~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then, Janis Joplin’s vinyl tunes sparked a revolution,
Haight-Ashbury, hippie hub, and grass-roots counterculture
buzzed with societal change~
Today, algorithms and funded resistance~
secretly funded, fabricated revolutions
unfolding with merely a thumb scroll.
'Likes' accumulate like manifestos, mostly unread.
Then draft cards burned in courageous hands
sit-ins at Woolworth’s counters,
acts of interracial courage,
swallowed by journalists’ flashbulbs.
Now, hashtags appear like bruises,
justice fading into trending threads.
Then the moon hung like a promise~
we touched it with slide rules and hope.
Now, the sky’s a graveyard of satellites,
and Mars glows redder than the forgotten button.
The times? Still a ‘Changin~
just faster and louder,
yet somehow quieter.
you may read the related memoir vignette at: poetrysoup.com/short_stories/the_september_wind_13646
Good to see, soneone grass roots.'
I wish them success,' and hope they
Really, stick in their boots '
What Matters, Should One See Past That Last Mile
What matters, diamonds , silver or gold
when one is getting slow and too damn old.
What matters, if the truest of truths be told,
that dying alone is so sad and cold?
What matters, if life yields no more ripe fruits
when one will soon visit soil and grass roots.
What matters, if ones buried without boots,
or if one can dies with life's stolen loot?
What matters, if blue skies no longer smile
and one sees the past, world's evil and guile.
What matters, should one see past that last mile,
or hold on harder just a little while?
Love, Family and Life is what matters
Without Love, all is thin glass that shatters.
R. J. Lindley,
October 17th, 1976
Sonnet, ( Deepest depths of Love are, purest of Truths)
The government’s been lobotomized
The left and right’s too polarized
The media has us hypnotized
All the topsoil’s getting sterilized
What have we gotten ourselves into?
Nobody’s talking face to face
They need a computer interface
If we keep going at this pace
There won’t be no more human race
What have we gotten ourselves into?
I humbly propose a clean solution
We don’t need to change the Constitution
No need to make no contribution
Just start a grass roots revolution
Stop being the problem and be the solution
If you don’t know what’s going on, WAKE UP!
If Big Brother’s doing wrong, SPEAK UP!
If someone’s hurting someone, STAND UP!
Be a participant in life, not a critic, not a spectator.
Someday when you’re old and gray
You might look back fondly on today
Was it the day you chose a better way
Or was it just like any other day
To change the world, change yourself first and expand from there.
Start a grass roots revolution.
If music is a country then Jazz is the capital
Rock is it's wildchild
Folk the genesis
Soul it's nutrition
And the classical is a temple
On my screen
I turn to the music station
and hear the "Grass Roots"
singing "Let's Live for Today"
A song filled with 1960's naivete
I feel moved by the old tune
The sixties were a time of tumult and change
in America
And it is said that if you remember the 1960's
you were not there
But American attitudes
changed from then on
Many young protesters of today
look back to that period
For inspiration for today's struggles
There shall be peace
There is still hope!
Despite the dark clouds
which now hover over our homeland
Peace and power!
Right on!
Walking in silence, feeling the ground beneath my feet,
It's soft, the grass roots are tickling my feet, walking in silence, my heart nor does it skip a beat,
I am in the blissful moment, wherever I am, there I shall be, my heart is within its own time, for I am in total unknown peace.
I AM IN THE WORLD OF THIS VERY MOMENT...
I am walking in silence, for no place do I need to be,
My breath is at a slow babies speed, my chest barely rises, I feel the summers warm breeze hit my face with a butterflies soft love, I inhale deeply, a smile comes across my face.
I WALK IN SILENCE ALWAYS IN PEACE.
I kneel down to lay in the field of dandelions, they are as yellow as the sun, I close my eyes to listen to the birds lullaby, I can feel the soft grass against my skin, I am in this very moment, please don't wake me, I ask you now, to join me in this blissful meditation moment, to just walk in silence, slow down you heart, close your eyes, enjoy the sere
ne beauty, for tomorrow isn't promised to anyone...
The sidewalk wasn't yet laid.
Voracious weeds and insidious
grass swallowed up blossoms,
choked life from their roots.
Flowers wilted in the sun,
withered and turned black,
dried brittle to the touch.
My soul shriveled in unison
I placed rocks along the path.
Grass roots crept around and
beneath rocks, seizing my space,
ignored bare patches on the
lawn, left begging for cover.
Last summer, sidewalk in place,
flowers grew riotously
between concrete and brick,
thumbed their pretty noses
at enemies beyond the barrier.
My soul flourished joyfully.
Passerby echo the frustrations of the world
Under the bridge
Tall tales of courage
Outpours from angry souls
Yet the toughest of them all still hide
Under the bridge
Grass roots & neo-souls speak words
In the form of hyperboles
Leaving actions hidden like water
Under the bridge
Drought had entered
into grass roots.
It was a perfect landing.
Sequential. You are
chopped into pieces. A shoal
of fish will make you disappear.
The vacancy will call
a choreographed entry. The
descent will find a goldenrod.
Snow-capped peaks. It
is difficult to stay for a long time.
You climb down. River remains dry.
Satish Verma
It's a slow bridge; there's no time for tears
Growing numb, her baby girl covered in blood
Yet, this big machine their wheels keep turning, churning
Steam boat joey, full speed ahead ? More roses for the parades
Troubling when you can't make your salary cap or a lifetime achievement
Without an extra statue they forgot the confetti at his white house atop haunted hill
Grass roots and green tea parties drone strikes someone siphon her cyber space
Regurgitate a poe we've got to spin this page special interest; their next teen magazine....
He said she said Mars is red there's a flood coming Pluto pissed on the carpet Time's, headline news.
A new sun will rise and fall on my days
Until a moment I finally sleep
While footprints I've made fade slowly away
Time will move forward and it will not weep
I am a sweet breath that never lingers
To be born then forever disappear
To measure time with gray wrinkled fingers
They come over years and slowly appear
The quiet filled hole I shall never own
To lay beneath the earth where grass roots feed
A world empty of life, cold and alone
A cycle not of wanting but of need
Should I need answers for reasons time found
The days I have lived I have found profound
A fast in hurry. you
pretend that you
were dead.
The legend survives,
putting the land’s blood
in the grass roots.
The tremors had started
in the blue flame. A lunatic
calls for the moon to explain.
The tides were not coming ?
Watching hopelessly;
the decline of sinkers.
A watershed of humility.
The river has left the
body of water.
Satish Verma
Rick’s Big Surprise
Newt hid out in the buckeye state
Nothing tonight added to his slate.
Paul’s grass roots youthful surrogates
Continue quest for delegates
Loss of Liberty is his fear
He slams the fed and wild crowds cheer.
Not much noise from the Romney camp
For on this night they had no amps.
No matter how they spin their grief
Morning found them in disbelief
Nevada did not provide a bump
Nor did the voice of Donald Trump.
Rick pulled off a three state surprise
Populism is on the rise
His crowd has enthusiasm
Frontrunner had painful spasm
Here’s the lesson of the night Mitt
Can’t buy love you have to earn it.
Written after Rick Santorum’s primary and caucus wins in the states of Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado.
.
Way down in Itta Bena
Down the Mississippi way
B. B. King was born
And boy could this guy play
This Beale Street blues boy
Watched T-Bone Walker strum
He said to himself one day
Like him, i will become
He toured many venues
Bringing audiences joy
With Lucille by his side
This Mississippi boy
Go go, go B. B. King go go
His own kind of blues
From his grass roots true
He plays from his heart
Since his first debut
This Mississippi boy
Named B. B. King
Could play the blues guitar
And sing, sing sing
" My entry into Raul's " B. B. King contest "
To be sung to Johnny B Goode, with the slight
chorus continuing after the fifth verse
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