As you sit at your table on Thanksgiving Day
Voraciously gorging yourself on your feast,
Remember those who are suffering
In a proxy war in the Middle East.

The poor Yemenis have died by the thousands.
Many are on the brink of starvation.
Fourteen million, some people say,
Experience serious deprivation.

Blockades limit badly needed
Medical supplies and food.
It's a humanitarian crisis
Of unspeakable magnitude.

Warring ideologies place
Innocent people in between.
Yes, people are still committing
Atrocities in twenty eighteen!

A hospital hit by Saudi bombs…
A school bus blown to bits…
How many more will die before
Responsible parties call it quits?

Cholera is pervasive, and drugs
Cannot get to the people who need them.
Babies are dying because their mothers
Cannot produce the milk to feed them.

As of now our president
Would rather keep an open door
To weapons sales to Saudis instead
Of trying to stop the ghastly war.

Don't just send your thoughts to Yemen;
Let your thoughts turn into actions,
Lest your sincere hopes for peace
End up being worthless abstractions.

-by Bob B (11-22-18)

When I was born
I felt love from my Mom
She was like an angel
Smiling so brightly with hopes.

When I was four
I did something wrong
"Baby, Never do it again!"
She said it when I got lost.

When I was about to fall
The one next to me was my Dad
He told I had to trust
He made his baby much strong.

When I went away from home
To follow things I like most
But I just could find peace
When I stay with my Dad,my Mom.

Now I can do everything on my own
Where I received trust, peace and love
How can I forget it?
The best thing ever,
FAMILY.

I just want to ask one question
Is the human race obeying the mathematical rule called BODMAS?
Just a refresher...  
Brackets, Orders, Division, Multiplication, Addition and Subtraction

We have created different brackets
where we enclose people like casket
He's black, she's white, they are rich,
those are poor, she's educated, he's religious, he's fat, she's slim... Brackets

People are treated differently
Based on the class that we've put them in
Some are raised to power like exponents
Others are trapped in like square roots...Orders

The segregation has only intensified our division
I don't fit in here, I belong over there
My group is stronger, those ones are losers... Division

Disunity and absence of love has caused
A multiplication of our problems
Threats, deportation, persecution
We don't like them, we'll bomb them
War, insurgency, terrorism, hate speech... Just problems Multiplication

Every second, our population is experiencing several additions
Our population keeps growing while
Our natural resources are being exploited
And depleting at a rate faster than our population growth
Our resources are experiencing severe subtractions

I just want to ask one more time...
Aren't we obeying BODMAS?

Communication is the backbone of a relationship
Maybe not always about the talk frequency
But more about the authenticity
Communication driven by mutual understanding
Fuels a relationship that is outstanding

Undivided attention
Effective listening
Seeking to understand rather than listening to judge
Seeing with their eyes and not our heads
Respecting feelings and emotions
Finding common ground during disagreement
Disagreeing to agree

Effective communication is the ballast of a relation-ship

Natives' compassion taught
Pilgrims at Plymouth
How to live within, give to,
Natures' abundance.


That providence sowed
Reaped graces' harvest,
Fraternity, bearing
Fruits to this day.


We gave Native-America
Genocide, Earthocide.
Chief Seattle said,
No one can own the land.


Bowing to Above and Below,
For gifts bestowed,
Giving, may we again,
Walk that way!

you listen to what passes for the TV news
you read some
but not all
of social media views
you notice that
despite all internationalism
it‘s mostly old sensationalism
combined with more or less suggestive speculations about
how many people may have died in forest fires
to what imaginable depths the president aspires
whether the North Koreans have more rockets
     despite the wonderful achievements
     of the national superdealer
who of the leader‘s staff might be the next
      to lose her job or his credentials
etc. etc.

in short
the world has mostly shrunk
to domestic politics and power games
plus a few places on the globe where
U.S. soldiers still are dying
     in order to protect their country‘s interests
     in oil, assorted mineral resources
     or allies of political expedience
or a few thousand refugees from countries plagued
      by persecution or dictators are
      marching for weeks to claim asylum
           in the home of the brave and the free
           under the statue of liberty
     only to discover that they are seen
     as an invasion threatening
            that blesséd city upon a hill

visions have grown smaller
more petty voices dominate the talk

a nation made of immigrants
faced with the poor who flee from their oppressors
decides to close its borders to the immigrants‘ next wave
oblivious of the times when they themselves
still searching for a better life
found a new place where they felt safe
led by the statue‘s torch that shone its light
upon a poet‘s words of welcome:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"