Old Poems
I found some poems on the floppy disks. I remember writing them and I remember they kind of just randomly came to me. They're not what I usually write (then or now), they're rather politically charged. Reading them now, I heard them as if they were being read/preformed by The Flobots or something.
I know I originally wrote them before 9/11, because I remember thinking of the irony (for lack of a better word) when that happened. But my mom's computer crashed and I lost the originals. What I have now is what I could best remember and put together in 2002. I don't remember what I would have been reacting to to make me write them, but I know they go well with a lot of things going on in the years since.
America, America. . .
The land of opportunity,
The land of the free.
Where everyone is equal
And innocent until proven guilty.
. . . for spacious skies . . .
Beautiful blue skies
Filled with so much
Pollution that the air
In some places is almost
Toxic.
. . . with amber waves of grain. . .
Fields filled with crops of food
For the whole nation.
So badly sprayed with pesticides
That we must clean our food first.
So many crops cut down each year to
Make room for mega-malls or parking lots.
. . . from sea to shining sea. . .
The lovely blue-green waters
Filled with tons of garbage
From careless beach-goers
And waste cargo.
Animals struggle to survive as
Oil spills into their homes.
America, America. . .
The land of unemployment
Where no one is truly free.
Everyone is prejudice of someone else
And the innocent are punished while the
Guilty go free.
Everything has a price; even your life.
I have another version of that one that I might work on a bit to fit more of some of the things going on now.
Baa baa black sheep,
Have you any wool?
The farmer is poor and
His children are freezing.
Baa baa black sheep,
Have you any wool?
The world is at war and
The men are dying.
Baa baa black sheep
Have you any wool?
No sir, no sir.
My three bags went to
Make uniforms for our children
Who went off to fight in the war
That we created and to line their coffins
When they died in battle.
I know I originally wrote them before 9/11, because I remember thinking of the irony (for lack of a better word) when that happened. But my mom's computer crashed and I lost the originals. What I have now is what I could best remember and put together in 2002. I don't remember what I would have been reacting to to make me write them, but I know they go well with a lot of things going on in the years since.
America, America. . .
The land of opportunity,
The land of the free.
Where everyone is equal
And innocent until proven guilty.
. . . for spacious skies . . .
Beautiful blue skies
Filled with so much
Pollution that the air
In some places is almost
Toxic.
. . . with amber waves of grain. . .
Fields filled with crops of food
For the whole nation.
So badly sprayed with pesticides
That we must clean our food first.
So many crops cut down each year to
Make room for mega-malls or parking lots.
. . . from sea to shining sea. . .
The lovely blue-green waters
Filled with tons of garbage
From careless beach-goers
And waste cargo.
Animals struggle to survive as
Oil spills into their homes.
America, America. . .
The land of unemployment
Where no one is truly free.
Everyone is prejudice of someone else
And the innocent are punished while the
Guilty go free.
Everything has a price; even your life.
I have another version of that one that I might work on a bit to fit more of some of the things going on now.
Baa baa black sheep,
Have you any wool?
The farmer is poor and
His children are freezing.
Baa baa black sheep,
Have you any wool?
The world is at war and
The men are dying.
Baa baa black sheep
Have you any wool?
No sir, no sir.
My three bags went to
Make uniforms for our children
Who went off to fight in the war
That we created and to line their coffins
When they died in battle.