Untitled Poem - I
Once, one of my students read a book we had.
She was doing a history assignment on
the decline and fall of the Roman Empire
and crying. When I asked her why
she said Because. All those people died.
I said that if you start to cry for the dead
You won’t have much time for anything else.
Besides, after all the city people were killed
or died off, because their cultures got too high,
the barbarians kept some peasants alive
for their food value. Some barbarian raped
some peasant woman who produced
a child who ultimately produced you
and me, so there is this family continuity,
so don’t cry, it’s obvious, look around!
This is the reason why we Americans
are a nation of peasants and barbarians,
poem by Alan Dugan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Waiting for the Barbarians
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
The barbarians are due here today.
Why isn't anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?
Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city's main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.
Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.
Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people's faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?
Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.
poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
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They Raped Her
They raped her till she died!
But a stone falling from heaven will judge them one day;
For his earth is full of negative people.
Let them fall back to learn from their mistakes! !
For their toes were like their woes;
And they attacked this lady like their foes,
But does that save the dead body? ! !
For these people raped her till she died.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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The Man Died
The man died and died and died
And finally the man died!
People killed the man severally
Before the man finally died
The mans family labelled
The man dead.
The community labelled
The man dead
.
And above all the man saw in Himself a living ghost
And had since decayed and rotted inside
That not even the warmt
Of a living blood
Could've been enough
To bring the man back
To life again.
poem by Efe Benjamin
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Forever Starts at the End (A Sonnet)
Eternal life will start in my late last.
But who knows death began ere I was born?
A christian needs to die, as it's a must,
Before he could have seen the coming morn.
The day I went out from my mother's womb,
Is just as my death anniversary.
A dead child risen from a woman's tomb,
And breathing dust that lives for vanity.
I'm now alive but died with Him; and then,
Will die to live a life, and will not die
Again of death that doubled-killed the men
Born dead, although, alive, yet passers-by...
The residents of deathless fire where dwell
Those who died dead to die a death in Hell.
poem by Ray Remalig
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Liberty!
'LIBERTY?' Is that the cry, then?
We have heard it oft of yore.
Once it had, we think, a meaning;
Let us hear it now no more.
We have read what history tells us
Of its heroes, martyrs too.
Doubtless they were very splendid,
But they're not for me and you.
There were Greeks who fought and perished,
Won from Persians deathless graves.
Had we lived then, we're aware that
We'd have been those same Greeks' slaves!
Then a Roman came who loved us;
Caesar gave men tongues and swords.
Crying 'Liberty,' they fought him,
Cato and his wild-beast lords.
When he'd give a broader franchise,
Lift the mangled nations bowed,
Crying 'Liberty!' they killed him,
Brutus and his cut-throat crowd.
We have read what history tells us,
O the truthful memory clings!
Tacitus, the chartered liar,
Gloating over poisoned kings!
'Liberty!' The stale cry echoes
Past smug homesteads, tinsel thrones,
Over smoking fields and hovels,
Murdered peasants' bleaching bones.
That's the cry that mocked us madly,
Toiling in our living graves,
When hell-mines sent up the chorus;
'Britons never shall be slaves!'
'Liberty!' We care not for it!
What we care for's food, clothes, homes,
For our dear ones, toiling, waiting
For the time that never comes!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.
quote by Thomas Sowell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming.
quote by Garrison Keillor
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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May seventeenth
Wergeland's statue on May seventeenth
Saw the procession. And as its rear-guard,
Slow marching masses,
Strong men, and women with flower-decked presence;
Come now the peasants, come now the peasants.
Österdal's forest's magnificent chieftain
Bore the old banner. Soon as we see it
Blood-red uplifted,
Greet it the thousands in thought of its story:
That is our glory, that is our glory!
Never that lion bore crown that was foreign,
Never that cloth was by Dannebrog cloven.
I saw the
future
,
When with that banner by Wergeland's column
Peasants stood solemn, peasants stood solemn.
Most of our loss in the times that have vanished,
Most of our victories, most of our longing,
Most that is vital:
Deeds of the past and the future's bold daring
Peasants are bearing, peasants are bearing.
Sorely they suffered for sins once committed,
But they arise now. Here in the Storting
Stalwart they prove it,
All, as they come from our land's every region,
Peasants Norwegian, peasants Norwegian.
Hold what they won, with a will to go farther;
Whole we must have independence and honor!
All of us know it:
Wergeland's summer bears soon its best flower,-
Power in peasants, peasants in power.
poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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This anniversary serves to help remind the American people that, in the wake of one of the greatest political scandals and misuse of power in our history as a nation, scandal produced important reforms that served this nation well for two decades.
quote by Elliot Richardson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I am Soldier
I joined the army to be Macias
Against Pride in the hydrogen
Bomb third world war
This is my last answer to any one
Who ask why I am a soldier not peasant.
I am a soldier with a course
If you want to know the cause
Sneak in anywhere in the world
Pick a peddle and discover the course
This is my first answer to why I am a soldier not peasant
My feet not touching soil is
My advantage over peasants because peasants
Are platforms whereby the politicians
Stand and talk politics and soldiers
Stand on politicians’ shoulders and shoot.
poem by David Aoloch Bion
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The Death of Joy Gardner
They put a leather belt around her
13 feet of tape and bound her
Handcuffs to secure her
And only God knows what else,
She's illegal, so deport her
Said the Empire that brought her
She died,
Nobody killed her
And she never killed herself.
It is our job to make her
Return to Jamaica
Said the Alien Deporters
Who deports people like me,
It was said she had a warning
That the officers were calling
On that deadly July morning
As her young son watched TV.
An officer unplugged the phone
Mother and child were now alone
When all they wanted was a home
A child watch Mummy die,
No matter what the law may say
A mother should not die this way
Let human rights come into play
And to everyone apply.
I know not of a perfect race
I know not of a perfect place
I know this is not a simple case
Of Yardies on the move,
We must talk some Race Relations
With the folks from immigration
About this kind of deportation
If things are to improve.
Let it go down in history
The word is that officially
She died democratically
In 13 feet of tape,
That Christian was over here
Because pirates were over there
The Bible sent us everywhere
To make Great Britain great.
Here lies the extradition squad
And we should all now pray to God
That as they go about their job
They make not one mistake,
For I fear as I walk the streets
That one day I just may meet
Officials who may tie my feet
And how would I escape.
I see my people demonstrating
And educated folks debating
The way they're separating
The elder from the youth,
When all they are demanding
Is a little overstanding
They too have family planning
Now their children want the truth.
As I move around I am eyeing
So many poets crying
And so many poets trying
To articulate the grief,
I cannot help but wonder
How the alien deporters
(As they said to press reporters)
Can feel absolute relief.
poem by Benjamin Zephaniah
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Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.
quote by Matthew Arnold
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Saga Of Old Prostitute
At the age of five my only father died
at the age of ten I got raped
this not a ease to explain how
in a every half decade
I faced walls in barren field
I got cursed being beautiful
beauty doesn't signifies a
beautiful wife to be of someone
a beautiful house and a
caressing husband were
not ment for me indeed
At the age of fifteen
I drifted from the mountains
to the city of trains
the trusted man I had
sold me in this plain.
sold to this city of people;
into this no heart man's land
at the age of 20 I had 2 sons
Who always asked me who
was my husband
but I kept numb
and my silence was
obvious
sometime I feel where I am
though I m standing on my
feet erect
Now when I m dusk of falling sun
who ll look after me? I wonder
nothing to gain and loose
my stupidity! who ll look after this old prostitute
poem by Abiee Josy
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Losses
It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes-- and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
And the rates rose, all because of us.
We died on the wrong page of the almanac,
Scattered on mountains fifty miles away;
Diving on haystacks, fighting with a friend,
We blazed up on the lines we never saw.
We died like aunts or pets or foreigners.
(When we left high school nothing else had died
For us to figure we had died like.)
In our new planes, with our new crews, we bombed
The ranges by the desert or the shore,
Fired at towed targets, waited for our scores--
And turned into replacements and woke up
One morning, over England, operational.
It wasn't different: but if we died
It was not an accident but a mistake
(But an easy one for anyone to make.)
We read our mail and counted up our missions--
In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school--
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, 'Our casualties were low.'
They said, 'Here are the maps'; we burned the cities.
It was not dying --no, not ever dying;
But the night I died I dreamed that I was dead,
And the cities said to me: 'Why are you dying?
We are satisfied, if you are; but why did I die?'
poem by Randall Jarrell
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What's wrong with our world?
Why are people abused
Why are people shot
Why do people commit suicide
Why are people anorexic and bulimic
Why do people care more about money than family
Why do people call themselves fat or ugly
Why are kids kidnapped and killed
Why do people die
Why do people tell you they love you and take it back
Why do people hurt each other
Why are people raped
Why do people cut themselves
Why do people hate their lives
Why do teenagers get pregnant
Why do people call each other names
Why are people raciest
Why are people depressed
Why are people put in mental hospitals
Why do peole do drugs
Why do people cuss
Why do people not care what happens to them
Why do people care what others think of them
What's wrong with our world
poem by Allison Boyles
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High In The City
I got the time, I got my feet
Lets go hit the street
High in the city
High in the city
I got my mace and you got your knife
You gotta protect your own life
High in the city
High in the city
I wanna get high in the city
I wanna stay alive here in the city
I wanna stay high in the city
High in the city
High in the city
Lets not walk down sutton place
You know everybody there got an akitas
High in the city
High in the city
Dont wanna talk politics today
I feel too good let me have my way
High in the city
High in the city
Watch out for that guy on your right
Seen him on the news last saturday night
He was high in the city
High in the city
Hey, look theyre setting fire to that jeep
Theres not much you can keep
High in the city
High in the city
I wanna get high in the city
I wanna stay alive in the city
I wanna stay high in the city
High in the city
High in the city
So many people feeling low
And theres only one way to go to
Get high in the city
High in the city
Lets grap a pie, lets hit the park
Ill kiss and hug you till it gets dark
Here in the city
Getting high in the city
(high in the city)
(high in the city and youre looking so pretty)
(feelin pretty witty, gettin high off of the city)
(hi-ai-ai-ai, high in the city)
(high in the city)
(high in the city and youre looking so pretty)
(feelin pretty witty, gettin high off of the city)
(hi-ai-ai-ai, high in the city)
(high in the city)
(high in the city and youre looking so pretty)
(feelin pretty witty, gettin high off of the city)
(hi-ai-ai-ai, high in the city)
song performed by by Lou Reed
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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about Utako (an excerpt)
Utako had not heard until after the end of the war that the child had died in the care of the person who took it.
'But-do you think the child really died? ' Utako said.
Jiro looked away.
'Sometimes I think that it might still be alive, you know-possibly.'
'I'm certain that it's dead.'
'If it's alive, do you think if I met it somewhere-do you think I would know? '
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Let The People Have Their Say
The tide is turning
Its coming from the street
Read your own wisdom
Not the headlines
Dont let them tell you
Its fine the way it is
Its our agenda
We know better
Let the people have their say
Let the people show the way
Every woman child and man
Has the power in this land
Now dont you worry
The future will unfold
If we are open and ready
We all have choices
Not just the chosen few
So raise your voices
Hold them steady
Let the people have their say
Let the people show the way
Every woman child and man
Has the power in this land
(let the people)
The time has come now
To realize our dream
To claim our future...together
Let the people have their say
(let the people have their say)
Let the people show the way
(let the people show the way)
Every woman child and man
(every woman child and man)
Has the power in this land
(has the power in this land)
Let the people have their say
(let the people have their say)
Let the people show the way
(let the people show the way)
Every woman child and man
(every woman child and man)
Has the power in this land
(has the power in this land)
Yeah yeah, yeah yo
Yeah yeah
Let the people have their say
(let the people have their say)
Let the people show the way
(let the people show the way)
Every woman child and man
(every woman child and man)
Has the power in this land
Yeah yeah, yeah yo
Yeah yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yo
Yeah yeah
(let the people show the way)
Yeah yeah, yeah yo
Yeah yeah
(let the people show the way)
Yeah yeah, yeah yo
Yeah yeah
(let the people show the way)
Yeah yeah, yeah yo
Yeah yeah
(let the people show the way)
song performed by by Howard Jones
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Part Of America Died
Part Of America Died
Somebody killed a soldier today
And part of America died
The child who shot him won't even be punished
After counsel asks his record not be tarnished
The flag of our country he swore to protect
Will be buried, with him, at his side
Today more of America died
The truck that he rode, was a battlefield too
A respite from a hard day at war
The flag of our nation won't fly at half staff
The purple heart they gave on his behalf
Won't change that a part of America died
Yes, Somebody killed a brave soldier today
It happened this day in a land, far away
While some slept in comfort, at home
A soldier put his life on the line
He answered the call then gave it his all
And on this day much of America died
Jim 1972
poem by James Casey
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Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...We here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
quote by Abraham Lincoln
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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