Tag Archives: gerrymander

ROCK-A-BYE,BABY

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Get rid of the cradles.

Make America strong.

All day long,

the same twisted song.

No cradles for children sitting at their desk.

Run, hide, fight until your death.

No cradles for special needs learning.

Defund dollars which fulfill childhood yearnings.

No cradles for child workers at night.

Employ them younger and later, even on school nights.

No cradles for the hungry, the homeless and poor.

SNAP and low-income housing supplements are no more.

No cradles for immigrants, nor refugee asylum.

Go back where you came from. You are mere scum.

No cradles for a republic and voting rolls.

Gerrymander away voting rights, for sole control.

America is no longer the beacon of old,

no longer the cradle of democracy, so we are told.

America refuses to follow any rules.

The Rule of Law has become a dictator’s mule.

Americans are almost put to sleep,

distracted by fables, eyes nearly closed.

A nation of immigrants seeking their rest.

Too weary, now, to even try to do their best.

Their minds drift off as their eyelids drop.

Their minds close down as they simply stop.

Rock-a-bye, baby, 

On the treetops.

When the wind blows

The cradle will rock.

When the bough breaks

The cradle will fall.

And down will come baby

Cradle and all.

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

WHAT WE’VE GOT

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Kent State taught us that white deaths matter more

than Black students shot at Jackson State the week before.

Will protests-to-come under attack by armed and masked militia

teach us that Brown and Black people under attack is indicia,

within the borders of a nation dedicated to the proposition

that all men are created equal to the oppression,

of rich men of ill will in hiding from congressional oversight

and protected by the US Supreme Court’s judicial might?

I see the writing on the wall, not graffiti, after all,

but executive orders illegal and ill-tended to destroy

the hoped-for dreams of every American girl and boy

not born into wealth, in no need of human labor

to offer enough cash to create a way to savor

all that life could offer a middle-class caste

now turned in serfdom, as in decades long past.

We are not in a culture war.

We are in a class war.

We are in war we thought civil war had ended.

Yet, we continue to watch the republic untended

by leaders who did not see the need to fight

and believed compromise with bullies was right.

Workers sold out over and over again.

Blocked in every effort to build strong unions.

Students sold out over and over again.

Blocked in every effort to get a sound education.

Children sold out over and over again.

Blocked in every effort to find safe protection.

None of us now treated with human affection.

None of us now safe in our streets or our beds.

None of able to take a breath without dread.

Whether you voted for this, or not.

This is what you wrought.

Now, this is what we’ve got.

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

THE GAME IS OVER

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It is hard to stop this rush toward self-destruction

by a nation so far ahead in the race

no one else could compete and play.

There is no reason to mourn the last mile run

in a race no longer any fun

for any but a very few, 

and fewer still each day in play.

We all know American’s greatest sin

is loving nothing better than a game they can win.

When winning is no longer fun 

we look for someone to blame, and make them pay

for reminding us the game is over

and a new game must be put in play.

And, so, we blamed Joe,

who simply, in so many ways, happened to be

the last leader to toss away the final play.

No one has been a winner since,

nor could be since that final day.

A new game cannot be worth our while

if the top few are the only winners.

The old game with so many losers may be over.

But, we Americans are not over the need to play

a game we all can win,

a game we call Election Day.

Let the new game begin!

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS