HOME Ramblings about “Current Events”
TABLE OF CONTENTS (Click Title to jump to poem, Click Back arrow to return, Click Back again for HOME PAGE
(Amadou Diallo’s Death)
I should say I’m sorry
I filled you full of lead
I thought my life in danger then
I thought that I was dead
The four of us destroyed you
Took your life away
No children will you ever know
No chance with them to play
You acted quite suspiciously
I’m still around to say
My bullets took the right from you
Your story to relay
What ever was I thinking?
Or the others in my pack
To rain down on you sudden death
In an unprovoked attack
Murder’s not the name belongs
Put upon my deed
Innocent the law has said
Make sense of it you plead
Your life is lost and no one pays
Can it be for naught?
When is it that the books will balance?
When will justice true be wrought
The truth is I am dead this day
Done in by conscience strong
No matter what the law has done
Some how it comes out wrong
You’ll live forever in my soul
You’ll cry out “tell me why?”
You’ll ask for answers I can’t give
But need to us, untie
And when I take my final steps
And leave this world behind
You’ll be waiting, me to tell
If answers, you did find
We are only mortal men
Passing through in time
Though I stayed longer here than you,
Forever hell is mine
(Hiroshima 50 years later)
O places of sadness, tragedy and terror,
Mirror of souls taken forever
Teach us the lessons, show us the error
Give birth to new thought, of war tell us never.
Human to human, soul to soul
No enemies exist, if the faces we know
The future gives us a chance, a role
To undo the legacy of history’s woe.
Blind eye, deaf ear, as fools we go
Past ignored and future unknown
Grim reaper inherited from what we sow
Together we could change, but we go it alone.
Is this our lot, to perish one day
In a conflagration too terrible to speak
Refusing to see what the past has to say.
The horrors
of war on ourselves we wreak.
Treblinka and Dachau have taught us all nothing
Hiroshima
and Nagasaki still struggle to be heard,
Cambodia’s killing fields and Bosnia scream something
But the
brutality continues, not stopped by a word.
Millions of souls in anguish have perished
Many whose
names shall forever be lost,
In shame old hatreds continue to be cherished
No regard
do we pay to eventual cost.
From the graves of the many the silence is deafening
Not revenge
is wanted but intelligent thought
Give honor to our passing many languages imploring,
Give hope
to our children, apocalypse ’s not bought.
I stood with a friend at the site of destruction
I stood
with the enemy on the very same spot
The experience I had was one of instruction
The two are
the same one, the meaning I got.
Friend or foe is only perception
Word and
thought tell the ultimate story,
Reason should be our only election
From
hellish beginnings, man could still build a glory.
What then will be the determining factor
Of whether
we strive to improve our lot?,
History has not seemed to matter
Is
annihilation to be, or is it not?
As the world becomes a smaller place
And
understanding comes, up close
Love would seem a better base,
To build a
future, not a grisly dose.
If we ignore the past as teacher,
We’re more foolish than words can say
If we decline to fix the future
We join the
dead voices of yesterday.
Those of us who live today
Have a
daunting role,
Give birth to a legacy of peace we say
To grow it
in our soul.
A nobler thought cannot be expressed
Than to
love all men, it’s tomorrow’s request
The lessons are there, Love is the test
War is an
option we can no longer invest
Nations war, but people love,
Understanding
comes one on one
Stretch your heart and touch another
The job at hand
may yet be done.
Looking back upon my visits
I know
these grisly scenes must stay
Forever in our minds to keep us,
Vigilant night and day.
A future like our past is
Too terrible a fate
To visit on our children…
I pray it’s not too late.
I leave this place all empty but,
Not entirely downcast
The capacity exists I know,
To make a peace that lasts
The tears I shed were not for some,
But all who’ve gone before
All sides, all souls, the perished and the living,
Who suffered to the core
But the final tear that fell
As I listened to the call,
Was for me somehow, for being part of it all
(Clinton Impeachment)
There is a battle in the land
Whose rules
will us command
As to the future we remand
Results this
moment of our stand
Souls divided fiercely fight
Believe
their vision to be right
Only conscience has the might
To resolve
this fearful fight
Each principle discussed
Clouded
gray by old distrust
Force a power struggle thus
Call to
duty is a must
Whose leadership prevails
As each
side in turn does rail?
Hardened minds, to open, fail
Smother
principle with detail
We are divided as a nation
Abandon our
creation
Kill ideals by word cremation
Result will
bring us no elation
Return we must to glory, write
An end to this sad story
Do our duty though we’re sorry
Bring us
dignity not more worry
There is a battle in the land
The future
held within our hands
To our children must remand
Guiding
principles… ever grand
(Clinton Impeachment)
Darkness has descended
Cutting off
our rightful view
The doors have hidden government
Its working
and milieu
Traditions of the past have come
To rob us
of our due
The future of the President
Obscured
from me and you
What fear you faithless senators?
That you
should choose to hide
The truth of what you’re feeling
For the
salvage of your pride
You do not want the public that
You serve to see inside
To judge your conduct fairly
Or your
actions to deride
The void you’ve not explained
For reasons
left untold
While laying out the basis
For our
country to unfold
Has left the vast majority
Quite
literally in the cold
And puzzled all the ages from
The young
to very old
Stand up for what you think is right
Be counted
in the sun
Expediency won’t release the knot
Your
innards have become
You cannot hide in darkness
Until what’s right is done
You cannot look the eye of us
Without
your dignity won
(Kosovo)
Faces, many dark and grim
Ripped from
country, home and kin
Travelers bleeding deep within
Victims in
a war of sin
Emptiness where once stood men
Senseless
death erases them
Evil shreds a people thin
A madman
does it all again
Has no one noticed Deja vu
The past
attired in face brand new
Eyes must open, truth to view
Talk must
end, time to do
River of souls flowing out
Cannot
feel, cannot shout
A world looks on, debates devout
Does not
this scourge begin to rout
History screams, a message sends
Implores,
past deaths do not offend
Never again on man descend
Such
Horrors bestial, life suspend
But we have learned from past just this
Ignorance
is, truly bliss
Perhaps this terror, us will miss
Involvement
makes bad politics
Leaders talk and rush about
Shake their
fists, rear their clout
Search in vain for easy out
While evil
grows, there is no doubt
In the end we must commit
Defend
another, beliefs acquit
Or else against us will be pit
A world
most terrible, or end of it
Stand we must for what is right
Or vanish
too, one day from sight
No one desires to have to fight
To pay the
price to end this blight
But if the future will be free
We must
defend collectively
The rights of all humanity
Or victims
next, are you and me
(Columbine High School))
Don’t weep for the dead who’ve gone beyond pain
But for the living who’ll die yet again
Who’ll search for the road
that brought us to now
Take in the answers, the why and the how
Out of their wombs with promise and joy
Bodies were nurtured each girl and each boy,
Understood not, unbridled in mind
Death the result, of love that went blind
Birth is beginning, not end of concern
A struggle to know what young hearts do yearn
A battle once locked than never can end
Or souls will be broken, abandoned to rend
Death is now teacher if we, our ears lend
Learn all the lessons not just how to mend
Tomorrow is coming a price to be paid
Make a new start, or live on, afraid
News clips by the hundreds, half
A building
is a tomb
Tears are shed for many, some
Not long from out the womb
Horror after horror till
It all
becomes a blur
A decoupage too terrible
A maniac
did incur
And then it’s gone, another story
Quickly
takes its place
But all we’ve seen is celluloid
A movie,
not the grace
Take yourself to that still place
A fence
stands tall and grim
Silently it speaks to you
As you
stand there in your skin
The fence is dressed in fragments of
Loving left
behind
The outpouring of Americans
Of every
type and kind
Simple cards or someone’s shirt
Flowers
with sentiment
Stuck within the empty spaces
Into the
void their love is lent
Pictures helped with words, and medals
Holy given
up
In pain they come to give themselves
Fill someone
else’s cup
And every one does whisper here
They know
it’s hallowed ground
Walk completely every side
Feel the
silence, their hearts pound
Soundlessly the pilgrimage
Continues
day and night
A never ending sorrow, unearned
Guilt we cannot fight
Faces lost in contemplation
Eyes
waiting for a sign
Souls destroyed without a warning
Thoughts
ended in mid line
Stand you there and listen with
Your
internal eyes
Good and evil met here also
Tore
asunder many lives
Plan or not you’re not alone
When from
this place you go
Forever in your heart and soul
They live,
but will not grow