Absolutely beautiful poem about freedom, hope and the anxiety we all succumb to when our world fails us.
Posts Tagged ‘Human Rights and Liberties’
Chinese Activist Sheng Xue Dedicates Poem In Honor Of Tibetans Who Self-Immolated
Posted in crimes against humanity, depression, dreams, empowerment, equality, free tibet, grief, hope, inequality, justice, life, loss, love, personal growth, poetry, politics, politics, tibet, torture, writing, tagged civil rights, dalai lama, empowerment, fear, free tibet, freedom, government, Human Rights and Liberties, justice, Oppression, peace, personal growth, poetry, politics, self, self immolation, tibet, Writing on August 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Where Have They Gone, parts 1 and 2
Posted in aging, childhood, death, depression, dreams, family, grief, growing old, hope, life, loss, poetry, regret, relationships, writing, tagged americana, baseball, childhood, empowerment, Family, fear, fourth of july, freedom, government, heroes, Human Rights and Liberties, justice, lost friends, my childhood memories, my own poetry, peace, poetry, Vernonia, veterans, Vietnam War, Writing on July 4, 2016| 1 Comment »
1.
Where have they gone
The young and the proud?
Will we say their names again?
Will we sing their praises on Sundays in church?
Will their photographs hang in Willies’ barbershop windows
Alongside the heroes of World War 2,
The Norman Rockwell prints
And his autographed photos of Ted Williams and Rocky Marciano?
Will there be a celebration of their sacrifices in the town square
The mayor making a speech and mounting a plaque?
The mothers and sisters and wives crying inconsolably?
Or will their fathers hide their grief in bottles of moonshine
The bitterness growing with every drop
Their mothers asking themselves in secrecy what they’ve done wrong
Sisters feeling unprotected without big brother
Little brothers lacking a role model, what chance do they have?
Will no one waltz in the street when their names are mentioned
Or will they merely turn their grief away?
Who will lead us into the future?
Who will install that first traffic light?
Their photos in the Sunday paper big smiles all around
Where will our smiles come from without our boys as heroes?
There will be no continuity here
A generation is lost
Our sons have been ripped from their future
Johnny will not come marching home again.
Where have you gone, my heroes my heroes,
Why have you left our lives?
Where have you gone, my heroes my heroes,
And what will become of us?
2.
Where have they gone
The young and proud?
Where is Gus?
He who could run like the wind
Down the field to victory on homecoming night
Where is Eddie with the cannon right arm?
He who threw the winning touchdown pass to Gus?
Where is Lawrence?
He who made his grandmother so proud
Her slave life stories were so vivid in his mind
The first one in the family to finish school
Where are Gunvald and Bengt?
The town’s only immigrant sons,
Those two new Sons of the Town who worked so much harder,
Just to fit in,
Where is Tom?
He who always drove too fast
Son of the local sheriff,
Racing in the streets on Saturday nights?
Will their parents mourn their loss?
Will we notice their absence?
Greg, he whose Diner has already closed down,
Crippled after his hip surgery failed, and now
Gus is not there to take his place
Irene, his wife, she who couldn’t deal with the loss
The towns first civilian casualty
Of a war so far away
The 5 and Dime store won’t last long either,
Mr. Nichols, he who is getting older by the day,
Never stands outside the shop door anymore, greeting everyone,
His health is failing and Eddie isn’t coming back to take over
It’s a matter of time now they say.
Pete he who can’t climb the trees anymore to trim them,
Says he’ll have to sell his orchards and land to pay his mortgage
Gunvald and Bengt will be trimming trees only in Pete’s memories
Where have you gone, my heroes my heroes,
Why have you left our lives,
Where have you gone, my heroes my heroes,
And what will become of us?
Homs, after the bombing,
Posted in civil war, crimes against humanity, death, Homs, life, politics, refugees, tagged devestation, drone video, government, Homs, Human Rights and Liberties, Oppression, politics, Syria, war, War crime, you tube on February 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Drone video footage of Homs, in Syria, after the bombing. It is beyond description.
For My People, a poem by Margaret Walker
Posted in empowerment, equality, inequality, poetry, racisim, writing, tagged civil rights, empowerment, freedom, Human Rights and Liberties, justice, Margaret Walker, Oppression, poetry, United States, Writing on February 9, 2016| Leave a Comment »
A brilliant poem by Margaret Walker, a work of beauty, frustration, grace, sympathy, anger, pain, empowerment, and hope. I recommend everyone read this poem, and then share it with those you love.
Ashraf Fayadh, a wonderful Palestinian poet, sentenced to die in Saudi Arabia
Posted in Ashraf Fayadh, crimes against humanity, empowerment, inequality, Islam, justice, MENA, palestine, poetry, politics, politics, refugees, truth, writing, tagged Ashraf Fayadh, civil rights, death sentence, empowerment, fear, freedom, government, Human Rights and Liberties, justice, MENA, Middle East, Mona Kareem, Oppression, peace, poetry, politics, protests, Saudi Arabia, torture, Writing on January 17, 2016| Leave a Comment »
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35311709
Hundreds of writers are taking part in readings in support of the Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh, who has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia.
More than 120 events are being held in 44 countries on Thursday as part of a campaign organised by the International Literature Festival Berlin.
It is calling on the US and UK governments to intervene on behalf of Mr Fayadh, who is accused of apostasy.
He denies the charges and claims that another man made false accusations.
Human rights activists also say Mr Fayadh was denied access to a lawyer throughout his detention and trial, in clear violation of Saudi and international law.
‘Unjust and morally repellent’
Mr Fayadh, a 35-year-old poet and art curator who was born in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian refugee parents, has been a key figure in taking Saudi contemporary art to a global audience, according to the International Literature Festival Berlin.
Chris Dercon, the director of Tate Modern gallery in London and a friend of the poet, has described him as “someone who is outspoken and daring”.
Mr Fayadh was arrested in August 2013 following a complaint by a Saudi citizen, who alleged that he was promoting atheism and spreading blasphemous ideas, according to Amnesty International.
He was released the next day, but was rearrested in January 2014 and charged with apostasy because of his supposed questioning of religion and spreading atheist thought through his collection of poetry, Instructions Within, published in 2008.
He was also charged with violating the country’s anti-cyber crime law by taking and storing photos of women on his mobile phone.
In April 2014, the General Court in the city of Abha sentenced Mr Fayadh to four years in prison and 800 lashes for violating the anti-cyber crime law. But it found his repentance in relation to the charge of apostasy to be satisfactory and not requiring further punishment.
However, an appeals court overturned his original sentence and sent the case back to the General Court, which sentenced him to death for apostasy on 17 November.
Mr Fayadh has asserted that the poems are “just about me being [a] Palestinian refugee… about cultural and philosophical issues. But the religious extremists explained it as destructive ideas against God.”
Irvine Welsh, who will read at the Two Hearted Queen coffee shop in Chicago on Thursday, said he hoped the worldwide reading campaign would put “pressure on governments who espouse democracy and freedom to consider their actions in dealing with [Saudi Arabia]”, according to the Guardian newspaper.
A L Kennedy, who will be attending a reading organised by PEN England at the Mosaic Rooms in west London, said Mr Fayadh’s persecution was “very obviously unjust and morally repellent”.
The Saudi government has not commented publicly on Mr Fayadh’s case.
This is a sample of his beautiful, moving poetry, translated by Mona Kareem,
http://monakareem.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/ashraf-fayadhs-disputed-poems-in.html
Ashraf Fayadh’s “Disputed” Poems, in English Translation
For information on what you can do to help with his release, go to Amnesty International at this address..
I highly recommend reading this gifted poet, and of course, signing Amnesty’s petition for his release.
He Groused About The Meek
Posted in childhood, depression, empowerment, equality, family, hope, inequality, justice, life, personal growth, poetry, politics, politics, truth, writing, tagged childhood, empowerment, fear, freedom, Human Rights and Liberties, Oppression, peace, personal growth, poetry, politics, Writing on December 30, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Source: He Groused About The Meek
He groused about the meek
“They inherit nothing,
Not the wind,
Not the grain,
Not the shirts on their backs.”
I was five years old.
My brothers coat, five button holes, three buttons
Shoe laces broken
Tied in many places to hold them together,
The streets were my playground,
Fire hydrants were bears,
Passersby were Indians,
We shot at them with imaginary guns,
Turning and walking away,
Leading me by hand, without a word
Down streets of jailhouses
Prisons of thought,
Of carelessness
Of lives abandoned
My father teaches me of the rich
Of the bitterness of long sleepless nights
The way of life of the working stiffs
Merrily the children run down the shaded lane
Trees meeting in the middle
Branches kissing each other in the sun
While under their splendour
Life prepares the sinkholes
Your Men Are Cascading, Oh Widows Of War
Posted in death, depression, empowerment, family, grief, hope, justice, life, loss, love, personal growth, poetry, politics, politics, truth, women, writing, tagged empowerment, fear, freedom, Human Rights and Liberties, love, my own poetry, my work, peace, personal growth, poetry, Writing on December 17, 2015| 1 Comment »
Your men are cascading,
Oh widows of war,
Cascading away from you and
Out of your arms and your lives
They are left alone drowning in the streets
With the blood of our sins on their hands
Your sons and brothers,
Are merely the dead without names
Soulless wanderers through our memories minefields
We write now not of our loves but our flaws
Our losses our pain
Our unfulfillable longing our fears
We write of the wars we will never win
We write for the days when
There’s nothing we can do
But watch our sons die in fields we’ve never seen
We write as the sadness overwhelms us with
A deadly grip on our convictions
We write of words that have no meaning
Of leaders with no sense of truth
We write of the best of men
and the worst of lies
We write of the cascade of lives
The constant avoidable mixing of our morality
into the cesspool of inhumanity
Your men are cascading,
Oh widows of war
We write because we can no longer
Suffer your sorrows in silence.