We are a broken

Society

In a working 

System

The community is fractured

It's soul fighting for

Survival

America has yet

To have been

America

i am 45 with a 22

numbers paint violence

i speak of love

i was not able to give

my grand child a world

without war

i can give them a world with 

poetry

a world with healing

voting

we control violence today

with state sanctioned violence

some assurance that when used

it must be necessary and must

ensure common values are

enforced and protected

the contract of love

is wordy is messy

its long and hard

common wealth

ballots our tool

an expression

our poetry

If you are not a Dreamer

You are not seeking a

More perfect union

Thus won't ever be an American

compare an athletes body

built only in the gym

to congress

never leaving the hall

Russia in 93, China in 94 and a few days in Hong Kong

The Soviet Union had a civil war right after I visited

Conflict still rages in the Ukraine and Kazakhstan today if not else where

Shortly after I visited Hong Kong it was given back to China by the UK

Promises made to humans now in Civil War but massively out gunned

I thought as a high school student hard and reflected critically

Compared to home I thought they too will get here someday

They will one day be great and be allowed to debate what is best for all

A commonwealth 

Turns out we are only incrementally better, improving little by little

Moving a mountain of hatred and pain 

Piled high by the exploitation of human capital

A grain of sand ever so slowly moved from the mountain 

The scale of twisted souls greater than any

Today at least we learned we can no longer participate in a Lynch mob

Without parole, life in jail or at least thirty years

Without a badge, we still have to move that grain

We have found it, weighed it but haven’t moved it

I have lived here not just visited

I am reflecting critically

if I leave will it collapse into civil war

The pain has been here since….

Is this war? 

We need new tools, tools of a commonwealth 

america i checked my websters 

and we have a problem with consent

it’s implied

it’s assumed

it’s granted

it is not asked for

connections abound, creativity

it is in all of us

but when asked if we are creative

we concede 

to the chosen arts

the line above

creatively assumed without consent

attempting to connect

i don't want to get it wrong

in some places i do ask and am told

if it seems reasonable to you

don’t ask

to avoid abuse

physical

mental

emotional 

we need a new word?

consent is to protect property

what word protects the idea

of the soul

of the governed

My patriotism is dissent

I see our war crimes and question them

Bombs on children 

Water boarding; Guantanamo Bay

For oil? Or what reason,

Just a war machine

Russia advances on Ukraine

And I see similarities 

But then the numbers 

Direct shelling of residential areas

And I wonder, we are not right

But we haven’t done that in my lifetime

Displaced people

It’s frightening to think 

Of the numbers of people

Crossing borders

They are being fed

And provided rides

And places to sleep

I reflect on our failures

Displaced peoples at our

Southern boarder

And then I hear some numbers

25 days in a Basement

Humans kept aged 14 to 24

Now 9 are pregnant 

If ever during my lifetime

In my name; I would give up

I would loose my patriotism 

The rage is only emo 

Am I broken

I want to see a rainbow

Not red

on Wednesday it will have been 102 years

"since women were given the right to vote"

without critical thinking we celebrate

102 years ago a right

was no longer ignored 

by white men in America

as being due their family

102 years ago

a sin was shared

an evil was expanded

if one of us is oppressed

we are all of us broken

even with these

rose colored glasses

my soul sees at best that

America is a promise

4000 years ago 

one sat under a tree

2000 years ago 

one forgave us

27 years ago

a theory was published

Expectations of Home 

home has a smell 

it has a call  

love has a place and it is home 

home, america  

white -- male 

has a violence in it 

that is hidden 

not that it isn't on display 

but it is welcomed 

it is expected that 

there is dominance 

that there is control 

when missing or absent 

it isn't a man 

it isn't crazy 

until it is turned  

on the audience 

on the consumer 

on home

America is a dream sold with a lie. 

America is a violence rooted  

in the safety of collective inaction 

America is an unfinished revolution  

turning a people not simply against a monarch 

We must continue to be a network of connections 

striving for growth in community with others 

not American but intergalactic beings  

creatively maladjusted to the painful social norms 

of our ephemeral containers 

my moment of silence is over

i must now act

i will follow the Tennessee Justins'

to the justice they seek

i fear the blame 

for the blood of children is mine

i am one of we the people

i am a complex individual contributor

of this military industrial complex