FOR THESE TIMESPower and Peace
Is it peace or power you desire? Does your cause bank on the enemy Being decimated by your justified assaults? Is your righteousness more right Than the rights you point your finger at? Is the acquisition of control the catalyst That mobilizes your outrage? The voice that cries out in opposition to your own Echoes off the stone wall of your convictions. The angle from which you view the world Sharpens its teeth on uncompromising convictions. Have you lived a thousand lifetimes and dreamed a million dreams? Have you suffered a million sorrows and sown a million joys? Are you a divine creature seeking refuge Or a beast stampeding virtue into oblivion? The politicos of all positions rewrite the history of their crimes. These times are no different from any other. They reek of Power to be wrangled for. Power to be stolen. Power to be extracted from the waning elite by the new. And where is Peace abiding in this? The peace of turning a cheek. The peace of loving a foe. The peace that holds its forgiving hand out To the victims and perpetrators of all power seeking causes. Copyright Marc Kelly Smith 2021 THERE AGAIN
Bald man about to blow a stop sign Brakes hard, scrunches, puts his hand up “So sorry!” To a sleepy-eyed woman Tugging at her dog’s leash Smiling back, “It’s okay. Been there.” “Hey, what’s the rush?” Muses the tuck pointer Taking his time climbing the scaffold Eye drinking the garden path below. “Alotta work went into making that patch of gravel looks so pretty.” “Huh?” says the carpenter down the block Cutting planks to fill in the porch steps At the corner where two cops parked illegally Balance a box of Dunkin Donuts on their knees As a bus squeals to stop To let down the mechanical platform For a grandma burdened with a shopping cart. “Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you.” Bicycles fly by. Troops of young workers File toward the train station Cell phones in their faces Clutching lattes from the Perfect Cup Where High, the filmmaker, plots his next script And Janis, the real estate agent, barks too loud And Barney, the retired accountant, perches On the outside edge of the storefront bench Under the cigar dangling catalpa tree. Morning in this world. Everything the same. Everything different. If you slow down and look close Maybe you’ll see yourself With no tweets to interrupt the peace. Copyright Marc Kelly Smith 2021 ECHOING MARKHAM
To you who do the bidding of the billionaires I have concerns. I wonder where it will all lead to. I wonder what kind of world will emerge When every utterance of truth is falsified, When there is no place solid to stand, When power and aggression rule, When dollars corrupt every human thought, When all integrity succumbs to profit? Let us no longer fool ourselves Believing in Democracy’s idyllic slogan Of the People. By the People. For the People. Such words no longer have an inalienable force backing them. No longer do they ring true in the rhetorical climate of our times. And if they no longer motivate our leaders to be upright Then why should We the People Be any less cynical than the cynics who control and lead us? You who do the bidding of the billionaires Who have become collaborators Who have crushed the compass of justice Who steer the ship of state toward chaos Be ready, for when rebellion has no choice But to shake all shores, when the floods And storms of the tribal populace, Erupt and overflow the landscape Demanding and extracting retribution From the corporate rulers of the world Avenging the perfidious wrongs and immedicable woes This last century of greed inflicted upon them. Copyright Marc Kelly Smith 2021 
|
FOR THE LONELY ONES This is for the lonely ones, The older ones, Passed on now Silenced by speeding time Less significant than once before Beleaguered by the goals they did not achieve. Consumed by the failures haunting their final hours, The disappointments, the miscues, the wrongheadedness, The attachment to what never was or ever would be. This is for average folk manipulated by desires Sold to them from the first cry of birth— the innocence of youth Conditioned by institutions, religions, governments, Commerce, and misguided leaders of the same. This is for the heroic middle maintaining as best it can. Sometimes far too far to the right attacking differences Perceived as threats to the lifestyles They have spent lifetimes building. Sometimes far too far to the left ruthlessly unhinging tradition Propagandizing an absolute view of a “should be” humanity, Condemning the injustice of powers not aligned with their own. This for the middle ground, the point of perspective That sees error on both sides, that notes the hypocrisy Of all rhetorical bombast and bias. For those who can and do befriend an enemy For attributes found befriend-able. For those who decline to accept Left or right puritanical thinking. For those who seek and grant repentance, Who forgive. For scientific, observable truths Collaborated by honest investigating minds. For consensus beyond percentage point democracy. For ideals that may be beyond mortal grasp, For hopes that may be no more than mirage, For virtues sung, painted, acted, Cast, forged, danced, preached, doodled, Belabored, bellowed, whispered, Passed down in secrecy, etched on prison walls, Voiced through the choking loop of a gallows’ rope, Prayed for, toiled for, wept over, And perserved. For the possibility that existence Is more than the cynical pursuit of material wealth. For those who might some day give up their miserly ways And spend freely their billions on the betterment of the earth. For those of the far left and the far right That might return to the golden mean Compromising differences for the benefit of all. For a self expanding revolution evolving Into a million million individual souls Enlightened to the prospect that all life can live together as One. For those at risk of being silenced by speeding time Standing and pronouncing and singing and dancing And drawing from the depths of history and knowledge The dreams the older ones, the lonely ones, the silenced ones Died for. Copyright Marc Kelly Smith 2018 DON’T LOSE HOPE
|
|