The Shaken Ones

Sirens howling in the night
Rubber bullets sting the crowd
The hounds have been freed from their cages
As chaos ensues the town.
There are tanks on the horizon
The gutters run with blood
Civilians running for their lives
Refugee camps lay in the mud.

Babies screaming in the dark
Widows crying in their sleep
You can hear the drummer in the distance
And the soldiers' marching feet.
There is no end in sight
Just more death from bombs and guns
So this poem is for
The Grief Stricken Faces
Of... The Shaken Ones.

I dream of grasses growing
Where bombs once had to fall
A world where people understand
What is good for one can be good for all
A place where we can work together
Without senseless war and greed
Where we celebrate humanity
And where we can all be free.

Maybe I can't change the world
With any of my writing
But I'd be happy if these words
Could stop some of the fighting.
I'll lay down as the bombs are falling
With this flag of white
I'd kindly give my life to show
The world, this isn't right.

There's Always Someone Else

There's a son sleeping on a sidewalk
Underneath the pouring rain
And another that's working three different jobs
It's driving him half insane
There's a mother who stays up crying
Because her boys went off to war
They both came back but in two different boxes
And now nothing is like before

The tears seem to fall
Just like the stormy weather
And we just cannot seem
To ever come together
As each other's hopes and dreams
Are drifting out of sight
It is absolutely necessary
That we go and make things right.

There's a daughter in the corner
She's all bruised up again
So many years of wounds, all from different men
A million tears have fallen from her chin
There's a dad drowning in a bottle
His life -- rendered incomplete
The gunshots came from all directions
And now his son is dead in the street

The tears seem to fall
Just like the stormy weather
And we just cannot seem
To ever come together
As each other's hopes and dreams
Are drifting out of sight
It is absolutely necessary
That we go and make things right.

Our world has so many problems
That we cannot turn away
Your struggle is mine, her struggle is yours
A social structure in disarray
If we seek to be free -- in empathy
We can make it through the fight
But before the sun can rise upon that day
It is a must that we unite.

A Sunset in Our Society

I am standing underneath
The brightest sunny day
But as I'm killing time I see
The world slipping further away
The moments pass us by
Like leaves lost in the shadows
As our memories fall before us
Like soldiers in past battles

The loudest screams of fallen dreams
Come from every single direction
As I'm blinded by the blackened light
Of ever growing social disconnection
The time has come for unity
To rise as one against the cancer
And to realize that ignorance and apathy
Are never going to be the answer.

The masses move along like lemmings
Looking for change with the status quo
But if time is not taken to build new roads
There will never be any place new to go
The people gaze out of the windows
Inside a house built out of mirrors
They can't see their own reflections
So misguided by their fears

A society in possible evolution
A brilliant light that we can't see.
But without a plan to secure our fate
There can be no expectation to be free
A nation treading water on the deep end
Looming exhaustion could be our death
If we'd only exercise our reason
Then we could surely catch our breath

While our fights are amongst each other
They sit in their top floor suites and plan
In the end they will dine on our liberty
And we'll be sinking in the sand
So the time to stand is now
Remember -- this is the battle for forever
If we do not choose to stand as one
They will take everything we treasure.

In the Rain

Society is blind
They lost their vision long ago
All hope of a solution
Has been lost in the undertow
And with it went my patience
Just like the setting sun
First they took my property
And now they want my gun
It's like a rabid dog
This institutional control
Our total dis-empowerment
Is their first and foremost goal
There are clouds on the horizon
It's storm - the brightest neon sign
If we don't do something soon
We'll be witness -- to our decline.

I want to explode into
One million shining stars
In this desperate quest to find out
Just who we really are.
While everything is changing
So much remains the same
And even though the sun is out
We are drowning -- in the rain.

Now society is torn
By all facets of disconnect
Left stewing in the mire
And sinking in regret
We continue to press on
Our eyes sewn shut with our indifference
No more places to be free
In this existence of incoherence
And as time is moving faster
Our lunge toward cohesion is slowing down
More aimless bombs are falling
While more dead humans lay on the ground
The time for change is now
And it must come without delay
The madness must be stopped
Today --- Stopped today.

I want to explode into
One million shining stars
In this desperate quest to find out
Just who we really are.
While everything is changing
So much remains the same
And even though the sun is out
We are drowning -- in the rain.
In the rain
In the rain
In the rain
STOP THE PAIN.

Junmai Ginjo Sake and the Adventure of the Rhyming Paragraph That Could

Gun shots reign out in the distance as solutions echo yet no one listens. While mercantilism shackles the common man, woman, and child - people walk around with an obvious absence of smile. Where did the time go when we saw the brighter day? Before we were forced to confront our own forced social decay? Oh wait, that must have been when reality was void of information -- when we moved as lemmings across this very nation in a time where ignorance was a source of consolation. Well, that time has come and passed so it's time we as a species get off of our ass and strive to break down the barriers of class and build something for the youth that will truly last. Held down by the golden money clipped fingers of a corporate beast, we are all a new generation of slaves here to be policed. We don't even realize how bad off we are yet our legs have been broken and we are stuck in the tar. Our voices are silenced in a rain of legal tender, I didn't sign for this package -- can someone write 'Please Return to Sender'? Yet, the sheep continue to graze dumbfounded by the grass that's always greener but the green is fucking infinite with constant inflation from the leader. Isn't it crazy how some belly's are bloated from cash and other's from starvation, it doesn't take a genius to see the moral implication. Some people live in mansions and call themselves elite, some taste the bitter ends of garbage cans and sleep on cold concrete. Here, the homeless live in boxes yet there's other places where boxes almost don't exist and still there's people who walk this world asking 'why in the fuck are people pissed?' I'd say it's the system and how we grind away each day just to see nothing improve as the sky turns shades of gray. And how we all have our own problems yet we still see the bigger ones... from poverty to genocide... from bigotry to guns.

Fading Days of Chaos

Time passes by the moment
As we leave everyday behind
Losing track of all we need
Searching for what we'll never find
All eyes upon the future
Yet we're so focused on the past
The present is left forgotten
And everyday seems like the last
We never say the things we mean
Your eyes only speak so loud
I seek to understand it all
Then find I've lost you in the crowd
The time has come for everyone
To break free from the cage
It's time to dance in harmony
And end all of the rage

I can't do this alone
And I need you by my side
We are running out of runway
There's no time to run and hide
Let us take this walk together
Proceed forward hand in hand
Bring a sunrise of benevolence
And make this world understand

Shards of memories provide us with
The bricks we add unto our walls
Until we're backed into a corner
Like yesterday's forgotten dolls
We long for distance from each other
And we work together less
But this attitude of isolation
Is only worsening this mess
Our single hope is solidarity
We must fight the social cancers
If the question concerns humanity
Then hate will never be the answer
The only way to win this fight
Is if we learn to live in peace
The sun is setting ever faster
The bloodshed must be ceased.

I can't do this alone
And I need you by my side
We are running out of runway
There's no time to run and hide
Let us take this walk together
Proceed forward hand in hand
Bring a sunrise of benevolence
And make this world understand