Tag Archives: evolution

Peace is a Verb

No passive meal, no rare stuff bird,
true peace is not a noun, but verb;
inaction, apathy and doubt
that whisper are not her. She shouts

from rooftops, making foul war shake
in fear at her approach. Mistake
not mewling whiners for her knights,
but rather find those awake nights

who seek to change first, in themselves,
the hurt and violence that dwells
inside us all, and is expressed
in hatred’s cruel unhappiness.

Peace is no victim, she just waits
while we excuse or blame on fate
why we act not who know the course
that will alone deter blind force:

to cease rewarding strength and might
for its own sake, calling it right
that those who kill and those who die
are somehow not just you and I.

11 AUG 2006

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A Million Years

Just like we’ve done for a million years,
we strike out blindly in the dark in fear.
Some use rocks or bombs, that’s their choice;
me, I use music, my words, my voice.

We each know nothing, but take on faith
that truth comes from an honest face;
and when that message becomes a lie,
we use our darkness to hide disgrace.

Just like we were living in those caves:
we fear and worship the ones’ who’re brave
enough to venture out in the mist,
who tell us monsters just don’t exist.

But we know better; it couldn’t be
that we alone keep us from being free.
So there be monsters, alive and well;
on one side, Heaven, the other, Hell.

Just like we started. Doesn’t it seem
a million years, a million dreams
would make some difference, help us to grow
beyond our fear of “I don’t know.”?

The truth is simple: there’s nothing more
than what we make it, and that’s for sure.
What work we’re given is to survive
Another million, ’til we arrive.

03 AUG 2006

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If you would make a difference

So many look around the globe
and say, “How can I start
to help in what small way I can,
and find work with a heart?”

They look to spread their peace abroad,
and be more well received
than in their hometown neighborhoods,
if that can be believed.

If crime and hate and poverty
among the richly blessed
cannot be fought effectively,
what hope for all the rest?

If prisons, projects, trailerparks
and graveyards are the way
we bandage up our culture’s wounds,
what right have we to say

that our approach, our medicines,
our governments, our laws
are useful or appropriate
to correct others’ flaws?

If you would make a difference,
first, examine your own heart;
once your own house is in order,
then work down the block can start.

15 JUN 2005

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The Roots Must Lead

The roots must lead us further down;
it does no good to taste the fruit
unless we first have knelt in shadows
there among the rotting leaves.

The kneeling first, and then the crawl
along the coursing, mottled bark
that starts to thicken as the trunk
breaks through the soil that gives it life.

Among the worms that churn the muck,
the beetles and the stinging ants:
there where the humus is still moist
and cakes to concrete on our hands

we find the source, the Mother core,
like buried treasure from the deep,
between the fingers of the oak
splayed like a hand clutching the earth.

The grass between your toes, so soft,
gives only hints and subtle clues;
to find the Mother’s hidden love
cast off by culture’s mad distain

requires the digging, dirty knees,
and scratches drawing your own blood;
a desperate scrabble down and down
past patriarchy’s well-kept sod.

Her love is buried, long-forgot;
and proving ourselves worthy, work.
If you would make your half a whole,
man, woman, child: dig deep.

08 MAY 2005

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Let Those Who Would Reform

Let those who would reform the world desist
their feeble mewlings at the citadel
that those they choose to fight built to resist
more legions than the gods themselves could quell.

Let others beat to useless, bloody shreds
their fist-clenched hands against that firm defense,
with dreams of victory to fill their heads
in vain attempt to breach its competence.

What good is it to use the self-same tools
that those would enslave have honed so fine?
What use an end achieved, if the same rules
we claim our foes have bent, we break to climb?

Let those who would upset the status quo
seek first to change the sameness found within
that would by smoke and mirrors try to show
a better cause, or one more fair, should win.

Let others claw and scrape that would behold
outside themselves, a world less prone to pain,
where right always prevails, warm comes from cold,
and sunny days require no spells of rain.

What good are dreams that do not change the self,
that would with mere illusions seek to please,
their promise a slight shift in fleeting wealth
or kneeling pads to those still on their knees?

Let those who would reform the world begin
their revolution from a different spot:
instead of struggle to get what you want,
appreciate a bit of what you’ve got.

Let others take the parapets by storm,
their banners bright and bold against the flame;
For me, such revolutions don’t perform.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

12 APR 2005

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New Year’s Eve 2004

I may resolve to change my ways this year,
exchange old habits for ones I’ve not tried.
But there’s no point in much of that, I fear,
for one’s true nature cannot be denied.

Perhaps I’ll vow to focus more on things
that increment the positive aspects,
but who knows what the future’s bound to bring?
The lessons never come like you expect.

The truth is, all the seeds for next year’s fruit
would not be useful now unless the ground
for planting them had been already tilled.

My only hope is that the land will suit,
and that the right conditions will abound.
Should that occur, my barn’s already filled.

31 JAN 2004

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Don’t Believe the Hype

The world is suffering and pain
or so the Buddhists say
but with control of mind and flesh
for some, it goes away

Not for the tree, or rock or mouse
does this travail desist;
nay, ’tis for man, and man alone,
the top dog on the list

For man deserves a better fate
than to compete, and die;
and thus, all man’s misguided myths
are built upon a lie.

The lie is whispered in our cribs:
that this world is our toy,
and that each field of grass is less
than one grand girl or boy

And so we use, abuse and waste
our time upon this earth.
Instead of finding balance,
giving back, we make it worse.

How did we get here? And what for?
These questions, our tales say,
end in the right of human might
that does not see the play

of life and death in which we’re cast
where we believe our press
and act in spite of natural law
that teaches, more or less

That every thing that lives requires
the death of other things,
and in the end will make an end
of pawns, as well as kings

This suffering we dwell upon
disturbs us each, because
we think ourselves, mankind, exempt
from nature’s violent flaws.

And so, we ponder future states
where all is just and fair
instead of realizing that
we are already there.

This world was not conceived for man
to do with as he please;
his grand appearance made less ripple
than a passing breeze.

To think your kind has rights to more
than any other type
is just misguided myth, not fact.
Please, don’t believe the hype.

04 AUG 2004

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