let freedom ring

sounds like some very accepted & understood

thing

we shouldn’t

have to go about

addressing 85 years after Francis Scott Key

wrote those words

in “America” we’ve all been taught and

singing

since the kindergarten school bell

started ringing…

 

 

explain to me why

it

bringing all of us

together

teaching us whatever

we do will come

back to you – and always

follow the golden rule

 

 

and then

as we become mademoiselles and monsieurs

we lose those lessons

things become a blur

what’s happened to us

not progression and understanding – but

instead protesting

silently, violently

because our neighbors

our brothers just standing

on the corner smiling, trying to

walk, talk and breathe

are being beaten

broken and buried

for just simply trying to

be

 

 

in this world

no different from you

and me

sitting here having

coffee and tea

our DNA is all intertwined

wrapped around and around

like a toy you wind, smiling

we are all of one mind

connected and projected

infinitly – all of us

together make up humanity – and

without each other

 

none of us would

 

be

 

 

 

and just when I’d hoped

this verse had covered the troubled state

of my mind

the next day I find

another one of our brothers and sisters

dead in the paper

another story of horrific pain

from page to page

all the hate

and outraged.

it must end

or it will end us

all

 

 

me / 2015 –  different year, same shit.

 

image from 2015 /  knoxville, tn  / portra 800