Sold to countries other than

     The one from which it originated.

 

               The babies cry,

               The mommies and daddies die

               The grandmothers try

               To take on the weight

               Aunties also do what they can

               To keep nieces and nephews alive.

 

How I wanted to reach out to her

And give her some hope

Yet her spirit was already

Some where else.

 

                                       Her joy was gone

                                       Her hope was gone

                                       The pain was gone


She just was.

 

                   Too weak to stand

                   Too weak to hurt

                   Too weak to cry

                   Too weak to die

 

In my heart I hope that

She has passed on as

That is no way to live.

 

 

This poem was written in South Africa after visiting an AIDS clinic.