Liberate me
from the land of the free
to be ruled over.
Free me from them;
those men whose gain
is on my back, broken
thriving only in pain.
I’d like to look upon their face
and say “who are you today
what lie will you speak to pacify
an audience penned and captured
by choices you have made?
A man
has only one life to live
in this universe,
one life to give
be it a blessing or a curse
but why before we die
do I have to choose
between you who try to force your way on me
and your way you try to grind down on me?
Why not let free mean free
rather than free mean free
to feed you and your own greed.
In days long past
when man lived in simple ways among fields of grass
grew and captured his food there was still a you
who said you ruled and with sword and ax
took what was not yours to take and today
rather than weapon me with tools iron forged
you levy a fine or tax and when I can’t pay
you say you have authority to take what I paid
for away..
I know it and you know it too,
you’re naught but a fool
for you have forgotten that for peace
there is only one golden rule
yet you seem to want to treat evil with me
then have me return to you
an attitude of love while being civil.
My! God damn you the rule lest you need to be reminded,
the one you so easily cast aside and derided
“treat others as you
would have them treat you.”
Your supposedly owned fields
tilled by the bent backs of massed humanity
are coming to yield, fully grown;
so tell me you whose boot prints cross my back—
are you ready to reap what you have sown?
© M Durfee
6/22/13
i think if some actually had to reap what they sowed perhaps they might just learn a thing...but then again they start mewling and saying how unfair it is...there are def some laws you can not get away from...in the end they will find that...
ReplyDeleteBrian I think in Michigan anyway politician is probably the most dangerous job a seed sower can have. I think the count now is approaching 30 indictments just in Detroit and yesterday the County was put on notice that they, including the sheriff's office is under investigation.
DeleteTo be honest, if they are not going to get all the kickback, bribe, and stolen cash through pay for play deals back, taxpayers are paying for retribution not justice.
Very effective, mark. I will always wonder how the collective "they" are not full enough that they learn from the vast benefits of sharing and kindness? Is greed a DNA molecule?
ReplyDeleteAs you know I've worked with very poor folks but in a state where services are sufficient. I was aware reading this that very few of the people I've met feel victimized in the way you write here. They don't spend time on it and poverty is just the way it is. But then I look at the schools and the light brightens: another generation ill equipped and poorly served
Of all the places for you to live, your karma dealt you a tough card.
I wonder what you would write if you lived here in this valley. I know you would be on the side of "for all"
Love
kj
kj, If this is Karma at work then I must be Hitler reborn or some shit. There is such a thing as poverty with integrity but in places like Detroit where 40 years ago people actually had work there was very little but being a predominantly black city Johnson's great society landed here first. In the beginning it was a help but then the jobs all went away, people learned the system and game it still.
DeleteI don't know what it's like in MA but here we have a policy of social promotion, whether a kid is ready or not they are moved to the next grade where they fall further behind.
Karen when I write I write mostly in the moment about what I actually see, but I am a subjective human and my eye may forever roam to the negative, maybe I am simply where I belong. That's what a holy man told me forty or so years ago. Trust me I never intended for his prophecy to become true. Yet everyone adapts to beauty or ugly depending on the surround.
I mentioned this in response to your comment on my blog, but I finished reading Polysyllabic and enjoyed it much. If there's somewhere you'd like me to review it, let me know.
ReplyDeleteWell Charles as you can tell I really haven't been doing much public writing lately so I'll have to go over and look. Polysyllabic, thanks for the kind words but there is no need to review it anywhere. If I get the will I may go through and do another but to be honest I am not much interested in any more publishing of any kind. Maybe when Detroit and my fate is finalized in the next year or so things may be different but for now *shrug* it's get the lube and bend over time.
DeleteGot stuck right after reading the titel to your post ... Masters ... Owners ... Teachers ... makes me crinch ... I don't think I learned anything from any of them in my whole life ... yet I play a pretty mean guitar ... used to draw nicely ... write some mostly well liked poems ... and hoop like a hooping queen ... methinks :) Thanks for stopping by, friend and ever so gentle teacher :)Love, cat
ReplyDeleteCatwoman the title is a trick. That be Master Craftsmen who teach apprentices and journeymen in a union setting or those with wide experience who pass it freely to an up coming generation.
DeleteWorld wide with the decimation of unions and that system of learning workers are now at will, in right to work states, with reduced pay and benefits and basically are treated as dispensable chattel by corporate owners.
Be Well Kiddo
You
ReplyDeleteAre True North, dear boy
Aloha
That may be Cloudia but I am tired of fighting the magnetic pull that always strains the compass point and trying to pull it back. Though I can force quiet in my mind it is time to just chuck it in and let the tide of extreme trouble surrounding me just take me to wherever.
DeleteGood luck with that -- although it is said that the meek shall inherit the earth, somewhere . . .
ReplyDeleteYeah some guy said that--but then he was murdered. All i want from any one is peace and quiet and sometimes i get one or the other but rarely both at the same time Goatman.
DeleteExcellent outpouring.
ReplyDeleteTalking of "them", I am reminded of rural Arkansas here in Whitebread Newmarket, ON, where they have installed a rapid transit commuter lane for street buses-- with the real bus terminal just next door.
So you own a business on the main drag?
Tought luck, Henry Muck, your storefront and parking lot will have to go! We don't care if you go broke.
It really is "Them."
In Arkansas,they call them the authorities.
In Detroit Ivan we call them our 1%. They buy huge amounts of land and buildings for pennies on the dollars, get multi-year tax abatements, taxpayer support to build their districts which are pretty much all installed in a 5 square mile area while the other 135 sq. miles is basically here to pay for their entertainment district and familial profits.
DeleteWe would never decimate their Downtown area with functioning mass transit, that (mass transit) has been forbidden here for 100 years.
"but why before we die
ReplyDeletedo I have to choose
between you who try to force your way on me
and your way you try to grind down on me?"
Excellent question, sir, to which I have no answer (does one exist?). The more things change, the more they remain the same...
Thank you.
ds--There is always suicide but then I am not ready to stop being rubbed down like an eraser yet. Answers, sheeeit, whatever they are come from a government entity that knows I and those like me are here but figure we can be sacrificed on the alter of the greater good.
DeleteSoooo glad that you're still blogging :) I'm finally back and looking forward to hearing all about your adventures
ReplyDeleteNo adventures just stormy seas that keep rolling and rolling in.
Deletewe know the elite, the 1%, don't concern themselves with the masses...
ReplyDeleteTony we have a set of our own "1%" here that replaced the automotive 1% that used to run things here, at least they provided jobs then they abdicated and the pizza baron moved in, then the real estate guy who had 10% of his business in sub prime but got fully bailed out, and another who is buying huge huge swaths of needed land for a new bridge but at the same time is the city's largest slumlord. Now we have the Koch brothers moving in to acquire a petcoke industry to fire their chemical empire on. Of course they have 100 tons of the stuff sitting on an island in the river uncovered so every time it rains or a strong wind blows...
DeleteThe golden rule is one that has stuck with me throughout my life. I have forgotten it at times in the midst of anger, or when being treated badly by someone who never knew that rule. But it is a good one to live by.
ReplyDelete