I'd like to tell you a story
It begins in 1492
When dear old Christopher Columbus
Sailed the ocean blue

He landed on what he thought
To be the country of India
He stumbled upon a group of people
Who appeared to be indigenous

Because these native people
Happened to be where he thought he was
He called them all "Indians"
&& somehow that name stuck

They welcomed his group with open arms
Even offered them their feast
Unaware that deep inside
They were but wolves, dressed as sheep

Columbus && his crew
Soon ravaged the land
They took what they saw
Then they took full command

Of the people they found
On the land where they landed
They felt they should rule
So they stepped in, heavy handed

They murdered the people
Who had taken them in
Set fire to their villages
While the victims watched with their kin

Flash forward to the future
It's now 2016
It's been over 500 years
Since the overtaking by the regime

Future settlers decided
To let the survivors live on
They designated them small areas
Of what had not yet been robbed

These Native Americans,
Generally keep to themselves
They get by living off their land
But now they need your help

The Sioux of Standing Rock
Are being horribly mistreated
The state of North Dakota
Is poisoning them without reason

A pipeline has been built
That runs through this Native territory
When Bismarck residents didn't want it
It was rerouted, how discriminatory

People from all over the country
Are seeming to agree
They are making the commute
To protest peacefully

In defense of an oppressed people
Who only want to live
But the government is stepping in
Even blowing off some limbs

"Let them die, they're not like us"
the message the administration is sending
It seems that after all this time
The battle is never-ending

What exactly does it take
For people to see eye-to-eye?
In the end we're all just human  
We kiss, we laugh, we cry

So if you have a heart at all
If you know that this is wrong
Please join the Sioux in their mission
By coming together, we can be strong

"You touched my fingertips.
I felt it. My heart skipped a beat.
Taking hold of my hand. It stopped.
The high school child in me embraced
the playtime once again.
Sitting on a park bench thinking of our bleachers
at the Friday night football games.
Now we cheer for the pigeons as they fight
for the bread crumbs.
It's all so beautiful, only different times.
We are here still together, that's all that really
matters.
Beautiful to reminisce, grateful that
we can.
To kiss each others lips, and start our hearts
pumping once again."

The first thinkers were poets
Naming Mother Earth
Beginning symbolic thinking
Of nature, death and birth

Though themes are often repeated
Love, Beauty and God
Poetry in the guise of Religion
A prophet or a fraud

The poet resurrects the Primitive
Through allegory and similes
Disarming the unknown like explorers
Sublime Prophets and Visionaries

They must lay bare those treasured images
That must be expressed
Unraveling and revealing the sounds
At each soul’s behest

Encompassing the entire Cosmos
So lyrical the beat
The poet’s excitement flows outward
Laid at the Reader’s feet

So original, individual
She won’t examine or explain
Letting go the festering feelings
Disturbances in her brain

He exposes his dark, wounded psyche
Just to release and express
Such capacity to see and compare
Hyperbole at its best

I love, I hate, I suffer
A special dance in rhythm and rhyme
The poet as a buffer
Lessening the pain and sting of time

Laden with symbol and feelings
She gives you sweet relief
From something urgent, revealing
Confusion to belief

Through a cinematic kind of seeing
The poet purges to transform
By leaping through Alice’s looking glass
She never was one to conform

Quite intolerant of convention
Just like The Mad Hatter
His passions immune to all logic
In syncopated patter

Jamming up the poet’s mind
Struggling for expression
Seeking order out of chaos
An infantile regression

Cleaving to his imaginary world
The poet breaks out into words
Creating sound paintings to be unfurled
So his own agony is blurred

She succumbs to storms of passion
With instinctive techniques
Rhymes and rhythm still in fashion
Out of hand flows mystique

The poet mines from his unconscious
The Reader is not blind
For every single line and symbol
Means something to the mind

Causing an inner liberation
Enlightenment or flight
It is a matter of life and death
When darkness turns to light.