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Hymn Of The Dead

the talking faces with painted lips,
stand in nobody lines making nobody sounds.
while gunpowder hangs from cobwebbed books,
in which the pages of freedom are unnumbered.
while justice faint as a wisp of smoke,
curls just above the poor man's reach.
houses left empty except for ghosts,
that have neither name nor memory.
righteous indignation with pale white hands,
that tremble as they pour the cup....
ah, but the cup is cracked,
and blood drips to the floor...
in the hallways of indifference.

a newborn son, put a gun in his hand,
castrate his eyes, teach him hatred.
a newborn daughter, put a broom in her hands,
and prepare her for the planting.
you call this America, the shores of liberty,
dark skinned bones ground beneath your feet.
while poverty takes now two from three,
and bodies are buried in the schoolyards.
crack cocaine, pills, and handguns stolen,
while gasoline steals survival.
and churches burn both plates and pews,
as the five o'clock news fills the needle.

whose mountains and valleys,
whose roads, whose fields, whose barns?
black crows on the tractors.
whose brown hands severed by the border guards?
whose factories and mills abandoned?
whose flags draped on coffins of pine?
whose voices haunt the play yards?
whose trucks abandoned on desert highways?
whose America, damn you! whose family?

poem by Eric Cockrell
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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
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The Day, And The Coming Day!

we are the day,
and the coming day.
the cities painted with despair,
the houses built left abandoned.
the seeds we altered,
the trees we cut down.
the mountains we mined,
and the seas we defiled.
the peoples we left homeless,
left to die in poverty and hunger.
the ships we sent to the moon,
the smoke from the great factories.
the daughters we sold into slavery,
the sons we executed on profit's battlefields.
the lie, the drug, and the drug of the lie!
the temples we built
to gods that taught us to kill.
the prophets we killed with righteous indignation.
the bodies we left in our prisons of justice,
the flags we wore to defile our hearts.
we are the day,
and the coming day.
now skies have turned grey,
the air filled with our empty!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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America.... Revolution, Or The Fall!

America, America,
your pale skinned death testifies!
the cross of your democracy laid down,
the blood on your hands names your guilt.
your bodies laid in soldiers' graves,
strewn across your planted fields.
while wild fires rage,
and your tenements boil,
as your children march to death.
the poverty of indifference,
strikes the bell that cannot ring.
while the wealthy drink the blood
of your disembodied men.
and your hallowed god turns his face,
disgusted by what he's seen.
blood sacrifices on your borders,
blood sacrifices in your mills.
your families driven from their homes,
while your prisons turn the wheel.
and the hungry walk your streets
wearing familiar shoes.
the haunting cry of liberty,
rattles against your walls.
while justice is bought and sold
in your sacred halls!
and the colors of eguality,
bleed into your angry streets.
your schools struck numb
by propaganda's thumb,
your daughters sold like meat.
America, America,
revolution, or the fall!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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You Call This America!

morning splintered,
justice stinks like the
dried blood on the concrete walls
of an abandoned building.
you call this America!
lives wrapped in color,
in calloused hands.
standing in line
for a loaf of bread.
a bullet, a token,
a fresh covered grave,
you call this America!
you wear your god in sunday best,
throw words and prayers
into a bottomless well.
afraid of your shadows,
you arm yourselves,
you call this America!
the hands of take flex
and shout...
while dirt faced children
stand with mouths agape.
mothers die, and brothers are killed.
sisters sold on the block
beneath colored lights...
you call this America!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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Liberty... (Dont Betray Me Now!)

Liberty...
dont betray me now.
i have paid your price,
in bodies burning,
and mouths that tremble.
in toil and struggle,
in sweat and faith.

take not thy hand from my heart,
for you have spoken to me with eyes.
eyes that see the beauty
of the common, and simple.
eyes that drink equality,
seeing hands joined in darkened rooms.
eyes that pray common prayers.

who am i to have a face?
who are these faces,
giving dignity to names?
history written in warm blood,
on the farmhouse walls,
on the factory floors,
in the carpenter's apron!

i am the voice of what should have been...
what could have been!
i am family handed down to family,
i am equity and justice.
i am the black hand taking down
the all white sign...
i am the horses of Crazy Horse,
Sitting Bull, and Cochise.
i am the mill worker's only son,
going to college.
i am the daughter of the minister,
marching for women's rights.
i am the young man in prison,
teaching himself to read!

i am the sound
of machines shut down,
of fields left unplowed,
of courtrooms empty.
i am the bodies of the young men,
killed in your napalm wars...
i am the mother and father,
burying their only son.
i am the rage of the poor,
with calloused hands torn.
i am the housing projects,
the trailer parks,
and the prisons full.
i am the cities gone mad,
with despair and grief.
i am the spirit of rebellion,
and the body of revolution!

i am the scientist, the doctor,
the preacher, and the drunkard.
i am the free thinker,
daring to question.
i am the man alone,
who dares to stand and defy.
i am the voices of the grandfathers,
and grandmothers,
crying out from their graves.
i am the migrant worker,
the bedpan emptier,
the garbage man,
and the small town sheriff...
the stink of injustice,
and the vote not counted.

Liberty, o Liberty,
turn not your face...
for i am the breath and the blood,
that moves your body!
i am the prayer too long unprayed...
one hand in a fist,
and the other left open!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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I Am.... (The Branch, Part Two)

i am...
the orphaned child and the abandoned dog,
the woman raped, the young man killed.
i am the body hanging alone and cold,
the old woman shaking in an empty room.
i am the young girl taken and enslaved,
the needle, the spoon, and the revolver.
i am black skinned, brown skinned anger,
and the bones of bodies hidden...
the speaker of truth detained and tortured,
the invisible trail left behind.

i am...
the rage of jobless, homeless, hopeless...
the unemployment line and the sweat shop.
i am the family living in a stolen car,
and the child who runs away.
i am the store clerk killed by the robber,
her minimum wage death unnoticed.
i am the shadow crossing the border,
the inmate that breaks and runs.
i am the guns silenced,
and the lies revealed...
i am human rebellion.
i am the branch covered by leaves,
waiting for certain autumn!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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Lift Your Voice To The Wind.... (For Frank)

i kneel...
on time worn knees,
facing the distant hue
of the Statue Of Liberty.
and touch the hallowed ground,
that Jefferson and Adams dreamed,
would give birth to a freedom....
never before seen.

and now even the shadows shiver
with the indignity of the lie.
the ghosts of the freedom fighters,
howl in mourning.
the truth suppressed
by the hands of greed,
the eyes plucked from their sockets,
tongues stapled to the pavement.

they're burning books in America,
they've chained freedom of speech.
beneath the stink of ignorance,
and a false morality.
they murder, and call it war.
they make their living from poverty.
they treat their women like cattle,
send their children to prison.

they would still every voice,
and put fetters on wings.
they would silence beauty,
and nail the casket shut...

yet somewhere i know,
you still carry the light.
burn the bridges behind you,
and reach for the stars.

lift your voice to the wind...
for it carries your name!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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America Revisited

put down your crack bowls
and your republican flags...
and let's go walking thru
the streets and alleys of America....

let's walk past the empty houses
with foreclosure signs in the yard...
past the vacant factory buildings
where the homeless break in
at night and sleep...

past the lily white churches
and the dead zone schools...
past the county jails and the courthouses
and the rooms where lawyers
buy and sell justice...

past the housing projects
where babies buy groceries...
down to the tent cities where
dreams hang in the air like opium.

down the dark streets where young
girls and boys sell their bodies
for their vampire pimps...
and everyday citizens buy them!

down to the unemployment offices
where angry people stand in
numbered lines...
past renegade gas pumps
guarded by dollar store slaves...

past the words of Jefferson, Franklin,
and Thomas Paine....
to the hypnotic ads of puffy-faced
liars with titles and plans...

down to the cemetary where
the last shreds of freedom
lie in unmarked graves....
and we call this....

America!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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They Call This America, Dont They?

the cum stained prayers
written on tenement walls,
where brown eyed girls, head held high...
wear poverty's drench,
backs strong and straight,
amid the pale cries of babies birthing.
roaches scatter, bare feet skim the floors,
empty cupboards whispering moan.
food stamp dreams, two days away,
they call this America, dont they?

the trailer wrecked, paper thin walls,
duct taped tile by molded tubs.
the broke down truck, the mailbox spills,
unemployed and out of time.
box fans on stolen power,
dirt faced children, starving dogs.
an American flag, a worn out Bible...
they call this America, dont they?

the old couple melting, tiny apartment,
before a black and white tv.
half filled pills, empty Alpo cans,
yellow tinged pictures on the table.
a phone that didnt ring,
before it couldnt ring...
the sound of bones grinding to dust!
dont make much noise,
who gives a damn?
they call this America, dont they?

poem by Eric Cockrell
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American Made (Nowhere To Turn)

American made....
in the fields, backs bent,
working the earth....

in the factories,
hands, eyes, and machines,
moving in well oiled unison....

in the mills,
cloth woven into warmth
and cover.....

on the sites,
buildings going up,
block by block.....

in the trucks,
barreling across the highways,
carrying goods coast to coast....

in the hospitals,
skilled hands healing,
hearts with shoes.....

American made,
standing in unemployment lines,
vacant buildings, trucks shut down....

American made....
not needed anymore,
with nowhere to turn!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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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
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Ballad for the Forgotten Workers

down by the river, down on the street,
past the empty factory buildings,
smokestacks that no longer smoke.
past the run down tenements,
past the vacant store fronts.
to fires that dont burn, and...
...engines that dont stroke.

down the road, leaving the city behind,
there's miles and miles of fields,
stone silent and turning brown.
tractors rusting in the sun,
a bucket by the well...
old house lies empty, falling down.

the sea of hands lost forever;
red and white, brown, and black.
headstones in the parking lots,
but they're never coming back.
built your cities, built your country,
plowed your fields, fed your hungry.
thrown away in your quest for power...
but their names mark the hours!

(steel workers, no more steel!
teachers, no more books!
farmers in the food lines,
no carpenters, no cooks.
cotton mills moved to Asia,
we cant even make tables and chairs.
no time clocks and no paychecks, ...
... nobody really cares!)

poem by Eric Cockrell
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All The Same!

i am the illegal immigrant,
picking your fruit.
while my children are hungry,
and my wife scrubs your floors.
the young black man in your prison,
the anger of the poor.
i am the books,
you forbid us to read.
i am the Vietnamese family,
whose children speak english.
the young Sioux poet,
whose words sound like tears.
i am the white man's reservation,
and the white man's god....
the sound of the gas pump,
the feet of soldiers marching to death.
i am the grandson of the miner,
who never came out.
the body of the union organizer,
buried beneath rubble.
i am the picket line,
the cold floor of the cell.
i am the old woman who died,
alone in her nursing home bed.
the sound of the church bells,
on midnight's empty streets.
i am the needle and the crack pipe,
the sound of the window breaking.
i am the whistle of the train,
so near and so far.
i am the child adopted,
by two women in love.
i am the mission, the soup line,
and the shelter....
the body in the alley,
and no one cares.
i am the song of America,
i am the wind of freedom.
i am the torch of justice,
the bridge that has no name.
i am the god of many colors,
and all the same!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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The Hands That Built America

Oh my love
It's a long way we've come
From the freckled hills
To the steel and glass canyons
From the stony fields
To hanging steel from skies
From diggin in our pockets
For a reason not to say goodbye
These are the hands that build America
Ah ah ah..... America
Last saw your face
In a watercolored Sky
As sea birds argue
A long goodbye
I took your kiss
On the spray of a new lined star
You gotta live in your dreams
Don't make them so hard
And these are the hands that built America
Ah ah ah..... America
Of all of the promises
Is this one we can keep
Of all of the dreams
Is this one still out of reach
???
Its early fall
There's a cloud in the New York skyline
Innocence...dragged across a yellow line
These are the hands that built America
These are the hands that built America
Ah ah ah..... America
Ah ah ah..... America

song performed by by U2
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Black Man In America

Black Man In America for to long our chains held us so tight
beaten down as far as the dust chained to the night
Black Man In America can't you see
we free now at least physically
but freedom isn't free if we still enslaved mentally
Black Man In America stand up and let your voices be heard your families are calling you because they don't deserve to be deserted or mistreated
let us be stronger than they because the greatest retalation is providing a successful way
for your black babies and mine to have a brighter day
they are calling out to you heed their cry and respond favorably to them saying here am I
Black Man In America we must continue to wage this fight and let our hands be strong and our fingers do the fightin'
Black Man In America a success you must become because without success our freedom wasn't really won
Black Man In America stand up and be heard its imperative for you to provide the light for a brighter day that your children so richly deserve
Black Man In America

poem by Julius Thomas
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Which Side Do You Belong To?

i hear the cry of the hawk and the rabbit,
i feel the talons tearing flesh.
i smell gunpowder, and bodies burning,
i hear the sound of boots on the road.
the groan of the tanks turning without faces,
the buzz of the drones flying above.
the mechanical order, as life is destroyed,
the cry of babies on their mother's dead breasts.
the mourning sisters who bury their brothers.
light making shadows on all the colors of skin.
the shout of the flags, the bowls left empty.
the bolt of the rifle, the knife slid from the sheath,
the sound of the falling just before impact.
the cry for freedom on the lips of the martyr.
the pages of the holy book turned down forever.
the prayer of justice over equality's grave.
the soldiers of poverty who fought against all odds.
the sound of dead elders drawing in their breath.
the wind named liberty howling and lost.
the fingers of the child touching dead lips.
the song of the bruise, the scar, and the dream.
the smell of flesh bartered for hope.
the last drink of daylight, the dark night unending.
the face of eternity in slivers of moonlight.
the star of humanity falling from the sky.
the presence of god, and the absence of presence.
the mountains crumbling, the rivers gone dry.
the last trees walking into the distance.
the sound of the chisel carving in stone,
the last tear wept by the shadow called being.
and i turn and i stand in the name of dignity,
holding in my hands the pages of history.
the moment lost to vast infinity...
saying, tis now, or never,
truth counts the cost...
which side do you belong to?

poem by Eric Cockrell
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Mercy # 2

black man, white man,
ground beneath their feet.
families carrying guns and Bibles,
living on the street.

rich man, well hid,
cocktails made of blood and oil.
tyranny, mass slavery,
bodies buried, American soil.

and the hands on the clock
crawl like justice spurned....
tick tock, tick tock,
mercy gives what mercy earns!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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Have Mercy!

Have Mercy!

with final thoughts
i walk these streets,
past vacant buildings hallowed.
in silent mourning,
my heartbeat joining,
the concrete scarred by living.
passing strangers hurrying,
as if they had a life to return to.
while the shouts and cursing of working men,
rings inside the empty walls!

past tenemant buildings,
and unemployed stoops,
and eyes staring from windows.
dogs too hungry to bark,
squad cars passing slow,
tis the funeral of poverty.
while meth lab food stamp children,
sharpen knives against the curb.
and everything's grey, even the sounds,
the air is drunk with anger.

i caught a ride
with a trucker wired,
who mumbled slamming gears.
out into the country
once green and rich...
now brown and deserted.
fields not worked,
farm's foreclosed,
houses left to ghosts and memories.
tractors rusting in the sun,
the air is drunk with anger.

back into town,
past libraries closed,
and churches that ache with empty.
i can hear the sound
of the distant bells...
be it freedom or infinity.
past hospitals full,
and graveyards that move
with shadows in the night.
back to the small room
where i cant sleep...
where god weeps in the stillness.

America, America...
the air is drunk with anger!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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I Walk Alone...

i am the last rebellion,
the fire you cannot control.
i am the faces of lost bodies,
names written in blood.
i am the call to battle,
armed by the heart.
i am the silence that knows,
the darkness that takes.
i am poverty's shadow,
and the language of need.
i am the anger of the beaten,
i am the field forsaken.
i am the tint of skin,
and the color of the eyes....
the song of the shovel and whip.
i am the bones of the old ones,
shaking with rage.
the tears of the grandmothers,
the dirty hands of small children.
i am the soldier imprisoned,
on the streets of despair.
i am the conscience of the murderer,
that haunts the night.
i am the bodies of lovers,
glistening with passion.
i am the child born,
neath a sky with no star.
i am the crucifix and prayer beads,
the hymn known only by trees.
i am the dog abandoned,
rain falling without remorse.
i am the monk self-immoliated,
the cry for freedom unheard.
i am human dignity,
and i walk alone!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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Epilogue (Part Three)

shivering nails,
black and white coffins whisper.
bodies without heads,
strewn in the sand.
the taste of gunpowder
on my lips.
i bow, but cannot pray!

the sound of the oil rigs,
the coarse rhythm of greed.
take and destroy, take and fulfill!
the cry of sea life,
the gurgling choke,
soon to be the children
of flaccid men.

buildings like bodies,
stripped empty and bare.
the memories smell
of life that once was.
empty, and pulsing,
with the want of need,
no one hears the ghosts within.

hunger and homelessness,
heroin and Jesus.
the shelves are bare,
the mother's eyes are bleeding.
the nameless and unwanted,
cast aside in the storm,
while ghouls walk amid

the rubble of the lie.

sing for me, pray for me,
take my hand, take my hand...
even when i close my eyes,
i still hear, still feel,
the faces of the wind!
and god, if there be,
in each and every tear!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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