We await returns, afraid to hope, yet eager for change
while the world turns and twists on battlefields
we cringe to see and do not recognize as our own.
We try to rebuild a prosperous and civil society
while schools, hospitals, highways, trains and homes
are blasted apart with life’s blood by robot drones.
The monsters are everywhere now, colluding to gain
all the world’s wealth and power as their own.
Hell on earth appears on city streets, and outside
schools and Home Depot, even at our own front doors.
We do not recognize the human drones, masked as they are.
We do not recognize the darkness draped now in gold,
gold we pay for that allows monsters to hide,
even from themselves, as gambling games mix with propaganda
aired on every screen, every hour, of every day while we play
with money we no longer have to pay the rent, buy our food,
teach our children in safe schools, roof the unhoused,
treat the unwell, feed the hungry, gas-up our cars
and find a way to stay alive and well – one more day.
The whole world is at war in unrecognizable ways,
on battlefields created as theaters of the absurd
but just as deadly in each its own way; and we play!
We play. We play. And, it is true, some of us simply pray.
Wait for returns. Gird and guard your strength today
for the battles which lie ahead and will not simply go away
as you turn from the poll results to begin another day.
Never doubt what we and all the world’s people are about.
We are all defending freedom and liberty.
Some of us are defending our very lives against genocide.
Americans sharing tax dollars with monsters brings no pride.
We are afraid to claim our well-earned and historical shame.
Return to wakefulness as the young are now doing.
See across oceans, in places with names we cannot pronounce
to wars fought more openly, with death a greater reality.
We are part of their fight as our monsters fund a common enemy,
and throw our support to help other monsters destroy even more.
Monsters are destroying the peace we diligently built
and the freedoms we fostered after the LAST GREAT WAR.
Destruction is at the heart of each and every war.
We play with blocks the monster continually knocks down.
The destroyer is once again, and still, at our door.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
Money counts for nothing.
It has no intrinsic worth,
these tiny bits of metal
dug, then foundered from the earth.
Money adds no value to our lives.
Its value lies outside its cost to self.
Its only value is what it tells us.
Money talks after all.
It tells us what we truly value,
whom we raise up, and whom we let fall.
We bet our future on its use,
or bury it in secure vaults.
We use it to boast about greatness
while it hides our basest faults.
It buys the things around us.
It buys the myth of our safety.
It serves to remind us
we are nothing at all;
but, tiny specks in a universe
among many millions just like us,
trying to rise while gravity pulls us
around and down giant black holes.
Money fools us, a tool that uses us,
while we think we rule over others
just like us.
So, we gather it as best we can
to show we are better than
our fellow woman or man.
We cannot rely upon our own souls
to bring wisdom, love and life,
to end the useless strife.
We buy bullets instead of bread.
We drop bombs instead of supplies.
We destroy earth instead of fear.
We believe our own and others’ lies.
Money becomes our grand prize.
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