Tag: Social Commentary

dispossessing

the fields of dispossessing
have passed to other hands,
that is, i think,
tradition in these lands

and all lands, actually

the summer rains are sweltering
and we've been helter-skeltering
and sheltering
and harboring our fears,
but those we packed up with

the little bit of pride that we had left.

there is no steinbeck here,
no chronicle of what we had and lost,
that's somehow lyrical

it's just a bunch of mud
and

generations

Cherries

Social realities
Common dualities
Made from societal modern modalities

Hoping for Socrates
Stuck with banalities
Tortured by habit and anger and lyme disease

    Cherries we pick and then stack into piles
    Hidden by marketing image and smiles

Alibis heightening
Chains are all tightening
People who jump at the first sign of ripening

Burdens delightening
Fear of de-whitening
All who can listen are due for enlightening

    Cherries we pick and then bushel away
    Fruit that must come, and the price
    We must pay

the power of the many

well-lit monuments
can be full of crowds
but still

empty.

cities, like ancient temples:
conspicuous opulence
in service of

our objects of worship.

the sight of
something no one person could do,
set to reinforce

the significance and power of the many,

encouraging us
to stay in our pack,
with the other wolves, or ants,
carefully ignoring that
we may be a totally different

type of animal.

there are those who value individuals,
and those who most value society,
and frequently we find
the latter pretending to be

the former.

for if you must think as the crowd thinks,
there is no you;
all these glittering lights
are just warning signs around the perimeter

of a glorified

stockade

The Ivy

The ivy comes, and chokes to death
A forest in its glory —
Shall we pass by and barely see,
And yawn, “the same old story”?

We hardly feel the difference
As boundaries are ceded —
The slow and the inexorable:
They’re almost undefeated

And then, it’s happening to us,
We find ourselves surrounded —
Why didn’t we do anything
When others were confounded?

The ivy comes, and devastates,
And does it without fuss —
And we had better kill it now,
Ere it takes care

Of us