I Am (Mourning)
i am, become...
i am the Agent Orange soul
of the Vietnam generation.
i am the mad rush to Armagadden,
the finger on the button.
i am the planes, the tanks,
and the weapon held close...
i am suicide by aggression,
and the profit made!
i am the Kent State students,
and the marches for peace.
i am the lone candle lit
in a world filled with darkness.
i am the body count, and a mother's tears...
i am the weeping of a land
whose morals deserted!
i am the propaganda machine,
and those that stand against...
persecuted, and beaten,
labeled as communists.
i am the election rigged,
and the unmarked graves
where individual votes go to die!
i am belief in humanity,
equality, and compassion.
i am the heart of the people,
too long at rest!
i am the truth revealed,
and shouted from the rooftops!
i am repentance, i am redemption,
i am America, mourning...
i am, become...
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Walk Inside The Wind...
of war and peace,
Tolstoy wrote,
and Dylan rhymed with angst.
while Woody fought the fascists,
and hopped the midnight train.
Martin spoke for equality,
unafraid of bullets and chains...
and the Kent State students,
stood against unholy war.
mowed down by their own people,
yet nobody's keeping score.
now time immemorial,
calls both the child and man.
for dignity and humanity,
to rise and take a stand.
to hold the truth of open hands,
to see beneath the skin.
to preach the gospel of give a damn,
to walk inside the wind...
and if there be tomorrow,
we must redeem today.
to act from the heart,
to light the dark,
to be the prayers we pray.
for salvation is nothing more,
than the redemption of the soul.
building shelter for the dispossessed,
to fill the hungry bowl.
now time immemorial,
calls both the child and man.
for dignity and equality,
to rise and take a stand.
to hold the truth of open hands,
to see beneath the skin.
to live the gospel of give a damn,
to walk inside the wind...
poem by Eric Cockrell
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America Is Not... Is
America is something far greater
beyond the borders of the united states
America is not made of rock land or sea
America is not the country
we were fooled into
mistaking it to be
America is not a monger of war
not a preacher of nationalism
America does not exploit
the weaknesses of humanity
America has never been
represented accurately
or depicted properly
by those career manipulators
America is not a place
where one man can reject
the presence of another
America is raw unearthed potential
freedom truth beauty equality!
America resides in the heart and mind
America is home of the human spirit
America is a dream of potential earth utopia
America is something we all cherish and long for
America, its time we redefine ourselves
rethink our concept of who we are.
poem by Gregory Allen Uhan
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One Candle, Tonite!
if we all took one candle,
and lit it tonite....
one candle...
symbolizing peace,
within and without;
celebrating understanding,
and the willingness to understand.
symbolizing compassion,
and the desire to accept
all men and women just as they are...
the dedication to feed the hungry,
house the homeless,
and heal the sick....
one candle...
one humanity, diverse and individual,
praying, working, sweating, loving together....
the dignity of one
defining the dignity of all...
lit one candle,
and put it in the window tonite...
we'd both light the darkness,
and free the slaves....
as hand to hand joins heart!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Dear America
America! Arise to your historical day,
The clarion call has sounded,
Another day of your history is on target
This major milestone must be faced,
Presidential Election, November 6th,2012.
People from afar, to your shore came
To engage in the American dream,
A dream of peace, love, prosperity
A dream of hope and security.
The American inspirational journey of evolution,
Science and techology
Now, behold a new dawning, a day of decision
Which way is up! Which way is right for America?
The world watching in quietness,
For, it is written, long time ago,
'Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation;
And every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.' Matthew 12: 25
The splendour of gigantic showplaces,
The glamourous entertainment centres
The power of the presidency,
The force of the military,
Oh the thrilling sport enthusiasts,
Thus America, America, America, you are great!
America, America, America
A resounding decision must be made,
For behold neer too far the trumpet shall sound
And to battle you shall be called.
Search ye citizens within your uttermost selves for strength
When delivering your votes,
For, today, the clarion call is heard,
America, America, America,
Your leadership is the key to world peace.
Your leadership matter to the world at large.
Winston Harding
poem by Winston Harding
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Occupy, The Body Of Freedom
'no more Kent States,
...no more Kent States...'
President Obama,
dont turn a deaf ear!
dont sell out to the machine.....
dont betray us like Nixon did!
silence is betrayel!
inaction is betrayel!
you cannot turn your head,
and hope we go away!
this isnt about helping you
get re-elected!
it's about the truth!
corporate America wont stand for it.
Wall street wont take it!
how many will be beaten?
how many pepper sprayed?
the fear you seek to instill
only validates freedom's song!
you cant sell us the lie anymore!
we're not buying it!
Occupy.....
occupy the body
.....of freedom!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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The List!
i came to age
in the land of Nixon,
and J Edgar Hoover....
when if you even breathed
the truth you made the lists,
the lists that no one saw!
from the America of LBJ,
the slaughter of the Kennedys',
and Martin Luther King....
and open war on the students
at Kent State who dared to stand....
against an unholy war....
civil rights, flag burnings,
draft card burnings....
women's rights, and change....
that we didnt finish....
now our own children stand
up in protest against a way
of life that isnt living....
and again the police
and the riot squads....
will there be lists this time?
unholy.....unholy........unholy
wars.. .....lifestyles.....'justice'!
put me on the list!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Lost In The Sixties...
forever lost in the sixties...
in the passions, the ideals,
the cries for peace and equality,
for human dignity,
and no more wars.
the music, the poetry,
the communal lifestyle...
but the deaths were many.
assassinations, Hoover style.
and those lost to heroin,
who fell off the edge.
thousands killed in Vietnam,
you'd think we would have learned...
but life went on,
the wheel kept turning.
50 years later,
two more wars,
not to mention invasions.
things worse than ever before.
we who survived became
the very thing that we hated!
we closed our eyes,
fell victim to the greed.
again crying out,
for peace and equality,
for human dignity,
and for human rights.
the earth dying,
because of our decisions.
we who became islands
seeking to fulfill the self,
now must cling to each other,
and become family again.
standing against the lies,
the propaganda, and the money machine...
singing songs of peace
with bloody hands.
lost in the sixties,
but very much here in the 21st century...
the last stand of freedom,
in a world gone mad!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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A Single Candle/Death Herself
A single flame lights her face
The face of death
A single candle holds her fears
The fears of death
Her hands clasped anrond their souls
The souls of the dead
She feeds of their screams
The screams of the dead
Her legs lay bellow her
Bellow death
Her black gown over her body
The body of death
Her chest rises and falls with her breath
The breath of death
Her cloak drawn over her long flowing jet hair
The face of death
Her eyes unmoved unfeeling
Do you see it?
Do you see the soul of death?
Do you feel it?
Her skin as white as snow as it fades into darkness
The snow of tears
Her cloths as dark as night that swallows the light
The dark we all shall see
Her eyes close as she feels their souls flow
Flow from the dead
She leaves them there to lay in darkness
She steals from the dead
A single candle lights their faces filled with her
Filled with death
They fall into the darkness of her eyes, of her heart
The darkness of death
A single candle shall stay to light their way
Their way through the dark
A single candle holds their past
The pain and trials
A single candle lights her face
The face of death
A single candle holds her fears
The fears of death herself
A single candle
poem by Bethany Maxwell
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From Vietnam To America
In Houston, men killed their own children,
In Saigon, boys killed and robbed
Got life in prisons.
Right here, wives left their husbands...
And mourned their children's deaths,
Over there, girls sold their bodies
Every nights on streets.
From Vietnam,
Do my people have to pay that much,
For the stupid Communists and "United,"
To America,
Do my people have to pay that much,
From the sake of freedom and dollars,
From Vietnam to America,
Do my people have to go that far?
poem by Thanh Nguyen
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Suicide.
Suicide, suicide
Your presence is near
Suicide, suicide
I wish you were here
Suicide, suicide
Take me away
Suicide, suicide
Please make it today
Suicide, suicide
An answer, for me
Suicide, suicide
I need to escape, be free
Suicide, suicide
I’ve had too much
Suicide, suicide
Take me, do your touch
Suicide, suicide
Leave the rest behind
Suicide, suicide
You’re all over my mind
Suicide, suicide
Let me pass in peace
Suicide, suicide
I need to release
poem by Lisa French
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The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.
quote by Joseph Stalin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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From Dreams to Reality
As a boy I was filled with
aspirations and dreams,
and imagined myself
a star of the silver screen.
I was a romantic unsung hero,
an adventurer, a lone ranger.
A tireless fighter against evil,
a good cause campaigner.
I was also a superhero
from comics and books.
A typical nervous Clark Kent,
with charm and good looks.
As I grew older my parents asked
what did I want to do,
to earn a good living
my whole life through.
I thought and I thought,
but I had no idea.
'An apprenticeship, ' said mother,
which filled me with fear.
At the age of almost fifteen
an interview at Rolls Royce,
An engineering apprentice,
this was my first choice.
White overalls with a red RR,
I was proud to wear,
and wore these work clothes
just about everywhere.
Everyday in the training school,
it was like being in the army.
My enthusiasm soon wore off,
it was driving me balmy.
After nine months of training
in many different trades,
they decided as a machinist
I would make the grade.
The last thing I wanted
was to work on a machine,
that churned out parts
for planes and submarines.
I told my dearest mother
that I was bored to tears,
and I couldn't work machines
for the rest of my years.
She said I couldn't resign
until I had found a career,
which taught me a trade
for the next six years.
She made enquiries
with people she knew,
and arranged for me
an engineering interview.
I met the proprietors;
a man and his wife.
I was now an apprentice,
and set up for life.
Royces tried to change my mind
and offered a different trade,
but I was now a fabricator,
and my decision was firmly made.
poem by Orlando Belo
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Let America be America Again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!
poem by Langston Hughes
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The World Is In Pain
This world was once as bright as gold
With happy people young and old
But then as the people tell
To the evil goodness began to sell
The world wasn’t as bad as it is
With people’s tears coming out as rain
It wasn’t filled with darkness
It wasn’t like today - The World Is In Pain
And as the darkness began to prevail
So says the story tellers tale
From bad to worse, and worse to worst
It felt as if the whole world would burst
The world wasn’t filled with all sorts of crimes
With all the people going insane
The world wasn’t filled with killers and bandits
It wasn’t like today - The World Is In Pain
Now evil is ruling and angels are dieing
No truth is there and the people are lying
And as the truth is overpowered by lie
Over all places the dark clouds fly
The world wasn’t filled with lies
With search of truth ending in vain
The world wasn’t filled with darkness
It wasn’t like today - The World Is In Pain
poem by Vidushi Khera
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Weltschmertz
You ask why I am sad to-day,
I have no cares, no griefs, you say?
Ah, yes, 't is true, I have no grief--
But--is there not the falling leaf?
The bare tree there is mourning left
With all of autumn's gray bereft;
It is not what has happened me,
Think of the bare, dismantled tree.
The birds go South along the sky,
I hear their lingering, long good-bye.
Who goes reluctant from my breast?
And yet--the lone and wind-swept nest.
The mourning, pale-flowered hearse goes by,
Why does a tear come to my eye?
Is it the March rain blowing wild?
I have no dead, I know no child.
I am no widow by the bier
Of him I held supremely dear.
I have not seen the choicest one
Sink down as sinks the westering sun.
Faith unto faith have I beheld,
For me, few solemn notes have swelled;
Love bekoned me out to the dawn,
And happily I followed on.
And yet my heart goes out to them
Whose sorrow is their diadem;
The falling leaf, the crying bird,
The voice to be, all lost, unheard--
Not mine, not mine, and yet too much
The thrilling power of human touch,
While all the world looks on and scorns
I wear another's crown of thorns.
Count me a priest who understands
The glorious pain of nail-pierced hands;
Count me a comrade of the thief
Hot driven into late belief.
Oh, mother's tear, oh, father's sigh,
Oh, mourning sweetheart's last good-bye,
I yet have known no mourning save
Beside some brother's brother's grave.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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America Post 911
Land of freedom
Land of war
Land of peace
There you are
America!
Land of spirit truth and grace
Land that will never quit the race
May you fight until you're done
Because the battle has not yet been won
America!
Land of the beautiful
Land of the free
Bring the enemy to his knees
May his conscience sear his soul
Till the bell of victory tolls
America!
This is America land of the brave
Though you hurt us our banners continue to wave
High above the skies our spirits soar
As we replace future's door
America!
poem by Mitzie Thorne
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JFK Jr’s Hate America Poem
Imagine yourself at age 15,
And you the son of a President
Of the United States of America.
Would you have written this hymn of hate,
About the country your father served in war,
And the country he died for in Dallas?
Does this say what a Democrat is?
No wonder God took his life
Before he could further ruin this country
This poem of his was written
To be sung to the tune of
“America the Beautiful”
“Oh lovely land of racial lies,
Of crooked ways to fame,
From Kent State to Sharon Tate
We’re proud to bear thy name.
America, America, God spared his grace on thee.
From atom bombs to nuclear arms be proud of U.S.A.
And though you’re bad, we love you mad
You taught us right and wrong
Just look at Vietnam and the trouble that we cause
America, America God looks at us from high
To guide us by our forefathers cry,
Just like Jerry Ford.”
poem by Robert Founder
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Paschandale
(SmithHarris)
In a foreign field he lay
Lonely soldier, unknown grave
On his dying words he prays
Tell the world of Paschendale
Relive all that he's been through
Last communion of his soul
Rust your bullets with his tears
Let me tell you 'bout his years
Laying low in a blood filled trench
Kill tim 'til my very own death
On my face I can feel the falling rain
Never see my friends again
In the smoke, in the mud and lead
Smell the fear and the feeling of dread
Soon be time to go over the wall
Rapid fire and the end of us all
Whistles, shouts and more gun fire
Lifeless bodies hang on barbed wire
Battlefield nothing but a bloody tomb
Be reunited with my dead friends soon
Many soldiers eighteen years
Drown in mud, no more tears
Surely a war no-one can win
Killing time about to begin
Home, far away
From the war, a chance to live again
Home, far away
But the war, no chance to live again
The bodies of ours and our foes
The sea of death it overflows
In no man's land, God only knows
Into jaws of death we go
Crucified as if on a cross
Allied troops they mourn their loss
German war propaganda machine
Such before has never been seen
Swear I heard the angels cry
Pray to god no more may die
So that people know the truth
Tell the tale of Paschendale
Cruelty has a human heart
Every man does play his part
Terror of the men we kill
The human heart is hungry still
I stand my ground for the very last time
Gun is ready as I stand in line
Nervous wait for the whistle to blow
Rush of blood and over we go
Blood is falling like the rain
Its crimso
song performed by by Iron Maiden
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Do Not Fear... I Fear!
i do not fear....
Armagadden, not the end,
not soldiers wearing masks,
not the plague, not nuclear disaster....
not prisons, not persecution,
not being labeled or hated.
not losing it all,
not guns, not drugs, nor
one world order.....
but i do fear....
not living all that i can live,
not giving all that i can give,
not matching beliefs with action,
not seeing all people as people,
not doing what i know is right....
not standing when i should stand,
not saying what i should say....
not writing the words i'm given....
poem by Eric Cockrell
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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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