In the land where the eagle soars high and free,
Freedom’s enduring call is bestowed.
From the mountains’ proud peaks to the ocean’s vast span,
Lies the charge of a nation, since its birth began.
It’s not just the soil, the flag, or the song,
But the spirit of justice, where all belong.
To uphold the ideals that the founders wrote,
And keep freedom’s lamp burning, eternally bright.
Duty’s a promise, a vow to the brave,
Who fought on the battlefields, their lives they all gave.
For the right to speak freely, to worship, to dream,
To flow with democracy’s strong, steady stream.
It’s to stand up for truth in the public square,
To lift the voiceless, to show that care is given.
To build a community, united and strong,
Where no one is silenced or feels they don’t belong.
In the ballot box’s power, voices are raised,
To guide a shared future through nights and through days.
To serve with integrity, to strive for the good,
To honor the bond of a great neighborhood.
So let hearts swell with a fire and a grace,
As you answer the call of this hallowed place.
For the land of the free and the home of the brave,
It’s a duty, a privilege, a legacy to save.
Ghosts
Garbed in ghostly attires
Glistening like a star
Grimacing like an ape
Gurgling like a black owl
Gathered on public square
Gesturing like actors
Giving a fearful show.
Birthed in the nebulous cloud
of free love,
psychedelic delusions from acid tripping
travel into future generations
where free love
becomes a free-for-all.
Those who voice dissent
to the immoral majority
are named bigots, and cutoff
from the public square,
arrested and jailed
for saying a prayer!
Serpentine artisan in Eden
Crafting a second creation
A molten piece of idol
By the dexterity
Of word of mouth.
Tongue lures ear
And then à tongue kiss
To the ear, both soulmates
Titillate the neurons of the body
Stir the impulse of all senses
All segued to Judas kiss.
Telepathist tool
Transmuting visions from pluto
To reality on earth.
Forked-tongue town crier
With cymbal and gong
Improvising a dissonance
Of glossolalic tales
To the age of gullible gullivers!
Ear, O hear!
In that gaping cavity
There lies lie lair
The sword of Damocles
Gliding and Churning honey gobs
From its cavity to founts of lies
In every public square.
Like the big lie of Hitler and Goebbels
To the holocaust.
Let not all thy senses,
Emotion, reason, and conscience
Trust her tongue!
Music sings in the public square
For all to hear and all to care
A universal language
All speakers comprehend
And every language so desires
And invents within the end
From the elegant piano
With fingers trickling around
To a barrel called the steel drum
All make the same sweet sound
The rich, the poor
Neighbors from a hundred floors
As long as you may move or sing
We can hear your beautiful voice ring
What he wrote in a room
got darker,
he could hardly see the static snow
he was printing his mind upon.
He knew
that there would have to be a change, a mind-shift.
His place in his world was becoming precarious.
"Next summer" he thought, "I will take my desk
and laptop out into the public square." He smiled
at the thought of a 'public square'
his mind had gone public years ago
and perfect squares were hard to find.
Yet he knew also he was hiding himself still,
his scribblings were like kites
spinning in a windstorm.
"'I will go and sit outside Walmart,
hand out scraps of paper to the patrons
as they come and go.
When and if they ask me to explain myself
I will be forced into a truth
not seen in dark rooms.
Sometimes one has to be a public curiosity,
a square in a round hole
in order to find out the right question to ask yourself."
No one goes down to crazy town
they stay put or don't care,
but floods seep
tides rise
snakes swim.
Crazy town does not knock
before it comes in.
Murderous are the many
who though few
do much when they do.
Bedlam glowers
bawls naked from gothic bell towers,
the batty belch bawdily
in the public square.
The cops run guns drawn
but they run the other way.
Crazy runs the subway
green are the goblins of crime.
Crazy craps in the street,
rats deplore the mess;
it's all so cruddy and awful
change the tv channel,
or turn the volume down
on high-jinxing, carjacking,
dog nabbing,
crazy town.
Speech
Free speech,
is the power of one person,
to say, anything they like,
to have an opinion,
and to have it heard,
even if it is bad,
even if it is good,
it is the same.
Every person has a voice,
some speak to much,
some can not speak at all.
The difference,
the price of freedom...
fairly distributed among
the rich, the weak,
the poor,
the downtrodden.
The censored media,
cropping off the parts...
they do not care to address,
in favor of the ploys
they created
to make us believe,
what is not real
anywhere.
Critical thinking...
has been leashed,
and tied to a fire hydrant
in the public square.
He, or it...
is beaten daily,
to make sure
there is no life left
at all,
to fight.
Believe,
be still,
be silent...
Do as you are told.
You will not grow old,
as there are too many
of you.
There is not enough room for us,
those that know where the
food is kept,
underground in caves,
in the north,
in the south,
in the east,
and in the west.
Go hungry,
and starve.
It does not matter,
who...
you
are.
in the public square
you are not to be questioned
just admired
for your dark demonstrations
of being
the hanging black spider waves its life at you
perhaps the arachnid lover is demoralized
by your hidden beauty
hard to tell
you cringe under its radiant otherness
in the public museum
take the tour backwards
let the man with the megaphone mouth
spin his webs not from the center out
but outer to inner
inwardness opens windows in closed walls
be kind to the blank eyed watchers
here is a beautiful oil on canvas
there is a spider in the corner
that no one notices
for it has no frame
its eight legs tremble
The man in the bus-driver cap
extols her still not living attractions
the ugliness of the moment
is memorized by the whole gallery
only the Picasso remains free
of the taint of paint
A fat woman sighs into my face
threads exude
multiple silky spinnerets
droop from sticky glands
I want out
the way I came in
but am now too endangered
to weave my way out of this
carry out picture palace
There are monkeys on the television
Making others unaware.
There are monkeys practicing politics
For those about the public square.
There are monkeys teaching ethics
To make worse this sad affair.
There's nothing wrong with monkeys
If utter mayhem be the point.
As monkeys have no rhyme or reason
With no particular direction to anoint.
And despite their best intentions...
They end up just stinkin' up the joint.
My parents are extremely busy monkeys
With various sacred bananas to pursue.
And regarding all my siblings... well...
They are monkeys through and through.
As for that monkey in my looking glass...
I guess I'm a monkey too.
The End
I stood too long
in the public square
strangers wearing masks
desecrated my presence
tossed paint upon my visage
roped and toppled me
shattered my past
erased my future
all because I paused
to gaze upon the beauty
of a common ground
John G. Lawless
7/16/2020
One's poetic ability, yea willingness, to speak
Truth.
To stand, soul-naked, as it were...
Whilst your poet enemies stone you or avoid
you in the online public square.
To swim with the sharks, though thou
might be their delicious repast.
To be be happily avoided because you
don't follow the crowd.
You won't bow and scrape and sell your
soul nor your country out, no how!
In this battlefield of ideas, the small of
mind will shame you.
Brandish your sword of courage,in full
view!
A stalwart poem with three hundred reads and
comments, but two?
Shows that popularity trumps truth here,
So much so, I want to permanently vanish!
Or have 38,000 poets here to the famed,
"isle of Denial" be heretofore, banished!
~~~~~~
July 13, 2020
10:30 pm PST
A happy minor holiday
That's what Chanukah was
'Till its proximity to Christmas
gave it an American buzz
In days of old, we lit the candles
Spun the dreidel** for mere pennies --
Now with ceremonies in the public square
and lavish presents, oh-so-many
Chanukah's theme of dedication
~ Does there remain any?
** a dreidel is Yiddish for a spinning top
Waiting For Butterflies
Waiting to go on
Waiting to get on
Waiting to get caught
Waiting for the start of a poetry reading
Waiting to get on with my life
Waiting for the stars to recognize me
Waiting for my light to shine
Waiting to move on to the next step
Waiting on the steps
Waiting on a park bench
watching life and people go by
Children running barefoot in the grass
Dog owners walking dogs and dogs walking people
People of the same sex flirting with each other in the public square
Waiting to find romance and even love again
Waiting for the next job interview
Waiting for my cell phone to just f-ing ring
Waiting for some kind of positional transformation
from rags to riches
from lonesomeness to couples playing footsie under the covers
Waiting like Godot or the second coming
Waiting to catch a butterfly
But how do you even catch a butterfly
its been said that you don't catch a butterfly
A butterfly catches you
Still waiting
Reply Reply All Forward
life’s cacophony stills at call of divine sense...soul hears God’s voice loud
Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square (Proverb: 1:20)
August, 16, 2018
Syllable count : Total 17
(Checked on howmanysyllables.com)
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