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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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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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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Our Children!
those brown skinned babies...
starving in Haiti, Africa,
and around the world.
laying dead victims
of bombing and gunfire...
are our children.
those white skinned,
black skinned babies,
born into the housing developments
and trailer parks,
into crackhead pill popping
poverty... those,
are our children too!
those blood stained babies,
found in desperate dumpsters,
our children, again.
those unborn babies,
born into hopeless situations,
or never to be born
into a world cold and hard...
our children too!
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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Occupy... (Citizen Of The World)
occupy...
Wall Street, banks, financial institutions.
the Congress, the White House, the Pentagon.
the court system, the prisons...
empty factory buildings, small businesses,
the coal mines, the oil fields,
the docks....
vacant foreclosed houses,
homeless shelters, soup lines...
the lines of the unemployed.
the fields ready to be picked.
the illegal immigrants bent backs...
the big trucks shut down...
minimum wage slave jobs...
cheap imports made by child labor,
the oil industry, the automobile industry...
occupy...
big farms, those who would spray harmful
chemicals on the crops...
family farms, threatened foreclosure by the banks.
the education system,
the medical profession...
hospitals, clinics, and insurance.
nursing homes, social security, Medicare
and Medicaid...
occupy...
welfare housing, tenemants and trailers...
section eight housing...
law enforcement, emergency services...
occupy....
the military, all national acts of aggression,
the war industry!
voting rights, voter registration, the political process....
occupy...
human rights, equality, dignity and respect.
freedom of speech, freedom of information,
the truth!
occupy...
your neighbors' needs, the suffering of others...
hunger, despair, the human family.
occupy...
your own body, your sense of social consciousness,
your words, actions, and intents...
occupy...
a shared freedom as a citizen of the world!
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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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
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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 Courtroom Is Empty
the courtroom is empty,
the gavel untouched.
no hands on the book,
no jury of twelve.
(and the hands of the clock
have stopped!)
small children killed, tossed in the trash,
women abused, old people hungry, alone.
young girls sold into slavery
young boys sold into war
homeless ghosts walk the halls,
without hope in man or God.
and there's no sound, no feeling,
not even a breath of air
(and the hands of the clock
have stopped!)
an American tragedy,
or just human tragedy.
justice bought and sold,
afforded by just the few.
the wheels of Wall Street turn,
politicians barter with lives.
drinking the blood of the babies
that will never be born!
the takers keep taking,
and the honest man falls
to die nameless in the ditch,
covered by ashes and dust.
and there's no sound, no feeling,
not even a breath of air.
(the hands of the clock
have stopped!)
the courtroom is empty
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Unemployment Shame
Rows and rows of boxes
All of them the same
With rooms and rooms of people
Each without a name
Hearts that beat, though breaking
And smiles that mask the pain
Of fading hopes of sunshine
Through windows drenched with rain.
Once lovers, now not speaking
Except to lay the blame
For broken dreams and the poverty
Of unemployment shame.
Empty cupboards and drunken sleep
Are all part of the game
But hungry babies wake them still
On mornings all the same.
poem by Jane Solanrobertson
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I Dont Even Know Their Names!
his spirit left his body,
and walked through the hells.
a firm voice spoke:
'keep your eyes open,
look, and see! '
he saw dark skinned children,
their bodies frail and thin,
their features carved with hunger.
he saw women and children,
running from the bombs,
young men gunned down,
in the streets.
he saw the homeless family,
sleeping in a beaten old car,
hoping no one would come
to make them move.
he saw the young addict shaking,
the young woman helpless,
her baby crying in the bare apartment.
he saw the young man sent to prison,
trying to hide his fear,
a fear so strong they
could smell it on him!
he saw the woman who'd been beaten,
the man jobless and angry.
he saw millions of Native Americans,
slaughtered, and left for the crows.
he saw the old couple hungry,
in their apartment with no lights,
and no heat in the dead of winter...
'i cant take it any more,
what has this got to do with me?
i dont even know their names! '
'their names are anybody, and everybody...
they are why you must return.
they are your children, your
brothers and sisters, your father
and your mother...
they are your responsibility!
you must return to finish the work! '
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Bury Me In My Shades
In a pad with no heat, up on Sullivan Street,
The last of the hipsters lay dyin'.
Wearin' his shades, so like no one could tell
Like whether or not he was cryin'.
All the junkies and loners
An' coffee shop owners
Were all gathered 'round his bed.
He took one last puff
Of some imported stuff
And this are the last words he said.
He said, 'Send my sandals home to Mom,
Hang my T-shirt away.
Burn my guitar
In Washington Squar',
'Cause I never learned how to play.
Give my pad
To some needy lad
And tell him the rent is all paid.
Keep my cash,
An' my stash,
An' my hash,
But bury me in my shades.
Bury me in my shades, boys,
Bury me in my shades.
Burn my guitar
In Washington Squar',
But bury me in my shades.'
He said, 'Give my Brooklyn chicks away
To anyone who needs 'em.
Give all of my poems away
To anyone who'll read 'em.
Dig me a grave 'neath the coffeeshop,
And let a sad folksong be played.
Get everyone high
On the moment I die,
Bury me in my shades.
Bury me in my shades, boys,
Bury me in my shades.
Burn my guitar
In Washington Squar',
But bury me in my shades.'
We threw his sandals out in the hall,
We left his T-shirt lay.
We sold his guitar
At the corner bar
To someone who knew how to play.
We smoked all his stash,
And spent all his cash,
And threw all his poems away.
And Bob got his records,
And Ed got his books,
And I got the poor beatnik shades.
'Bury me in my shades, boys,' he said,
'Bury me in my shades.
Burn my guitar
In Washington Squar',
But bury me in my shades.'
poem by Sheldon Allan Silverstein
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Truth... Demands An Audience
i keep watching
old people dying...
with unspoken living,
trembling on their lips.
truth...
demands an audience!
the silent screams
of mountains and rivers defiled.
even the trees whisper,
the sad hurt of poverty.
the wind cries of justice,
in the empty rooms of god.
do you tire of this flame?
wish i'd go away?
give it time,
even my footprints will disappear.
trees will fall,
mountains will crumble.
and the oil raped rivers
will stink of death.
hungry mouths will go unnoticed.
without faces or names.
cities full of empty buildings
will murmur in the night.
and nothing will return
to claim it's just reward.
the unmarked stone stays silent...
even the silence tastes bitter!
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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America
(Francis Scott Key)
Oh, say, can you see
By the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight's last gleaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched were so
Gallantly streaming?
America, America, America
America, America, America
And the rocket's red glare
The bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there
Oh, say, does that star
Spangled banner yet wave
Over the land of the free
And the home of the brave!
America, America, America
America, America, America
America, America, America
America, America, America
America, America, America
America, America
ooohhh
song performed by by Lou Reed
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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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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Walking With The Lover...
walking with the Lover...
i see empty fields plowed,
come alive with crops abundant.
empty factory buildings filled
with the ghosts of hard working lives.
empty houses lit up,
and the sounds of families.
empty hands given cups and bowls,
empty hearts held close!
empty words given meaning,
empty promises fulfilled.
walking with the Lover...
touching the plenty of empty!
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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Rebirth of a Nation!
Oh Flag of America, I see your colors bleeding like running tears. Why are you so sad?
“My children have lost their Innocence, their Courage has fled, and Justice has died in their bosoms.”
Oh Flag of America, oh Flag of America you are fading away! What can be done
to restore your brilliance?
“Light the torch of Valor once again, and give it to the pure that remain, the few who remember me in all my gaiety. Send them to burn down into ashes the pillars of corruption and as the ashes scatter to the winds the name of Justice shall ring through the
Night.”
Oh Flag of America, I find no one pure, there is no Valor left to spark the flame of Justice. What do we do now?
“Oh sudden fall! All is lost without the pure, only they can wake the slumbering perseverance of old. Oh young one, you cannot remember how we used to stand vigilant with Justice as a fiery guide, Valor our shield, and Purity the rock upon which we stood.
Oh, the foul waters of corruption have shifted the soil 'neath us, now we tilt and sway.
Unless the pure awaken and steady the rock, we shall tip o'er and vanish like snow ‘neat Spring's sunlight.”
Oh Flag of America, I am young, but I know that which you speak of. Let me carry your torch of Valor and set Justice free!
“Hark! I hear the voice of a pure one, I hear the cracks forming in the pillars as they vainly fight against the flames of Justice! Oh children of America! Children of America! You once again stand upon solid rock! Your Valor has turned the skies crimson, your Purity has turned the earth white, and Justice has dyed the waters a deeper blue! America, America, the Lord of Hosts is pleased, for those who were pure have crushed the Serpents head! ”
Oh Flag of America! How brightly you shine now! You have become more brilliant than all the gems of the earth!
“America you have made me so.”
poem by Tolly Rebeka Christian BlackWolf Hawk
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Freedom Demands Action!
this be not a free country...
as long as one child goes hungry,
one child cant afford to go to school....
as long as there are unemployment lines,
as long as there are vacant houses,
and homeless families.
as long as our sons and daughters
are sacrificed to the gods of war.
as long as our elderly cant get medical care.
as long as they burn and ban books,
as long as one is censored for speaking truth....
as long as the religion we profess
denies the rights of other religions.
as long as the young gay couple,
who want to adopt a child,
a child that no one wants...
cant get married.
as long as justice is bought and sold,
and is different for different colors.
freedom demands action!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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