Fireflies In The Dark
like fireflies in the dark,
those who stand firm are taken,
stamped, and put out...
you silence the human cries
of freedom, ban books,
ideas... ban all thinking.
take anything original
back to the assembly line;
to be remade, reformed....
in the image of mindless
obedience... trained to kill,
trained to follow... trained to hate.
while the lovers of trees, rivers,
and mountains... become
the new faceless minority....
in the land of coal dust excess,
the land of black and white tv.
poverty, disease, and drug abuse
will thin the ranks of the rebellious.
and children without hope
bury their children in dumpsters.
while the angry poets rage
having spent more, done more time...
in your prisons than in college.
and dead mothers walk the streets
crying bitter tears that fall unseen.
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
The children in black
The children in black
Where did their childhoods go
Trailing water behind
How did they become this cynical
They write words of hate
Tears of joy is no longer a term for them
How can they be so small
But hate so much
The children in black
The children in black
What happened to happiness
Are they that controlled
That everything can effect them
Don't they have the right to laugh
Why are their eyes this guarded
Does everything have to be that formal
What happened to innocence
Did it go away with the faith
The children in black
The children in black
I can see the bitterness
Can't you see the ugly truth
Bitter minds already got their minds trained
So why are children so dark
Is there that much pain
The children in black
The children in black
What happened to be open minded
Did it close like a door
Only opening for a few
Is this society that negative
That they can't see the light
What happened to love
Loving parents and friends
It must have went away
The children in black
The children in black
Their hate scares me
Their eyes make me grimace
With thier hate they can stop the world
But how is that possible when they are so young
Are their minds that easy to twist
The children in black
The children in black
I hope they will soon see the light
I don't know if it's normal to be afraid
But that's what I feel
Why do most people find it easier to be sad
Do they realize it's not
The children aren't children anymore
They're miny adults trying to impress
Why don't people realize this
Are they that oblivious
Maybe if people opened their eyes we could do something
But until then...
The children in black
poem by Lillie Ellis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Containment Protocol Initiated
Military will shoot kill civilians
orders are orders
if that's what they are ordered to do?
Training is training
follow orders through and through
that's what we are trained to do?
Military will shoot kill civilians
if ordered to do so?
We are trained to follow orders?
The penalty for not follower orders
in combat... death by firing squad?
Would you follow orders? Do you?
We are trained to follow orders?
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Habits are comforts
To listen to the tunes that
Your ears are trained on,
To look at things that
Your eyes are trained on,
And to tread the way that
Your feet are trained in
Will appear sweet to you.
Habits bring comfort zones.
01.01.07
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Avalanche-the White Death
The land is white
The name of the land brings you
to the land of nothing
The name is white
The white is dead
Sun shines pale, the land shades full of pain
Avalea doesn't bloom and fall in this drain
I'm going back alive again
But no one's crying for the dead
The land is still white
Ice and snow are still the same as yesterday
But the wind is stronger in the sorrow
The land is white
The white is dead
They weep wherever they blow
Forever love, cursed land
Forever goodbye, my lovely land
No more tears falling in this land
Even the sand doesn't know
why he doesn't round to anywhere
The land has frozen like stone
The air is blowed dead
The land is white
The name is white
The land called white is dead
poem by Maria Sudibyo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Unborn!
the last crow flying
o'er this desolate land,
his call of distress
falls on deafened ears...
pools of oil, coal dust clouds,
poisons sprayed over the fields....
faceless bodies walk desperate streets,
in search of bread, water, hope....
the profiteers laugh in druglike trance...
and the children die, unborn!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Wide World of Intellectual Iliteracy-WWII
Slavery Institutionalized Slavery
You didn’t take me away from aplace
You extricated me from a sacred space Me
You developed and trained mu mind
To blend in with your kind
To put you in the fore front
And leave myself behind
My mind was open to assimilation
And closed to self-realization
Education was the agent of control
Substituting society for my soul
An act of self-suicide for the good of the whole
Was it not the great minds of our times that sanctioned
Self hatred
Made the truth oblique
Made education a conditioning process
To obliterate being unique
Seek a role model, seek a hero
Don’t seek being yourself, you are a zero
If education is the answer
It has a function similar to cancer
Americanization another appellation for education
Mind control, behavioral modification
Violence is a form of militaristic communication
I’m a clone, a mere cheap imitation
If I kill it’s because I’m trained
If I hate it’s because I’m trained
If I steal it’s because I’m trained
I don’t know who I am but because I am trained
I Am A Professional
poem by Josephine DixonBanks
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Blaqpearl
Feeding off dump sites
Government preaching about human rights
The minds hunger now difficult to fight
The authority’s pledge I’ve learnt to recite
Insanity, poverty for eternity
Your unwanted possessions
My essential obsessions
My riches, your rags
Your trash, my designer bags
Your side plate, my family’s table
My love unstable
Insanity, poverty for eternity
Ngiphephephi, where am I safe?
Not in my matchbox house
Where the sun knows not the sky
Where it is eternally nightfall
Where trees never grow tall
Insanity, poverty for eternity
You preach about ubuntu
Hold on to your zips because nginsundu
Caring is sharing
Yet you scrutinize as my skin keeps shedding
Insanity, poverty for eternity
Izingane should be seen and not heard
Yet when tears overflow you fly away with the birds
A starving nation builds my judgment of life
A life of manicures and pedicures for your wife
Insanity, poverty for eternity
My brothers, my sisters sighing, crying, dying, trying
Searching for an escape from this death coated,
Pain flavoured bitter-sweet candy on which I was deserted
Stop hearing the voices of black uneducated children
Start listening to the cries of a needy youth
That life just ain’t simple
For I am black because you are white
For I cook because you will eat
For I die so you can live
For I am because you are
Insanity, poverty for eternity
You are born into a cycle where luxury becomes a necessity
A cycle where education is a source of publicity
You get consequently knowledgeable that your heart matures before your head
When you CHOOSE to wet your pillow in bed
When you’re incapably capable to feed yet another head
Where I am born into a cycle where necessities become an improbability, impossibility
A cycle where education is narrowly for minority
So uneducated that your heart learns from the head
Where the tears unintentionally flow because I’m unfed
Where I’m incapable of dependently feeding all my sibling that aren’t yet dead
Insanity, poverty for eternity
For you are in possession of the power to silence the critics
Inspire the pessimists
To astound the optimists
Insanity, poverty for eternity
Black is the coal that lights the fire that houses hell
Black is the pupil of the eye that enables me to see beyond the eyes of the mind
Black is the dark emptiness that “us victims” fear
Black will be the day that blesses us with God’s judgment
Black is the gift of pain that tolerates abuse
Black is the strand of hair that defines my ethnicity
Black is the colour of my love extreme
Think Insanity, poverty for eternity
poem by Yolanda Mbatha
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Our Children
A baby sitter who can’t stand kids
A drunken father slaps his children around
A drug addict mother who sleeps and does nothing but get high
A sister who never comes home in time to protect the small ones
Our children are here on this earth to be loved
Not to be abused and used as slaves
Our children are not punching bags or our slaves
Stop the abuse against the innocent children
These children will grow up to be just like you
Our children need us to love them
The older siblings stand between the you and the younger ones
So stop all the abuse
The children need to be taken care of
All you parents out there listen to me
Heed my warning because your children will grow up to hate you
Stop all the abuse against the future of this world
poem by Jessica Roberts
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Children Of The Land
Written by james young
Lead vocals by james young
Children of the land
Dont wear a frown upon your face
Come on and join your hands
Were all a part of the human race
The music is here
To let you leave your fears behind
Come on along dont do me wrong
Lets see what you might find
Children of the land
Children of the land
Dont misunderstand
Were all children of the land
Dont trust anyone else
To run your life and set your goals
Youve gotta be able to live with yourself
When you are getting old
Others are getting blamed
For messing your life around
Its your own fault if you complain
For letting it get you down
Children of the land
Children of the land
Dont misunderstand
Were all children of the land
Children - come on children now
Children - yeah
Children - I said children yeah
Children - come on children now
Children - of the land
Children - of the land
Children - I said of the land
song performed by by Styx
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
You Who Bury Your Poets
America....
you who bury your poets
like fallen leaves beneath weeping trees.
like the sound of the tire
that strikes the stray cat.
like the trembling dark skinned hands
you ban from your voting booths.
like the flag draped caskets
of your sacrificed young.
like the books you burn
with religious fervor....
like the shuffle of boots
in your unemployment lines.
like the faceless ones
in your clinics shutting down.
like the ones who speak out,
then suddenly disappear.
like the crack pipes and needles
of your 'worthless' poor....
like the babies born to babies
in your rat infested government housing.
like your Native Americans
in your 'poverty prisons'....
like the angry young men
you put behind bars.
like the hungry child sleeping
in the back of a broke down car.
like your factory ghosts
haunting empty shells.
like your foreclosed farms,
the fields left to crows.
America,
you who bury your poets,
and dance drunkenly in empty rooms,
neath the shadow of the noose
your indifference tied!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Children are not simply commodities to be herded into line and trained for the jobs that white people who live in segregated neighborhoods have available.
quote by Jonathan Kozol
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Too Many Puppies
Too many puppies are being shot in the dark.
Too many puppies are trained not to bark.
At the sight of blood that must be spille dso that
We may maintain our oil fields.
Too many puppies
Too many puppies are taught to heal.
Too many puppies are trained to kill.
On the command of men wearing money belts that buy
Mistresses sleek animal pelts.
Too many puppies.
Too many puppies with guns in their hands.
Too many puppies in foreign lands.
Are dressed up sharp in suits of green and
Placed upon the war machine.
Too many puppies are just like me.
Too many puppies are afraid to see.
The visions of the past brought to life again,
Too many puppies, too many dead men.
song performed by by Primus
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
American Red
We massacred red skins
To kill red coats for freedom
To finish off the red skins
To pacify the red states
To defend against red ideas
To send us into the red
To wrestle red China
To a dead USA
Too bad we never saw all the beauty we missed
Too bad our rage never regressed
Too bad in the end we still couldn't confess
Too bad we deserve all that we gave
Too bad on our victims sways our chance to be saved
Too bad another will follow the path we paved
Too bad for us but freedom for others
New opportunities for children and mothers
The air will almost be able to breathe again
And water may turn back into our friend
Drones will still buzz for decades to follow
But perhaps silos will finally be hollow
Too bad, too bad for the American people
But congrats to the world in a measured equal
poem by Tim caffery
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Freedom Rant, Part Two... (For Greg And Terence)
socialism, existentialism,
the pages are revealed.
patriot lies, god dies,
unmarked graves in a field.
the addict weeps, cold hard streets,
poverty has a heavy hand.
discrimination, salvation,
leaving footprints where we stand.
single mothers, live for another,
food stamps and minimum wage.
desperate young men, without a friend,
commit acts of senseless rage.
the prisons turn, the money earned,
fills the bellies of greed.
children taught to kill, against their will,
to survive, to feed the need.
those who slept with goats, and came in boats,
to steal the land of the free.
buried the bones, beneath time and stone,
became written history.
now the sins of the past, come due at last,
the slaves rise against the lie.
feet cross the line, eyes read the signs,
for it's liberty or die!
the farms foreclosed, bankers pick their noses,
the factories shut down...
streets filled with ghosts, businesses closed,
nothing left but the sound.
of family trees, brought to their knees,
and babies born in empty rooms.
where roaches crawl, blood spattered walls,
black eyes, needles and spoons.
while Bibles scream, in human dreams,
of the gospel of flesh and bone.
suicides, mass genocides,
stones stacked upon stones.
hungry faces, leave human traces,
on words spoken without a voice.
beneath the gun, dare we stand or run,
we stand before our choice.
Fox News, for those who refuse,
to feel anything at all.
whose bloodless hands, sign time's demands,
on the dawning of the fall.
the guns of war, as ignorance roars,
but who falls victim to this day?
backs turned too long, hearts turned to stone,
is it too late to pray?
nay, i say! another way!
one chance to make a difference...
for it is this act, taking dignity back,
that is the cost of our forgiveness!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
King Freedom
Freedom is king
But Freedom is not free
For we are the kings servants and soldiers
Trained and made loyal to him
Trained to die for him
For the cost of his tribute is not measured in gold or silver
It is measured in blood
But if we pay the tribute and serve him
We will be under the rule of the greatest king
In the history of the world
FREEDOM
poem by Brandon Hoffman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Am (Kneeling)
i am, become...
i am forgiveness,
wanted, prayed for, needed,
in heart and action...
i am the blood of those
you killed crying out,
in the name of God and humanity!
i am the action done with foreknowledge,
the action done without intent.
and even worse the inaction,
that turns the head and closes the eyes.
i am the earth gasping with death,
crying out to her children.
i am your children, and
your children's children...
starving at your feet!
i am the people of color
you killed without remorse...
and the poor of all colors you flush.
i am the young boys and girls
you sell into slavery,
on every darkened corner.
i am the young men you trained
and sent to die...
to feed your war machine!
i am the working class bartered away
in the game of oil and dominion...
the memory of your parents and grandparents,
all they fought and stood for
sold like trinkets on the block.
the words of freedom, of Thomas Jefferson,
whose grave you now defile...
i am the weeping that has no tears,
that tears you inside out.
i am the hurt that covers you
with shadows and agony,
that makes you sick to your soul.
i am numb with silence,
struck blind, struck down...
i am America kneeling,
i am, become...
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
My African Land
Forgotten trodden past
Hopeful saintful future
I walk in my African land
Africa bears its fruits on crushed branches
Its children bear hope to a tortured yesterday
I walk in my African land
With its tormented heart it loves
With is abused state it sees happiness
With its crushed psyche it looks on caringly
I walk in my African land
I embrace the streets of struggle
Covered by the sands of war from a grieved soul
My African people stride in colourful clothes
As a rainbow ending stormy rage of corrupted seas
I walk in my African land
Tall buildings escalated egos
Fancy cars, classy hearts
Large salaries, tiny compassions
My Africa forgets the hardships endured
My brother forgets Ubuntu
My Africa loses sight
Still,
I walk in my African land
My Africa shines with the sun
That burns dry the tears of his people
I walk in my African land
My Africa rises to a new world of liberty
Freedom from chained minds
Freedom from captured dreams
Freedom from limited abilities
I walk in my African land
My Africa bids welcome
As I enter with pride
Knowing that the war has been won
And success awaits
I walk in my African land
poem by Gabi Ngubeni
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
If words could kill
If words could kill,
then kill they will
without impunity
reaching out
and sucking in
and circle out.
Still a leader
prohibited by law
rages his hatred out
in a neighbouring country
and watch his words spread
by the media of his own land.
Now, a great man lies dead
who could have taken
his country to civil war,
but chose peace
and the Lord instead
chopped to pieces
with a Panga-blade
slaughtered without mercy
or conscience.
Where do we draw the line
and when and where
does the killings stop?
What will this government do
when civil war erupts
and military trained white men
take up the gun?
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Human Blood, Angry And Red!
i put on my black skin
to walk through your lily white churches.
i spoke not a word...
my silent body exuded,
years of poverty and oppression,
discrimination and hunger.
i laid down my shackles
on the steps of your courthouse,
i spit blood on your law books,
human blood, angry and red!
and the woman i slept with,
walked beside me step by step.
she bore my children,
i washed her feet with awe.
we spoke and listened,
forever equals...
take down your sign,
ribs are made to barbeque!
my son fell in love
with a young painter from France...
a delicate young man,
features sharp and clear.
i spent dinners in their company,
conversation that cut darkness.
stunned, admiring... their devotion,
their love wrapped in thought.
i laid down my shackles
neath the altar in your church,
i spit blood on your holy books,
human blood, angry and red!
i turned away from your armies,
took the needle from my soul.
shook off the shudders of ignorance,
and laid down my gun.
sold all my possessions,
walked away from debt induced bondage.
stuck out my thumb,
and headed high in the hills.
i slept neath the trees,
could hear the song of the river.
whispered to the owl,
lying close to my dog.
intimately knew every star by name,
every blade of grass,
and the coolness of stone.
speak, o wind, speak and deliver!
i laid down my shackles,
in the chambers of your progress,
i spit blood on your agenda,
human blood, angry and red!
i crossed the border at midnight,
silently moving, shadows in shadows.
with nothing to lose but my life,
nothing to gain but my life.
hands eager to work,
heart eager to dream,
believing in the impossible dream,
of freedom!
i laid down my shackles,
at the foot of your Statue Of Liberty,
i spit blood on your Constitution,
human blood, angry and red!
kill me freedom!
rip the heart from my chest.
i wear your scars
on my back and my face.
bury me in equality,
let my name be every name.
rip the skin from my bones,
let my bones be the steps...
on the path to compassion,
on the road to human kindness...
let my memory be fairness,
my image be joined hands!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Children of Chaos
Children of Chaos
It takes only one moment to be oppressed
But it takes a lifetime to forget
The feeling is of pure hate condensed
Through history this plays true for all
When two legions clash
The oppressed are always the first to fall
The greatest men are born after oppression
Children born of this are the most capable
All their life they search for redemption
A feeling of justice for their pain
But find no help from kin in contradiction
These children are strong in spirit
But weak in emotion and sensibility
Of weaknesses they are purged
Robbed of their humanity
Hearts born of steel quality
As babies they watch in silence
Born into violence
As adolescents they are prepared
Their humanity is lost, or risk becoming impaired
Animosity takes seed
As they watch their parents bleed
As young adults they are trained in the streets of hell
In anarchy their souls dwell
United under one banner
They are formidable against any corrupt planner
Born and raised in chaos the perfect soldiers
Immune to a conscience damaged by war horrors
They fight for one cause, whether pure or not
When they fight and kill no remorse is paid
Their victories are gained by gun and blade
Nothing left to lose, yet their freedom to gain
Victory comes easy to the children of pain
Children of turmoil fight well
But in society they don’t live so well
Expected to live in the aftermath in silence
These children raised in uncompromising violence
poem by Jonathan Banuelos
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!