The World We Live In

Shel’s Giving Tree and a Man With Odd Coping Mechanisms

Green grasses grow in sun-soaked soils and budding flowers bloom, Where the sky is wide and violet clouds hang ‘round the morning moon. All is calm and all is still as the man surveys his land, Admiring that pine tree raised by his callus-studded hand. He presses his palm against the bark and feels the branches breathe, Relishing the feel of the sticky sap and the subtle summer breeze. He sighs and lights a char cloth match, watching the cattle graze, And then without a second thought, he flicks his wrist, and sets his tree ablaze. In the middle of a clear green pasture, A leaning and long-ringed pine tree blackens in the flames As raging red waves burn buckling branches that scream and beg for rain. A charismatic spark that has been kerosene doused Laps around the tree’s twisted trunk and slithers up its boughs. The man looks up at his beloved tree and smiles as it dies, He relishes his burning work, “how nice and warm,” he sighs. Heavy clouds of thick, grey smoke wash away the remnants of the moon, As the ashes of his giving tree collect atop a freshly blackened tomb. Each day that we use venom as fuel, we burn the air we breathe, And as we tighten our ropes, we swallow remorse and grind our teeth. No single man is at fault for cutting down our forests, for poisoning our rain. We are all guilty of robbing this earth, Of causing our mother pain. BUT there is still hope for this beaten planet, we can return what we once stole, The sun will rise tomorrow, and if we treat her right, our mother will save our souls.

River

River, cry for me.

Soft ripples kiss me sweetly,

Waters swallow me.

Sweep me up in your current,

I’ll go where your tears take me.

Empathy Personified

Empathy is blind,

She doesn’t see the broken, the forgotten, or deprived.

She passes by the streets lined with jagged shards of broken pride.

The streets where knuckles bleed from holding on too tight.

The streets where at night it’s too dangerous to walk alone.

To walk to a house where the children are nothing more than skin and bone.

Where the prayers haven’t worked in years, and neither has the stove.

Nothing more to eat… There is nothing more to eat. 

They’re starving. They’re dying, and empathy isn’t helping.

Because Empathy is mute,

She doesn't speak up and she never plants her roots.

She stands in a crowd  of revolutionaries, icy wind whipping handmade signs out of tight and rose tipped fists that protest the capitol’s wits.

And when the bad men, with clothes pin pinched faces are sent to silence the shrieks,

Empathy stands tall, because she never had the courage to speak.

Because Empathy is Deaf,

She doesn’t hear the cries of the oppressed.

Of the millions of minorities fighting for their liberties that the privileged possess.

Those people who fight for the right to take each breath.

Who everyday lose one more part of their life,

 condemned to a society with divisions that cut like a knife.

Because Empathy is a tool,

A tool that’s sat collecting dust in the shed for far too long.

One that humanity needs to learn to use before everything goes wrong, and this world turns out broken.

Because Empathy is power, and it shouldn’t be deaf, mute or blind.

All we have to do is try to understand one another.

We are all people, it shouldn’t be hard to be kind.

What We’ve Made

This is what we’ve made, a crippling society,

Where we call a wobbling tower of toddler’s blocks the foundation of a country.

This is what we’ve made, a place where no one is  safe and no one is sane.

Where kids soak their pillows with tears because they go against the grain,

Where the wise suck their cut lips to avoid losing blood,

Where happiness is a high and insanity a drug.

This is what we’ve made, a city of lust and spite,

Where carving her name into a park bench is sweeter than a kiss goodnight,

Where love is a joke blinded by prey seeing eyes,

With a soundtrack overpowered by whispered threats and labored sighs.

This is what we’ve made, a plot of purgatory with a view of hell,

Where we see the shots all fired but we can’t reach the wounded from our cell.

This is what we’ve made, a barren land with none but us,

we’ve killed the creatures and the trees and signed the papers anonymous.

This is what we’ve made, in trying to hold the world by a string,

We’ve tied a noose round Nature’s neck and we’ve ruined everything.

This is what you’ve made. Look at what we’ve done. This is what we’ve made. Are we finally done? 

After the Storm

The storms brought by spring are violent wars.

Lightning flashes, thunder bellows, winds whirl.

The earthen soldiers prepare for the scores,

When Adam’s Ale washes away the world.

Each morn, fields bear bloody signs of night’s fight.

Of the plants’ bold effort to withstand

The raging assassin of the night

Let loose by Mother Nature’s tender hand.

But those lost to rains shall not die in vain.

The watered soils will feed those who hunger.

Verdure’s spilled blood will drench the withered plains,

And night’s dry breath will plague plants no longer.

After storms have past, the damage is done.

The fight’s remains burn with the risen sun.

The World I Live In

The Sun was my very first kiss,

When I felt those warm slices of light brush against my pale cracked lips,

I knew,

I knew that I was in love with the world I live in.

The sticks and stones that crack marrow and feed domesticated fires, 

The thick roots grounding that old tree that I used to sit in for hours,

Just me... and the birds.

The thick roots that ground me to the spot where I stand now,

Admiring the world that I live in,

The world that I love.

I try to remember the first time my toes met earth,

The first time I tasted dirt,

The first time I was knocked over by the wind,

The first time a soft fall breeze picked me up again,

The first time that the frost of winter pecked my nose in sets of three,

The first time that snow licked my rosy cheeks.

I try to remember,

But I cannot.

How lucky I am that my love has always been with me.