JISCMail - POETRYETC Archives

Liberty

All cities are beautiful in their own way,
New York City especially so where people
of all races live in harmony
(a chaotic harmony) and the confidence
of success gleams in the skyscrapers' blue
windows and even in the city's hard
places where times are usually tough people
pull together, there is cheer in a city
that still says howdy in a yankee drawl
and bums look prosperous in cast off
Armani and Pierre Cardin suits.
The cab driver jokes are good-natured
if a little racy good to get the blood racing
as New York's heart beats in the morning
the great hustle and bustle the world's great
city swings into the working day!

Because people are driven to hatred
and hate is a product traded
freely because innocent people live
in a world where no one is innocent
& prosperity needs poverty to thrive

Because there isn't enough land
to share fairly and "folks"
are driven from their homes-
in some places where peace
is just a word for death or sleep.

Tall buildings make good
targets for aeroplanes
there is a death circus
to manufacture and export
add a dash of evil
(cruel economy & race hate)
to the world of current events
governments kill people
organisations kill people
people kill each other
everyone kills the Earth
and religions open dark dark spaces-
what happened to the truth and the light?
Because the world is full of arseholes
oozing hate and the Peace Corps never
saved the world with American
generosity and know-how?

Just wait for the latest conspiracy
theory and a new bete noir, patience
and sick karma-hatred exported
returns in a blaze of hateful fire
aboard suicide airlines- the split screen
shows buildings in New York and Washington
implode & children dancing in Palestine
all captured on digital video-
"the first time an event of such magnitude
has been broadcast using entirely
digital technology", the sharp commentator
comments and the special effects have improved
since the Gulf War. Making history, it's not
a healthy world when children cheer murder
but American bullets mines and bombs
and missiles-the brilliant technology-
razed hell around the world.

Now's not the time to remember
how the standard for breaking glass
was set in Hiroshima, Nagasaki
how terror burned for years in Vietnam
to satisy an unquenchable thirst for fire
yet the Vietnamese have forgiven
but cannot forget as easily as we can,
they say no more war and plant
forests where the napalm burned.
A talking head on CNN asked:
How do we process our anger?
There's the blood and limbs the networks
decide not to show us
and a thousand photo opportunities
for the once-mocked leaders
What the world needs now
is love sweet love. . . Yeah, right.