Gary Beck
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ANIMAL PRISONERS
-- Gary Beck
Your stone walls now turned to glass
for birds that neither sing nor fly,
like the wilting eagle
withering from common stares
that stab the captive creatures
with instant demand to be noticed
by callisthenic visitors
intruding on the lifers,
caged beyond appeal.
No ACLU will champion them.
Only the call to higher culture
reprieves the spectated
when the biped brutes
turn their ogling to art,
leaving the lesser beasts
dreaming of fang and claw
-- Gary Beck
Your stone walls now turned to glass
for birds that neither sing nor fly,
like the wilting eagle
withering from common stares
that stab the captive creatures
with instant demand to be noticed
by callisthenic visitors
intruding on the lifers,
caged beyond appeal.
No ACLU will champion them.
Only the call to higher culture
reprieves the spectated
when the biped brutes
turn their ogling to art,
leaving the lesser beasts
dreaming of fang and claw
DAUGHTERS OF CAMBODIA
-- Gary Beck
She giggled for a moment,
the skinny, twelve year old girl child
of sparkling eyes and gleaming teeth.
Her laughter drowned the obscene grunts
of the man on her younger sister.
The brothel owner strutted by,
a scowling woman in her twenties,
heart missing beneath traditional garb,
carefully guarding her property.
She paid good money for the girls.
The brothel owner paused and smiled
and praised the virtues of the child,
baring her left breast, well, the nipple
of what will become her left breast,
if she survives to maturity.
The customer calmly haggled
while the owner praised the child’s body,
claiming eight dollars was not too much
for a girl who just recently
had lost her prized virginity.
But her virginity was lost
many and many a year ago
in a brothel far from the sea,
when her father sold her to servitude,
to endure men’s lust for a fee.
Now she labors 'til her debt is paid,
or until they know that she has AIDS.
She can’t escape for she’ll be caught,
severely beaten, starved, cruelly forced
to have sex with abusive men.
This child is one of tens of thousands
slaving in the sex plantations
of the growing cottage industry,
the Asian brothels of China,
India, Thailand, the Philippines.
The child prostitutes of Asia
sustain the evil appetites
for brutal molestation and rape,
forbidden at home to lawless men,
who post their lust on the internet.
Daughters of Cambodia
and other Asian lands,
you are unwilling playthings
of brothel keepers’ greed
and sick, consumer lust.
When sex tours started in Japan,
Korean and Taiwan brothels
cheerfully accepted the money
that let Koreans and Taiwanese
tour Manila and Bangkok brothels.
So Asia’s economic boom
brings more babies to prostitution,
some sold by desperate parents,
others are kidnapped off the streets,
as an ill wind blows from the east.
The rise of Asian prosperity
breeds new markets for human flesh,
increases appetites for children,
obeys laws of supply and demand
and violates all morality.
When AIDS the viral killer came
the men of Asia responded
using younger and younger children,
who were less likely to be infected
with the spreading sexual gift.
So AIDS the viral killer goes
quickly from country to country,
with children sold across borders,
while customers shop from place to place,
then leave with a final souvenir.
And in the east the Asians go
and put the blame on G.I. Joe,
but all the sins were surely there
before Americans would share
their native vices with the world.
Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hanoi,
cities famous years ago
for traffic in the flesh of youth,
blamed on wretched poverty,
yet profit increases slavery.
G.I. Joe and westerners
helped build the brothels of Asia,
when their military bases
crammed full of rich, horny soldiers,
spread the wealth and sustained the trade.
And what of the children’s suffering,
smuggled across Vietnamese borders
and other lands, victims of collapse
of strict commie ideology,
and the demands of the flesh trade.
The buyers of virginity
are foreigners, generally
mostly newly prosperous Chinese,
for the superstitious Chinese claim
sex with virgins makes them young again.
And the children are always frightened,
desperate, debauched, diseased,
vaginas so easily torn,
leading to sores and the bleeding
that promotes H.I.V. breeding.
Most men prefer the younger girls
because they’re easily abused.
The older girls can set a price
and may even set conditions
that younger girls cannot demand.
Little girls learn the curse of sex
when they’re forced to perform for others.
A girl cannot make a grown man
use a condom when he refuses,
then gives AIDS to the child he uses.
In a brothel in Cambodia
for a five hundred dollar fee,
a girl lost her virginity,
a one time opportunity
for a bargain hunting buyer.
A helpless child speaks for her sisters.
“My life no longer matters,
nobody seems to care.
It’s better for me to die.
Cambodia won’t cry.
-- Gary Beck
She giggled for a moment,
the skinny, twelve year old girl child
of sparkling eyes and gleaming teeth.
Her laughter drowned the obscene grunts
of the man on her younger sister.
The brothel owner strutted by,
a scowling woman in her twenties,
heart missing beneath traditional garb,
carefully guarding her property.
She paid good money for the girls.
The brothel owner paused and smiled
and praised the virtues of the child,
baring her left breast, well, the nipple
of what will become her left breast,
if she survives to maturity.
The customer calmly haggled
while the owner praised the child’s body,
claiming eight dollars was not too much
for a girl who just recently
had lost her prized virginity.
But her virginity was lost
many and many a year ago
in a brothel far from the sea,
when her father sold her to servitude,
to endure men’s lust for a fee.
Now she labors 'til her debt is paid,
or until they know that she has AIDS.
She can’t escape for she’ll be caught,
severely beaten, starved, cruelly forced
to have sex with abusive men.
This child is one of tens of thousands
slaving in the sex plantations
of the growing cottage industry,
the Asian brothels of China,
India, Thailand, the Philippines.
The child prostitutes of Asia
sustain the evil appetites
for brutal molestation and rape,
forbidden at home to lawless men,
who post their lust on the internet.
Daughters of Cambodia
and other Asian lands,
you are unwilling playthings
of brothel keepers’ greed
and sick, consumer lust.
When sex tours started in Japan,
Korean and Taiwan brothels
cheerfully accepted the money
that let Koreans and Taiwanese
tour Manila and Bangkok brothels.
So Asia’s economic boom
brings more babies to prostitution,
some sold by desperate parents,
others are kidnapped off the streets,
as an ill wind blows from the east.
The rise of Asian prosperity
breeds new markets for human flesh,
increases appetites for children,
obeys laws of supply and demand
and violates all morality.
When AIDS the viral killer came
the men of Asia responded
using younger and younger children,
who were less likely to be infected
with the spreading sexual gift.
So AIDS the viral killer goes
quickly from country to country,
with children sold across borders,
while customers shop from place to place,
then leave with a final souvenir.
And in the east the Asians go
and put the blame on G.I. Joe,
but all the sins were surely there
before Americans would share
their native vices with the world.
Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hanoi,
cities famous years ago
for traffic in the flesh of youth,
blamed on wretched poverty,
yet profit increases slavery.
G.I. Joe and westerners
helped build the brothels of Asia,
when their military bases
crammed full of rich, horny soldiers,
spread the wealth and sustained the trade.
And what of the children’s suffering,
smuggled across Vietnamese borders
and other lands, victims of collapse
of strict commie ideology,
and the demands of the flesh trade.
The buyers of virginity
are foreigners, generally
mostly newly prosperous Chinese,
for the superstitious Chinese claim
sex with virgins makes them young again.
And the children are always frightened,
desperate, debauched, diseased,
vaginas so easily torn,
leading to sores and the bleeding
that promotes H.I.V. breeding.
Most men prefer the younger girls
because they’re easily abused.
The older girls can set a price
and may even set conditions
that younger girls cannot demand.
Little girls learn the curse of sex
when they’re forced to perform for others.
A girl cannot make a grown man
use a condom when he refuses,
then gives AIDS to the child he uses.
In a brothel in Cambodia
for a five hundred dollar fee,
a girl lost her virginity,
a one time opportunity
for a bargain hunting buyer.
A helpless child speaks for her sisters.
“My life no longer matters,
nobody seems to care.
It’s better for me to die.
Cambodia won’t cry.
Gary Beck’s poetry has appeared in dozens of literary
magazines. His recent fiction has been published in
numerous literary magazines. His chapbook 'The
Conquest of Somalia' will be published by Cervena
Barva Press. His plays and translations of Moliere,
Aristophanes, and Sophocles have been produced
Off-Broadway.
magazines. His recent fiction has been published in
numerous literary magazines. His chapbook 'The
Conquest of Somalia' will be published by Cervena
Barva Press. His plays and translations of Moliere,
Aristophanes, and Sophocles have been produced
Off-Broadway.
