USA

Hope is a fragile thing

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I sat down to write a poem
Finding its measure wanting
And its rhythm trite
I end up here once again
Pondering this lack of sight

I find my interest waining
Not in writing
So much as life

Never having planned to come this far
I find myself forced
Made to contemplate a future
One I was certain would never come

I have all of the pieces but not the puzzle
All of the dreams but not the hopes
And the world fades out
But nothing yet fades in

On the verge of destruction
Waiting for the groundswell
A last minute effort
To give that last push

Softly, as I float

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Feeling like we’re missing out
That time is just advancing
Each day blurring into the next
Eyes so tired they shake
Screaming no!
No this is not my life
Trying to escape
From what we can’t quite say
Just that relentless ticking away
Almost time for the new year
Almost whats next
Almost
The lie of each generation
That tomorrow is any different than
Today
Yesterday
Last week
Waiting for that paycheck
To pay one more bill
Buy one more thing
Maybe this time
It’ll bring something
Anything
Nothing
Just another spin
A chance to go broke
One foot in the street
Telling yourself
Tomorrow will be better
Tomorrows just fine
The long silence knows better
We’re not fine
But we’ll pretend
Until the smoke inhalation
Overwhelms us
In this trashfire
They’ve told us
Was the life we dreamed of
Keep striving
Against your own interests
Because tomorrow you might be the anointed
The rich
The powerful
False promises and another person
Another life
Seen through a window
Darkly

The slow failure of the great experiment

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I’m tired
Tired of being affronted by their lack of compassion
Tired of the blindness they exhibit of their own hypocrisy
I’d prefer it of they were cynical in their reasoning rather than impassioned
Because at least then they would know that they are manipulating their reality
At least then they would know that what they do is to further their goals without regard to the human cost
Instead we have individuals who on any given day would be giving to charity and being kind
All the while frothing at the mouth over some perceived injustice where someone who is has less than them somehow makes them impoverished
As if the poor have some kind of leg up because they are getting help
Meanwhile they have figured out how to never pay taxes. So that their money doesn’t help anyone but themselves. So that they can keep crying that other people who don’t deserve it are getting ‘free’ things.
Its sickening and like watching the corruption of the human spirit in real time and I just don’t have the strength to be outraged.
I’m disappointed.
I wish humanity had not shown how thoroughly it has failed. How this nation has failed.
But there’s nothing left but the too tired flailing of someone without power begging for people to care
Even as my own capacity wanes

The greatest lie ever told

Pelgris1 Comment

How we got here seems obvious now…
We did all the things which we tell ourselves we must not do in order to have a good life
We didn’t take responsibility for our actions
At each step denying the rights of one group while celebrating how great we are. Building a lie while lying to ourselves and fooling the world that the lie was true. All while denying our own history. And with each successive step, teaching the lies as truth which then shocks the adult either awake or into denial. And awareness is terrible. So we have the sleeping and the awake and the people who violently reject what is in front of their eyes.

And those awake try to wake others up, but doing so carries the cost of being difficult. It wears one down. Wears away at the soul and soon enough some parts of us slip back into sleep. In self defense of the tattered mind.

And those strong enough or crazy enough take advantage, promising a return to the “good days”. A lie which only persists because we taught everyone that the past was good and that makes the present feel wrong. Because how could the past be so wonderful and the present so messed up? There must be something wrong with now, so we go back to sleep, to the laws of the past, because we lied.

We lied

We taught the lie. We taught ourselves that in the past things were good. A happy shiny lie. Which made homes easy and let people go about their day until reality comes along like a brick to the head.

Some people get only a piece of the lie, they get the isolation of fear which is not understood by those who still live in the lie.

We have lied to ourselves. Constructed false narratives about who we are. Then compounded the lie, generation after generation, by teaching the lies as truth. We are the architects of this disaster.

I don’t know how to fix this. Waking everyone up will lead to violent rejection of the truth. Which will lead to at least one form of war.

The best course would be to teach the real history of us, starting from the beginning of the nation. To stare unflinching at our past, at least with the children. So that those who are asleep can die away. Safe in their lie. But we are seeing what happens when we try that. This violent rejection of reality and the sleeping led around by the nose by those self-serving enough to damn us all for their short term gain.

(While pretending we didn’t erode safeguards and protections to prosperity which allow this situation to flourish)

I think I could have written this at any time in our history. And I would be sad with that truth. Because the lens of the world is one which we can’t hide from. And they have finally uncovered our fraud.

The USA has not and never was the greatest nation on earth. It is not the most free, the most prosperous, and the most educated. We falsified the numbers. Put our thumb on the scale. We hid the truth. And those lies are coming out. Hopefully it will be to the good. Before the lies destroy us.

Civilization blinks, breaks, like dust, gone

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We stand as trees
Proud and varied
Close but still breathing
Still strong
Nestled in our branches the edifice above
Creaks and groans
Held above by log and lies
Blood coagulated
The soft peace of a life without struggle
Ok is good enough
Grows heavier
Boughs break
Weight settles
The sky breaks through
Around us
Once tall and safe
Lay stumps
Shifting shivers bark
Fear begins to sway
Waiting for our turn
Waiting to break
To burn
Or merely to fade
As hope fails
As last light
Which
New found
Now fades
And into the unknown
We proud
We strong
Roots deep
Shiver in fear

Enough blood and pain to drown a nation

Pelgris3 Comments

Lost myself in a fantasy
Where all was equality
Wake to a world without
Cast a whole worldview into doubt
Clay falling away from feet
Scales from eyes
It’s time to rise
And take control of the dream

One day soon
For the future
Not some mythic illusion
Of pasts false reflection
Greatness based on perception
Hard to see who you’re stepping on
When your head is looking for a horizon

This reasonable revolution
Accountability of public perception
Crying for the promises of privilege
Exposing the corruption
Seeing the body America
Turn over and smell the rot
Maggots feasting on long dead flesh

Cut away our delusions
Remember ideals and not the realities of them
Bigots, Monsters, and Liars
For one moment gave in to idealism
Slice up the foundation
Look to the building

A future for looking
An all seeing eye that was once willfully blind
Raise up arms and voices
No more standing by
Standing silent

(A call to arms of the seemingly unaffected
False safety because you’re protected
Take up arms or be ejected
Useless casings without the powder to burn

If you aren’t angry
You’re still sleeping
Time to wake up before you find
Your Bolivian smile

We hear privilege and say we haven’t been handed anything
Anything but safety
Anything but the benefit of the doubt
Anything but the automatic acceptance of competence

It’s easy to be
When you live in a echo chamber
Reflections of the predator
Decrying the unfairness of being treated like prey) 

Calm dividing lines

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There is a audio file with this spoken as it was intended. You’ll need to go to the site to hear it.

 

 

We calmly accept
our choices are few
left left, right right like some Konami code
choose me
it’ll all be different
but a single choice
works only when all choice is taken

we’re all parishioners at the same fat trough
elections made to break us
choose the choices we chose for you or
throw your vote away
to someone we don’t control
these party lines have all been erased and polarization just makes it easier to herd us
we are young and want a purpose
want our dreams back
but it serves no purpose
cause our choice is the lesser of two evils
all men and women
strawmen in this race of equals
both feeding your fear of the other
lest you vote your conscience
they say they’ll make it all better
but how can corruption and cancer heal our wounds
the lesser of two evils has been killing us we’re electing the butcher to be our doctor
this one takes a kidney and that one a lung
but at least I’m still alive to pay for the privilege
They rigged the system
And we keep tightening our own noose
Red and blue
The choice between blood on the ground and oxygen deprivation
I’d love to be the rallying call
but I’ve been screaming for years
and you still haven’t heard
choosing who holds the gun to your head
doesn’t matter if they’re Blue or Red
dead is dead
the body just hasn’t stopped twitching