Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label freedom. Show all posts
FREEDOM...
U.S. captain held by pirates rescued
Pakistan militants attack NATO supply trailers
U.S. general says Iraq attacks no reason to panic
Protesters Swarm Thai Capital
Saudi judge upholds marriage of 8-year-old
The freedom that he wanted couldn’t bring itself through the gates
So he imagined it pressing its paws to the soil beyond the walls,
That he heard it weeping plaintively just outside his tiny room.
Said he could smell it in the breath of every passing spring,
Spoke of its splendid dance waiting with shoes for his feet.
He said he'd heard its velvet voice flecking upon his ears
And that he tasted it in the warm water gracing his lips,
Yet the long shadows that stirred beneath his door
Startled him with their quick and brutal motions
And consoled him with torturous laughter.
They never once had spoken of freedom,
Made no mention of its demise.
WE MAY HAVE ALREADY...
Loved everything and everyone worth hating
And hated everyone and everything worth loving
Recognized everybody we’re ever going to know
With a sideways glance in a dime store trench coat
Memorized all the arrogant words to our country’s anthem
Forgetting how to say “thank you” and “you’re welcome”
Neglected to learn the golden lessons
Shared by the old whore’s toothless hum
Found new enemies easier to make
Than keeping old friends along the way
Become invisible under our own skins
(Within a cubicle is no place to expect miracles
We’ll find God in a sandbox, breathing in the oil that holds us there)
Succumbed to freedom’s aneurysm
Wrist sliced open like a vanilla sky
On a September morning's baptism
Fallen, flailing to the ashen ground
Like a Raggedy Ann doll
Tossed out the mouths of a pair of tall clowns
“Is that a bird?”
“No! It’s a child dropped from God’s hand!”
“Move along, folks. Nothing new to see here.
Move along now. Next stop- Disney Land!”
Died several times over
Our corpse a twisted metal frame
Smoldering at the foot of consumption
Inhaled a snout full of a white, powdery substance
As we lingered a bit too long in the airport terminal
Waiting on our own delayed wings to come in
Waiting to feel them burst through our flesh and bone
Only to run screaming, like a suicide bomber, to the nearest pharmacy
In search of painkillers and a magazine for the long flight home.
© 2008 mrp/tpm
Rolling along "Q/R"...Quasar9 - RadRobin - RageBot - Raging Coconuts! - Raging Gurrl - Rancho La Luna - Random Arts - Ravings of a Semi-sane Madwoman - Rebel Pundit - Rebel Without a Clause - Reclaiming Space - Red Hog Diary - Redheaded Wisdom - Redneck Liberal - RedTory - Renegade Eye - Republic... If You Can Keep It - Rev. Big Dumb Chimp - Rigorous Institution v2.0 - RobSingleton.net - Rubicon
And hated everyone and everything worth loving
Recognized everybody we’re ever going to know
With a sideways glance in a dime store trench coat
Memorized all the arrogant words to our country’s anthem
Forgetting how to say “thank you” and “you’re welcome”
Neglected to learn the golden lessons
Shared by the old whore’s toothless hum
Found new enemies easier to make
Than keeping old friends along the way
Become invisible under our own skins
(Within a cubicle is no place to expect miracles
We’ll find God in a sandbox, breathing in the oil that holds us there)
Succumbed to freedom’s aneurysm
Wrist sliced open like a vanilla sky
On a September morning's baptism
Fallen, flailing to the ashen ground
Like a Raggedy Ann doll
Tossed out the mouths of a pair of tall clowns
“Is that a bird?”
“No! It’s a child dropped from God’s hand!”
“Move along, folks. Nothing new to see here.
Move along now. Next stop- Disney Land!”
Died several times over
Our corpse a twisted metal frame
Smoldering at the foot of consumption
Inhaled a snout full of a white, powdery substance
As we lingered a bit too long in the airport terminal
Waiting on our own delayed wings to come in
Waiting to feel them burst through our flesh and bone
Only to run screaming, like a suicide bomber, to the nearest pharmacy
In search of painkillers and a magazine for the long flight home.
© 2008 mrp/tpm
THE US of A
The United States of America
Home of the free
Home of the free
The brave
And the dangerously ignorant.
© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman
© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman
Rolling along "G"...
FREEDOM REVISITED
US told to free 'enemy combatant'
A US appeals court has ruled that the government does not have the authority to detain on American soil an alleged al-Qaeda member who is a legal US resident, without pressing charges.
The court on Monday ordered the release of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari national held since 2003 over the September 11 attacks, from military custody.
But al-Marri, 41, can still be tried on criminal charges in a civilian court or be deported, the three judges ruled in a split two-one decision.
The freedom that he wanted couldn’t bring itself through the gates
So he imagined it pressing its paws to the soil beyond the walls,
That he heard it weeping plaintively just outside his tiny room.
Said he could smell it in the breath of every passing spring,
Spoke of its splendid dance waiting with shoes for his feet.
He said he'd heard its velvet voice flecking upon his ears
And that he tasted it in the warm water gracing his lips,
Yet the long shadows that stirred beneath his door
Startled him with their quick and brutal motions
And consoled him with torturous laughter.
They never once had spoken of freedom,
Made no mention of its demise.
© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman
"MOVE ALONG"
Is It For Freedom? Sara Thomsen (3:45)
(After watching this video I was inspired to write my own song.)
WHO PAYS THE PRICE
As you and I sit idly by
And watch America
Eating from the trough,
As you and I sit idly by
And watch America
Drinking her indifference,
As you and I sit idly by
And watch America,
A pill of greed upon her tongue,
While children starve outside our homes
And others drown inside their own
While people of the world are bombed,
Will we close our eyes
And swallow the pill
When we're told "we don't belong"?
Who then pays the cost
Who pays the cost
For America’s freedom land?
Who then pays the cost
Of our eating from the trough
While all the bombs
Are falling from our hands?
Who pays the cost for apathy?
Who pays the heavy price?
Who pays when we close our eyes
And we're told to "just make nice"?
Who pays the cost for that?
Who pays the price
When our planes have bombed their last?
Who pays the heavy cost
When we buy a tank of gas?
Who pays a price as we devour
While so much more is lost?
As you and I sit idly by
And watch America
Eating from the trough,
While children starve outside our homes
And others drown inside their own,
While people of the world are bombed
Will we close our eyes and swallow the pill
When we’re told to "move along"?
Will we close our eyes and swallow the pill
When we’re told to "move along"?
Will we close our eyes and swallow the pill
When we’re told to "move along"?
© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman
Thanks to Elowehi25 for the video
Previous Post - RAWA
MIDTERM ELEGY
We’ve a readymade art chattering in our teeth,
Arranging a dainty battle hymn to chant and howl
Like beasts in a cave.
We must manage to seize our exhausted throats
And find the pale cord that binds our hand
To tyranny’s slave.
We must slice away tender flesh to free ourselves
Of this creature of our most casual weakness;
Safety before liberty.
We’ve but little time to right this maddening plunge
Else the noise next we will hear shall be that of
The country’s elegy.
Arranging a dainty battle hymn to chant and howl
Like beasts in a cave.
We must manage to seize our exhausted throats
And find the pale cord that binds our hand
To tyranny’s slave.
We must slice away tender flesh to free ourselves
Of this creature of our most casual weakness;
Safety before liberty.
We’ve but little time to right this maddening plunge
Else the noise next we will hear shall be that of
The country’s elegy.
AN EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCE
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In the gleaming of our time together in freedom
We watch the hand choose its own new beginning.
It is strange that only now, as the world hemorrhages,
Do we sense a resurgent vigor of our treasured being.
Our neighbors are holding hopeful that we proceed
And that our hearts can quell the rumbling earth.
Anon comes our most extraordinary occurrence
Which we, with wild modesty of our grand estate,
Do pray angels might hover within our strain
Stuffing the dreary look with the consult of truth
And burst forth with a great cry of liberty
That she shall, within our hands, forever remain.
Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman
Ben Heine - Cartoons
QUESTIONS FROM ANOTHER GOD
ANOTHER GOD: Where is the light emanating from your living?
ANSWER: Snuggled tightly to our ashen mother of sustenance, her concrete cloth lashed tightly `round our mouths while decaying organs clang upon their rusty pipes; a reverie to the stone dragons sleeping in our dark.
ANOTHER GOD: Where are the soft, milk-filled breasts of your suckling mercy? Have they too been punctured by the weight of your sins? Oozing out offerings at the foot of tyranny’s trough?
ANSWER: All’s been drained, shipped away in barrels.
ANOTHER GOD: How do you endure, pitiful as you are?
ANSWER: We are homeless upon these darkened streets. Homeless and hungry in our unremarkable dwelling, begging that we might buy back scant drops of her nectar.
ANOTHER GOD: Above the granite facing of shadow yonder stands your emaciated lady. She stares eyeless toward the spanning ocean, might she not save you?
ANSWER: No. Her light has long been gone, spent, sold.
ANOTHER GOD: Was she ever beautiful?
ANSWER: Her light once spread out over the world.
ANOTHER GOD: She’s nothing to offer you now?
ANSWER: Just her prostituted limbs rising lightless above the water.
ANOTHER GOD: No light? No dawn? No curve of fervent hope?
ANSWER: Hope?
ANOTHER GOD: Yes. Hope.
Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman
SNEERING, BRISTLING MOUTHS
Only a society that has ceased to value that reasonable context of discussion (in other words, only a society that no longer really cares about itself) could enthusiastically make significant room for someone like Coulter, who rakes in profits by making up lies and "entertaining" people by demanding the deaths of those she hates. And American society today makes room not only for her, but also for an entire right-wing movement for which “eliminationist” rhetoric has become the norm. This is a society that no longer trusts itself, that is incapable of seeing its citizens as citizens and therefore as worthy of respect.
O! Mouths that bridle the sneering air,
Minds horrible of this;
Irrational expressions,
Flabbergasted lies,
Damnable discourse!
You are loud as limbs,
Shrill as death,
Evil as murder!
You are eradication’s soldiers
Armed in deceit,
Fortified in hateful corruption,
And wrapped in dogmatic shrapnel!
O! Minds entertained by your thrusts
Have been put to sleep by the noise,
By the incessant rumbles,
Entertaining droll mugs,
Telling us,
“Life’s a gas!”
“All is well!”
“Relax!”
Your mouths bristle the sneering air,
Jaws made despicable by your howling
Toward corruption’s wanton bride,
You're planting your seeds intolerably deep,
Scratching the bowels of hell,
And dipping our roots in death’s slag,
You scoundrel-dogs,
You witches misery!
O! You scraggly saw-toothed snipers
Mustn’t be given America’s credence!
You must be challenged forthrightly
And not given reign of our trust.
Truth must reel your despotic cretin
To the draggled bottom of anguish,
Leaving you to choke on your venomous,
Empty expressions!
Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman
ANOTHER MEASURE OF SWAY
$65.8 billion will be rushed to the Pentagon so it can continue fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan through September.
Give this a grace beyond man
With the striding panther pacing in our night
Amid the screeching rodents in our dreams
With the sordid and clanging thirst in our day
Amid the weeping mothers and fathers
With the purity of softly deserving fresh jaws
Amid the calamity wrought upon innocence
Give this purity that it holds sway
With one man’s failure of another man’s country
With the shrieking shell of penniless promises
The dismal hoot of youthful warriors
And the disintegrated fingers of tiny hands
Give this fund a purpose set askew
With less for death
With less for anguish
Less for tortured reasoning
Let us have less of contempt
Use our riches to breathe hope into life
We are the victor for this
We are the better for this
Give us the words that sway the minds
Of our powers and their fluid riches
For these are the times upon the back of poetry
That will bring joy… or detonate in rage.
Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman
When Two Dictators Meet
Greenwald
Thoughts From a Flyover State
The Truth Will Set You Free
POLICE STATE
Wear the mask.
Do not imagine you needn’t,
For you do.
Wear the mask.
Leave the truth behind a masquerade,
Dance within a well hidden trance.
Wear the mask.
Remember… they’re watching.
Wear the mask.
Come too near and you’ll feel the pain,
Come too near and you’ll swallow
The metal savor of full blown repression.
Wear the mask.
Come too leisurely and you’ll never know
Until your lifeless stare enters the cameras
Wait and it will be too late.
There’s no forgiveness in that.
Wear the mask
To save the humiliation
Of fearlessness plucked from the crowd.
Wear the mask.
How much freedom
Should one expect to squander?
Wear the mask.
How much pain
Should one need to suffer?
Wear the mask.
How much time
Does one need before they hear
The sullied manacles
Of tyranny shattering down?
Copyright © 2006 mrp
AT LAST!
George! Yes! Yes! Yes!
You've dredged down from the top
Lies!
You've amassed disapproval around
The globe!
Yes! Oh! Yes! You have done it at last
(Again)!
Strangled out freedom and shambled
Lives!
Toward brink of that sightless abyss
Hell!
Drink up! Job well done! And hooray!
Death wins!
mrp
LETTER TO GEORGE
Targeting Hamas PM
Indian temple city hit by blasts
Europe's angry Muslims
Top US official denies 'torture'
India's PM defends nuclear deal
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TIME SLIP
To achieve what war cannot;
Dislodge the facts.
Usher in hope.
Create breath.
To create what the warrior cannot;
Yielding dreams.
Lasting peace.
Earnest love.
To carry the lode that liars cannot.
Words of wisdom.
Grains of trust.
The truth.
It is not an issue of one knowing the truth of war;
But rather the ability of one not to wage it.
Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman
Holy Rampage TIME
Sign The America I Believe in Pledge Against Torture SLIP
Persecutions Lament TIME
Take Action for the Environment Now! SLIP
Engage Not Rage TIME
Save the Internet! SLIP
Planting Season TIME
Starve the Iraq War Beast SLIP
Drop of Water TIME
Smart Energy Support SLIP
O! Leader Spring Forth! TIME
Improve Nuclear Energy Center SLIP
Monstrous TIME
BioDiversity SLIP
Sneering Bristling Mouths TIME
Drug Policy Alert SLIP
Revolution TIME
End Racial Profiling SLIP
Sirs Have You No Shame TIME
End Big Brother Spying SLIP
Waiting on the Rain TIME
Support Equal Rights SLIP
Put This War Away TIME
Send Letter to FCC Chairman SLIP
Growing Silent Now TIME
Send UN Peacekeepers to Darfur SLIP
Our Destiny Speaks Boldly TIME
Improve Native American Health Care SLIP
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