These days once treasured
monuments are let
to weather away
or are bullied
and bulldozed to rubble.
Others have small cracks
picked at by compulsive minds
bent on excavating small lesions
into large, gaping wounds.
We are left with sad avenues
lined with inflated puppets
convulsing in weird gyrations
by belly fulls of blown air,
each with a power cord
stuck up you know where.
Marble monuments,
Hearts of stone
Freedom's firmaments,
Blood and bone
Crystal chandeliers,
Cold as ice
Battered bandoliers,
Pay the price
Statues, iconoclasts love to destroy
Toppling monuments brings them great joy
Keeps them all limber
As they shout ‘Timber’
Columbus crashed down saying ~ ‘Land ahoy’
Ruins
In our arrogance, we humans
build monuments to ourselves.
We seek to subjugate nature
to our whims and desires.
We erect buildings for
our comfort and ease.
Designing them to last
for all eternity.
Isolating ourselves from
all that is natural.
In the end,
nature has the final word
and nothing is left of us but
ruins.
It sits out in your driveway
a glittering metallic sculpture.
It costs more than your house,
you love it more than your spouse.
You can hardly drive it, it’s too high,
you can barely park it, it’s so wide.
Like an exotic compulsion, you need it,
though you can barely afford to feed it.
There’s a cockpit with winking tech,
offering a printer, wi-fi and refrigeration.
It can pull a house off its foundation.
Is there a tendentious ecological statement,
in this prestigious resource you need for work
is the fact that it’s tax deductible just a perk?
With this polished and pampered machine,
you get the rewards of effective parenting,
as it literally reflects the care that it’s given.
It’s a spaceship ready for expedition,
what else in creation is as elysian,
as your gigantic pickup truck.
.
.
songs for this:
Dreamin’ by G. Love and Special Sauce
Driving by Everything but the Girl
Little Deuce Coupe by Andrew Gold
Many white Americans still struggle with the issue of racism in the 21st century.This started with the Confederate monuments. The Confederate monuments do not have the same meaning to black Americans. While white americans view these works as a part of history, a past that cannot be covered over or changed ; the symbols of confederate officers being celebrated as heroes in public places to black americans will always symbolize a stain on America's very ideals. It was these people who fought to keep black Americans in enslavement and without any hope of being considered as equals to the white race. It was a wise move for cities to remove these statues and public monuments as it did not speak well for the image of America to continue to honor people who fought to deny people their basic rights and freedoms.
Those white Americans who were opposed to the removal of confederate monuments and statues, showed that they were insensitive to the black community and even antagonistic toward it. It showed that they did not understand black americans and how they felt. It was a
sign of how out of touch white Americans were with the black community.
There is a wall,
an imaginary one,
that skirts a boundary
where beyond,
a kind of madness waits,
an hallucinatory place
at the end of the mind.
Inside the wall is where
sense makes monuments
of order, where precision
prevails over chaos and life
is lived in rows gated
from the uncertanties
that swirl just outside.
What lies beyond
is raw and fluoresces
with a freedom
torn from the absolute,
calls into existence a poem,
the visions of a prophet,
nonsense, and the arcane
chatter left over after
the dissolution of whoever
it was that lived there
inside your head.
Ravage our monuments,
empowered dissidents.
Endless entitlements,
from spineless governments.
In this era unplanned,
by fathers of the land.
Divided we stand,
in moral wasteland.
THE MONUMENTS MARK OUR EVIDENCE
Stop! Wait! Be Still!
This isn’t the way to heal!
Tearing down statues of the past,
Removing the passion behind what we feel.
Listen to my urgent cry,
You’re not destroying what was,
It is our Ebony Trail of Tears
Our reason, our because.
Just because it’s history,
doesn’t make it beautiful,
Laws made on our misery,
To them, to kill us, dutiful.
The monuments mark our evidence,
To rid them is not suitable,
Will not remove what’s relevant,
Only making our cause more prevalent.
Teach now your children harmony,
Love than hate our musical,
No longer enslaved by memory,
Teach them your freedom beautiful.
Still yes, they are stone memories,
But let them not make you relive
They are the pavements of our history
A past from now we’re healed
So much education
No wiser for the cost
Given over to lofty ideas
The reason for what was lost
All the tools in the box
To chisel an honorable name
What appeal is in the dirt
When you could've opted for fame
Behind a silver counter
When you could be sitting at a desk
You could have been GREAT
But you wanted to be less
~than all the rest~
Humility is overrated
A legacy is a better prize
Walking to long with love
Has damaged your eyes
There is no power
In the position you serve
But life has given
Exactly what you deserve
A monument of memories
Adds up to a trite figurine
No one can value the image
If they don't know what you mean
~get a life~
Written by Trudy Schrader on 04-09-2018
Note: A retired teacher asked me today, "What on EARTH are you doing here?" I answered, "I want to be here." It shouldn't have rippled my waters, but that type of thinking, makes me sad. A job can never define a person who is moving in LOVE. It's only an avenue to practice the skills one has learned.
Love And Hate, Monuments Often Born From The Cold
Love and Hate, monuments often born from cold
Truth is wisdom in the restless frigid air
Each rides on a consuming storm of the bold
With tributes often given whether wrong or fair!
Love, sings on a lofty cloud of pure delight
Complete with a heartache and stolen Soul
Like a magic rainbow just coming into sight
Wisdom and Folly both rest within the same bowl!
Hate, rides aloft in a forceful crashing wind
The product of emotions flying high and deep
So very often with no bottom and without end
A nightmare that crashes out from a dark sleep!
Truth, the light that cast out darkened Hate
A soothing breeze cruising in on a hot day
If found, the saving is never bad or too late
Instead path found to Love and Live another way!
Robert J. Lindley. 06-20-2015
Note: Do not blame me, my muse beat on me until I relented
and hammered this one on out.
KUTUB MINAR
A
Line
Upright
Reminds
A slave
A king
A court
Witness
Intrigues
Pitying
Avariced
Thrusts
Miseried
Minions
Staring
Baring
Nothing
Form: Shape
LOTUS TEMPLE
Peacock
Park.Touching turf.
Gem afloat flowing grace
A pinnacle. Where is the prince.
Claustrophobic confines open out now
Opened up. What vibrant white trance.
I turn a clairvoyant
I’m everywhere
Peace, peace
Form: Rictameter
For Catie Lindsey's contest.
With precision we carved out the sand
here at home, down on your cursed land
We defy you to try
You will surely fail. Why?
We used nothing that looks like your hand.
Attracting either scientific or popular area
Containing several hills in the region Cydonia
One of the images taken by Viking on 25th July
The name Cydonia drawn from classical antiquity.
The image with a seeming look of a human face,
Let loose the human imagination inborn base.
To look at a thing is different from seeing a thing
Until we see its beauty we don’t see anything.
A hill, nothing but a space created illusive reality
Resembling a human face, a logical fallacy
Wrong speculation, demon haunted world on Mars
Let the future tell us if it is a real play or farce.
==========================================
Fourth place win in:
Sphinx on Mars Contest
While visiting the grave of a friend I lost to God,
I found there one marked only by a tag.
Set in the sand on a thin steel rod,
With all the posture of a paper bag.
I paused, but soon after, passed this pathetic sight,
My thoughts on my own death to be,
And hoped deep within, when I’d lose my light,
That there would be a monument of me.
I came upon a statue, higher than myself,
Weighing at the base at least a ton.
I knew, very well, that my collected wealth,
Could make a bigger and a better one.
But soon I saw a woman crying,
A red rose in her hand
She fell as if her soul was dying,
Then calmly kissed the sand.
I noticed she was lying at the grave, I saw before.
The one with just a label there to show.
The one that by my pride, so quick I would ignore,
But then I greater wisdom I would know.
The greatest structure for a man, isn’t made of stone,
Erosion will alleviate its goal.
The thing that will survive is the love that he has shown.
-The true composition of the soul.
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