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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Related quotes
From Greece To Rome (Part Two)
it took the civil rights movement,
the women's movement,
and the laborer's movement...
led by such as Cesar Chavez,
Martin Luther King, Malcolm X,
James Baldwin, Maya Angelou,
just to mention a few.
imprisonment, beatings, marches,
and many are dead now,
sacrificed to the cause.
JFK warned of secret societies,
wanted to pull out of Vietnam...
his brother Bobby stood up
for justice against the wheel...
both killed by the machine.
over 40,000 killed in Vietnam,
riots in the cities of America.
Nixon lied, America fell into stupor,
and those who believed
became part of the masses.
yet now, a turn for the worse!
/continued/
poem by Eric Cockrell
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No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
There was a man in our town who had King Midas' touch;
He gave away his millions to the colleges and such;
And people cried: "The hypocrite! He ought to understand
The ones who really need him are the children of this land!"
When Andrew Croesus built a home for children who were sick,
The people said they rather thought he did it as a trick,
And writers said: "He thinks about the drooping girls and boys,
But what about conditions with the men whom he employs?"
There was a man in our town who said that he would share
His profits with his laborers, for that was only fair,
And people said: "Oh, isn't he the shrewd and foxy gent?
It cost him next to nothing for that free advértisement!"
There was a man in our town who had the perfect plan
To do away with poverty and other ills of man,
But he feared the public jeering, and the folks who would defame him,
So he never told the plan he had, and I can hardly blame him.
poem by Franklin P. Adams
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So Shines a Good Deed in a Naughty World
There was a man in our town, and he
was wondrous rich;
He gave away his millions to the colleges
and sich;
And people cried: "The hypocrite! He ought
to understand
The ones who really need him are the children
of this land."
When Andrew Croesus built a home for children
who were sick,
The people said they rather thought he did it
as a trick,
And writers said: "He thinks about the drooping
girls and boys,
But what about conditions with the men whom
he employs?"
There was a man in our town who said that he
would share
His profits with his laborers, for that was
only fair,
And people said: "Oh, isn't he the shrewd and
foxy gent?
It cost him next to nothing for that free
advertisement."
There was a man in our town who had the perfect
plan
To do away with poverty and other ills of man,
But he feared the public jeering, and the folks
who would defame him,
So he never told the plan he had, and I can hardly
blame him.
poem by Franklin P. Adams
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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
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The Wars of Kenny Marchant and George W. Bush
Hiding during the Vietnam War,
You are now both supporters of Iraq gore!
Perfectly content,
Others' lives to be spent!
Course America now must stay,
Real American values you both betray!
Into another hopeless morass,
Totally ignoring your own obscure Vietnam pasts!
Expect history not to be kind,
Sidesteppeing Vietnam service to later have America maligned!
poem by Hubert Wilson
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I Want to be a Soldier
I will be a soldier
Only when soldiers realize
They are not animals or
cattles
Only if soldiers can ask
'Why should I shoot that
innocent man? '
I would be a soldier
If soldiers can ask the
commander
'Why should we shoot at
the children? '
I would be a soldier
If soldiers know that
The red blood that runs
through their veins
Runs in the rest peopl's too.
I would be a soldier if
Soldiers know they aren't
what they ask them to be
When they know that
The Emperor will never ask
them to kill his children
I would be a soldier
When soldiers realize war
is inhuman
When soldiers know war
always starts war
When they know that
World peace can not be
reached through war
When United Nations can
ask themselves
Is war the only way to end
corruption in the globe?
When soldiers know the
distance between peace and
war.
When soldiers realize how
intoxicative the gun is.
When soldiers realize
that gun does not control
them, but they control it.
I would be a soldier only if
soldiers know
why Martin Luther King jnr.
was killed.
If they know Adolf Hitler
also tried to make peace
through war.
I would be a soldier
If they can tell me why they
are only trained to kill.
I would be a soldier if
soldier can say
NO TO BRUTE LEADERS.
I would be a soldier if
soldiers know
the difference between
death and birth.
I would be a soldier if they
can tell
Why they are weapons of
destruction?
If they can explain why they
killed at Vietnam?
Why they killed at Somalia?
Why Ghadafi was killed
without trial?
Why Abraham Lincoln was
shot
Why Ghandi was killed,
Why they dont care if they
die in war in the name of
peace.
I would be a soldier If soldiers know they have rights If soldiers know they need Freedom. I would be a soldier If the goverments around the world realize How wonderful the world would be If the money invests in atomic weapons can be spent To feed billions of children on the streets of India, Nigeria, Brazil, South Africa The United States and all the streets of the World. I would be a soldier when soldiers can fight for liberty And not for slavery When soldiers know that nobody should think for them When soldiers know they are humans not cattles, When they realize that nobody should tell them what to think and what to feel. If soldiers can be humans, I would be a soldier.
poem by Idris Adesina
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STUPID PEOPLE...by Talile Ali
STUPID PEOPLE EVERYWHERE
STUPID PEOPLE WITHOUT A CARE
STUPID PEOPLE WANNA SHARE
STUPID PEOPLE IN MY HAIR
IM IN THE UNITED STATES OF STUPID PEOPLE
STUPID PEOPLE ALL THEY WROTE
STUPID PEOPLE WHO THEY QUOTE
STUPID PEOPLE GET AROUND
STUPID PEOPLE THAT I FOUND
I'M IN THE SQUALLER AND THE WIT OF STUPID PEOPLE
STUPID PEOPLE SO I SWEAR
STUPID PEOPLE I DON'T DARE
STUPID PEOPLE ALL AROUND
STUPID PEOPLE LOST AND FOUND
CAN I GET A BREAK FROM BEING AROUND YOU
STUPID PEOPLE
poem by Talile Ali
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Beatnik To Vietnam To Hippie Stand
(10/13/12)
At the beginning of "64" - I packed up my uniform
And walked out the door- it was the beginning of
The Vietnam war.
By August of that same year
President Johnson started the draft
Under protests and jeers.
Then he made it a full scale war
And sent our soldiers to Vietnam shores.
The Beatniks in Greenwich village
With their long hair, beards, and
Flip flop sandals - wrote their poetry
About this undeclared war, and why
Our men were going to those shores.
This created a new generation called ‘HIPPIES"
The hippie generation was groups of protesters
Against everything that they found wrong
The draft, the war, pollution
And loved to stay high with pot, hashish
Coke and acid (lsd) which kept them blasted.
This also created the " flower children"
Who like the hippies loved to be high
And on certain flowers they would fly.
But they spoke of loving one another
And gave out flowers as a sign of peace
Which to the president was a relief.
They all started painting this "53 Chevy impala"
With the words " flower power".
Now the " flower children and hippie movement
Was in full swing, and everyone was doing their own thing.
They had Greenwich village under their control
And not one coffee shop would ever be sold.
Every coffee shop had a poetry night
And going there was such a delight.
Then in AUGUST of "69"
The WOODSTOCK festival was on the rise
Over half a million people drove to that farmland
And set up tents, hammocks, sleeping bags and such
And the police found it was much to much
So they had no choice but to see it through
Because there was nothing else that they could do.
The WOODSTOCK festival had become world wide
And to this day it still thrives.
© L. RAMS
poem by Louis Rams
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More than half the combat deaths in Vietnam occurred after Richard Nixon was elected on a promise to bring the war to an end, and after the American people had already decided that they did not want one more soldier to die in Vietnam.
quote by Raul Grijalva
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Certainly the Australians were buried in Korea. But I think that from Vietnam on, all the killed were brought home to America or to Australia, in our case.
quote by Peter Scott
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Part 10 of Trout Fishing in America
WITNESS FOR TROUT FISHING
IN AMERICA PEACE
In San Francisco around Easter time last year, they had a
trout fishing in America peace parade. They had thousands
of red stickers printed and they pasted them on their small
foreign cars, and on means of national communication like
telephone poles.
The stickers had WITNESS FOR TROUT FISHING IN AM-
ERICA PEACE printed on them.
Then this group of college- and high-school-trained Com-
munists, along with some Communist clergymen and their
Marxist-taught children, marched to San Francisco from
Sunnyvale, a Communist nerve center about forty miles away.
It took them four days to walk to San Francisco. They
stopped overnight at various towns along the way, and slept
on the lawns of fellow travelers.
They carried with them Communist trout fishing in Ameri-
ca peace propaganda posters:
"DON'T DROP AN H-BOMB ON THE OLD FISHING HOLE I"
"ISAAC WALTON WOULD'VE HATED THE BOMB!"
"ROYAL COACHMAN, SI! ICBM, NO!"
They carried with them many other trout fishing in Amer-
ica peace inducements, all following the Communist world
conquest line: the Gandhian nonviolence Trojan horse.
When these young, hard-core brainwashed members of
the Communist conspiracy reached the "Panhandle, " the
emigre Oklahoma Communist sector of San Francisco, thou-
sands of other Communists were waiting for them. These
were Communists who couldn't walk very far. They barely
had enough strength to make it downtown.
Thousands of Communists, protected by the police, marched
down to Union Square, located in the very heart of San Fran-
cisco. The Communist City Hall riots in 1960 had presented
evidence of it, the police let hundreds of Communists escape,
but the trout fishing in America peace parade was the final
indictment: police protection.
Thousands of Communists marched right into the heart of
San Francisco, and Communist speakers incited them for
hours and the young people wanted to blow up Colt Tower, but
the Communist clergy told them to put away their plastic
bombs.
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should
do to you, do ye even so to them . . . There will be no need
for explosives, " they said.
America needs no other proof. The Red shadow of the
Gandhian nonviolence Trojan horse has fallen across Ameri-
ca, and San Francisco is its stable.
Obsolete is the mad rapist's legendary piece of candy. At
this very moment, Communist agents are handing out Witness
for trout fishing in America peace tracts to innocent children
riding the cable cars.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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How Many
how many vacant store buildings
in small town America
does it take?
how many of our boys dead
on foreign soil
for no apparent gain?
how many unemployed people
waiting in line?
how many meth labs?
convenience store's robbed?
how many teachers laid off,
and kids that cant read
or do simple math?
how many sick people
who cant get medical care?
how many houses foreclosed?
how many homeless
wandering in worn out cars?
how many oil spills?
how many mines collapsed?
how many nuclear accidents?
how many prisoners
wrongly convicted
on death row?
how many small children killed?
how many suicides?
how many acts of rage?
how many acts of desperate hunger?
how many?
poem by Eric Cockrell
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America Cries
America cries.
Her economy dies.
Killed by people you can't trust.
America cries as we bite the dust.
America cries. Now come the whys.
No one could see it?
You've got to be kidding.
America cries as the Neros were fiddling.
The capitalist system is so out of hand.
The capitalists have taken over our land.
What's left for us?
Not much you see
except more taxes for you and for me.
Lending and spending, spending and lending,
the crying and weeping will be never-ending.
America cries and says its goodbyes
to times of financial prosperity.
The financial sting that's played like a game
stock market crashes?
foreclosures to blame?
No. America you played into the hands.
They've dumbed us down so no one understands.
America cries. Where were the wise?
They left long ago and will not return.
America cries for she refuses to learn.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Why America
America, America you don't know me,
But dear America I know you.
I see you in the faces of young people,
I watch you sleep in your crib at night.
I hear your voice in the crowded streets,
I taste your soul in the resturants at dinner time.
Why America have you forgotten about us?
You got too big and you left us behind.
Not thinking about the little man,
We were just a waste of your time.
Dear America turn back and look at what you are,
The wind in our hair, the dirt in our pots,
The rain on our cheeks, the oil in our homes.
America why would you allow yourself to forget?
We made you what you are today.
We the little man dug into your land to find oil.
We turned over your soil to feed the pig you are now.
We America are who you should thank
We, America are the working class people.
Without us there is no you.
Without the work we do there is no product,
Without the product there is no profit.
We, America fuel you, yet you leave us behind.
It's okay though, all is forgiven.
WE FORGIVE YOU! !
poem by Racquel Davis
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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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Intimacy
I hear people say, "I love my iPhone, "
Or, "I love drinking a Starbucks coffee."
Sometimes: "I love my Versace cologne, "
And also: "I love having this money."
I hear people say, "I love my Walmart, "
Or, "I love the drive-thru at Taco Bell."
"I love my TV. It's state of the art."
"I love the shoes that Nike has to sell."
I hear this: "I love American Idol, "
And, "I love a nice, cold Budweiser."
"I love medicines such as Demerol."
And, "I love my internet provider."
Yet, one thing I don't hear is, "I love you."
Saying that is too intimate to do.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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America, Grieving
America, grieving...
your oily fingers on
the wheel of the world,
your black heart of prejudice...
you pull the crumbs
from the mouths of the needy,
and litter your walkways
with the bones of children.
you poison your own crops,
and defile your own water.
you educate your children
in prisons dark, and
on foreign sands fighting...
for freedom, no!
you batter the people of color,
bruise them with your stars and stripes...
your hanging trees condemn you!
you cut the hearts out
of your working people,
and feed them fear and lies.
the stench of your excesses
rises to meet god,
the god you've created
in your blackened jealousy.
you taunt the spirit
with cries of freedom,
free speech, free thoughts...
and then break it with the
oppressive load of your debts.
Wall Street and big oil,
and the corporate demons...
no democracy here!
America, grieving...
your own will rise up,
and take down your flag!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Sandusky
our culture of revenge has
struck another blow,
locking up Sandusky &
throwing away the key,
knowing full well that in
prison,
this guy might last a year
before he is stabbed a few
dozen times by a group of
guys pissed off because
they probably knew someone
growing up who'd been
molested, or worse, they had
been themselves &
when he is killed in prison,
people will scream an even
louder hoorah! than they are now,
as he gets taken away in the cuffs,
sentenced to a minimum of 60
years in prison, with some
astronomical 400+ at the max-
so,
rather than place him in a facility
where his behavior can be studied,
so that we can learn from what he's
done &
improve the lives of the rest of us
with the findings of such research,
so that when utilized, the possibility
of such behavior might be lessened,
thus helping to prevent children from
being violated in such a manner,
we simply react with passionate anger &
lock him up, where he will most certainly
be killed, sooner than later-
good ol' "an eye for an eye, "
biblical bullshit "justice"
strikes again &
gets us no further than where we were
before.
poem by Andrew Delapruch
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America... The Fallen!
America...
lady of freedom weeping
in your streets broken,
cluttered with the bodies
of the jobless, homeless...
the hungry faces of your children
struck dumb by your apathetic hand....
do you hear? do you see?
do you feel? ....
whose graves will you mark
with your oil tinged pride?
whose god will you worship now?
and who will be left to carry
the heavy mark of your sins?
America....
the fallen!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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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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