Endurance
When you’re reeling from the news,
and you just don’t know what to do,
find the strength within your soul,
to inch closer towards the goal.
There’s a quiet in the night.
You mustn’t give into fright.
If you listen carefully now,
your intuition may allow
an answer to flood forth.
Don’t ignore its mighty worth.
Start with where you are.
Who knows? You might go far.
The secret is to never give up
no matter how much you feel stuck.
We Never Build Just One
When will we stop the invention
of new methods of destruction?
Will brilliant minds now cease
to work on anything but peace?
Is the purpose of your education
to engineer world devolution?
Were you sitting there in math
thinking weaponry was your path?
Was your goal as an engineer
to make peoples cower in fear?
I understand the concept of defense,
but meaningless wars make no sense.
For when we set about production
for these weapons of mass destruction,
it’s not like we decide we’ll stop
with one single bomb to drop.
No, there’s no singular form for munitions
for fighting’s become a tradition.
Brave young men and women sign
their lives on the dotted line,
to be a part of something
bigger in these tumultuous times.
No, it’s never just one lost life,
not just that of a soldier that dies,
but the heartbreak of their spouse.
The loss thunders through the house.
For the children who lose a parent,
the immeasurable toll is quite apparent.
The innocent are never shielded
from the potential of violence.
Pain ripples through families and destroys.
These bombs and guns are not toys.
Yet war is a profitable enterprise
whose deadly cost you can’t disguise.
Why can’t we look at each other’s eyes
to see our souls longing desires?
Instead we build and we collect
firepower while real needs we neglect.
My hope is one day we’ll
set aside more money for peaceful means,
than is ever needed for a fight.
Wouldn’t that be a real sight?
Then these same minds can serve
in a manner where life’s preserved,
but until that day I hope and pray
that there’ll be a world still left to save.
Clarity
This is one of those days when you know just where you stand.
This is one of those times where the fence is not for sitting on.
This is one of those years where history is being made.
This is one of those times where we can truly rise above.
This is one of those incidents where we must act for love.
This is the time to take your stand for righteousness.
This is the time to let go of fear and hate.
This is when stereotypes just will not do.
This is the time to unite as humans for justice.
This is the turning point of our generation.
When will we take action to heal this nation?
Raze the monuments that lift up the hatred.
Remove the leaders of genocide from our bills.
Stop romanticizing murderers’ evil thrills.
Move our country back toward the dream.
Make it turn right back around. “Soon!” we scream.
Unity
This is a call to all people.
All colors. All creeds.
Drop your divisions.
Start doing good deeds.
C’mon, people, just join in a hug.
Set aside your fights today,
Hear what your heart has to say.
This is no time for hatred.
It’s your time to grow.
Take it easy. Take it slow.
We all hurt a bit much, y’know.
Urgency
Look around this broken world.
Bring peace to warring flags unfurled.
Generations unborn cry out today,
urging us to work for a better way.
The clock is ticking.
The tide is rising.
The people are dying.
Do you even care?
This ship is sinking.
We sit here drinking,
but the time is now.
There is no tomorrow.
Prophetic pens keep flying,
as politicians keep lying,
majority in fear’s grip,
afraid to question this path.
Fear not the rocking boat.
March together—cast your vote.
Return to the vision of the heart.
Don’t give up before you start!
Call out to your friends,
unite with your neighbors,
rise up as one family,
and turn this world right!
Meant For?
My heart desires some idyllic happy ending,
a release from all this undesirable suffering,
both witnessed and experienced
in this minute flash of my existence.
Growing weary with each passing year,
unsure of which direction to steer.
For now it seems I’ve pulled from my funk,
writing more uplifting poems than previous junk.
Rethinking old thoughts, maybe not,
within earshot of no one, not a lot.
Although I am no super hero,
I admire those who came from zero,
who stoke the fires of world change,
and awaken us to our own range.
Who refuse to sit and ignore their conscience,
but instead lead lives that tear down the fences
that so easily divide and oppress,
until all the world hears are calls of distress.
We were not put on this planet to follow blindly instructions,
of madmen bent on world destruction,
whose only inner compass is that of mass production,
of widgets and cogs in war bound machines,
churning and turning out for endless greed.
Chips and bytes and space age inventions,
redesigned yearly without intervention,
created to fail within the next season,
as real problems go unsolved and for what reason?
While poor common souls sit soaked in the dust,
begging us for the pennies to feed,
hungry mouths, but instead we distrust,
and look to golden coffers with lust.
As politicians play ping pong with our lives,
we wish we could do more, perhaps even thrive.
They claim to be fighting for the common folk,
claim to understand all the pain,
as they guzzle their champagne,
never once bothering to share.
It’s like they don’t truly care.
Like the world’s a sick joke,
they merely turn a blind eye
to the suffering so obvious to you and I.
Why is it a question so radical and raucous
to ask where are the lobbyists for the common populous?
Is there any guarantee of protection,
afforded to you and me by the election,
of those so easily bribed by the change purses,
of the greediest men and their curses?
Why do people oft sit idly by,
when clearly hearing fellow citizens’ cries?
Sitting around with talking heads,
when action is what’s required instead.
Around and around the conversations go.
Years go by with nothing to show.
Now is the right time to prioritize,
before we remain in perpetual mourning,
at a loss for words from the devastation of no warning.
nor is the reason for our birth,
to feel like we have got no innate worth,
as we inhale meditations of smoggy toxic fumes,
carried by perpetual breezes into city rooms,
We sink our efforts towards promises of perfection,
get drunk on hope’s sweet libations,
idealize the tenets of all great thinkers,
while leading lives resembling great drinkers.
No matter the hours spent in isolation of study,
absorbing all wisdom both easy and muddy,
there is no insulation from the influence,
of this culture of consumerist pestilence.
Indulge yourself in the pleasures of life.
Find something spiritual to cleanse the strife.
We were meant to dance and to sing—
to hold great conversations for the truth that they bring.
Existence is more than just words on a screen,
The mysteries of life are just waiting to be seen.
“Look up, look out, get up, get out!” I want to shout.
Before you know it, life can just end,
so do your life with purpose, my friends.
Are We Free?
Take me walking in the fields where the tanks no longer roar.
Let me stroll along the sands at the sunny sea shore.
Take me where the cannons rusted shut and there ain’t wars,
where the soldiers are retired from their duties into peace,
and the weapons they’re building no longer increase.
Silence the sirens of these murderous nights
where no one bends because they got to be right.
I’m a dove and not a fighter, and that is the only side,
but when I see any injustice, my anger, I can’t hide.
It only fuels the fire that is burning me alive.
We are only truly free when everyone can thrive.
You lob at me your insults fed from the television.
Do you think for yourself with the brain that you were given?
My faith teaches me about peace, justice, and love,
how to give, and how to live like the angels up above.
but somehow I wonder if we’re reading the same book,
if when you see a different face, you give a dirty look.
