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Shayloves Jul 2020
This right is sacred
Marking this ballot is my rite...
a passageway to true freedom.
I feel the blood of ancestors coursing...
I hear the haunting cries of arrested dreams...
Stolen hopes for my enslaved great, great grandparents...
persecuted & denied rights, beaten for daring to read & write.
I do this for them...
I feel the heartbeats of my children and my descendants ... this is my legacy...
I do this for them.
Oh yes! This right is sacred...
This is my justice... righting these wrongs...
These stickers symbolize the spoils...Prominently displayed
And these collective voices will be heard...battle cries of suffrage
this rite is ours...
it belongs to us...
it always has...
this is our ancestors’ hope,
our legacy...
This is our right...
This is our voice...
This is our vote...
William Edwards Jul 2020
Frustration I can understand,
Devastation I cannot bear,
King saw the promised land,
In the dream that we all share.
Tear that falls or persevere,
Across the land of ‘opportunity’,
Where do we go from here?
Chaos or community?
We sat through hate in Woolies,
Walked past Birmingham’s barks,
Rose a people ravished in slavery,
Yet in this stand tarnish Parks.
Voices are clearer than crackles of fire,
Change must be built peace by peace,
Though I know the situation is dire,
One must show beauty to tame the beast.
We will never see the coming of the lord,
Through the suffocating smoke, of the horde.
Andy Chunn Jul 2020
Many moments recalled in pain
Even as everyone wonders in vain
Martin lay motionless at the Lorraine
Photos pour popular chords of disdain

His was a hallowed history to gain
Innocence into infinity’s drain
Seasons secure will never be slain
Memphis
share24 Jul 2020
Shannon sang:
Life is hard,
We have to change

Global pandemics and
Civil uprisings

Nothing will be the same

People in the streets
Voices carry
Did they hear us?

No justice,
No peace

An echo

Rubber bullets
Mace in the face
Independence day

All lives matter,
So they say

Girl in the green shirt

Costume covers
Grieving mothers

Life is hard,
We have to change
Regina Jun 2020
He was born July 2, 1925,
son of James and Jesse Evers,
Medgar Evers of Mississippi,
World War II veteran,
fought in the Battle of Normandy,
June 1944,
with his soldier brothers
of same and other races.

He rose a leader,
a Freedom Hero,
Mississippi field secretary of NAACP,
President, Regional Council of
***** Leaders,
husband of Myrlie, her purity
of devotion,
father of Darrell, Reena Denise,
and James,
civil rights leadership of the
highest calling,
of a bravery that persevered
again.

That early morning,
June 12, 1963,
a shot of hate tore
through his heart,
he was fallen in his own driveway,
his family witnessed this
most heinous of murders
committed in the insanity
of human acridity,
the bitterness in our psyches.

June 19, 1963,
full military honors,
Arlington National Cemetery,
for a man of a character so
much more loving
than his assassin's.

We, as a people,
we must obliterate
pre-conceived assumptions,
faulty thoughts of each other.

Medgar Evers of Mississippi,
Medgar Evers of America,
posthumously awarded the
Spingarn Medal,
murdered in a country
he fought for,
merited eternally by God.
Alicia Prakash Jun 2020
A symphony for Baghdad:
Words in crimson
On flimsy placards
Held high with anger
Frustration writ
On their ragged features.
The law is hard but it is the law
Says the hypocritical politician
Who bends them all
“Enough is enough”, the people said
Teargas and bullets will not make us sway
Release your bombs and fire your bullets,
Let our blood water this holy ground
Our motherland
But we will not let you stay.
Centuries have passed
Since Sheherezade told her tale
Years have passed since Aladdin’s magic lamp
First touched the minds of the young ones.
Is it a surprise that the young are dead?
Baghdad has fallen
Prey to the hands of those
Who support murdering their brethren and children.
The sun rose and set
The numbers went from thirty to three hundred
And no one cared.
Winners in Baghdad these days are those
Who returns home from the protests
Wearing a necklace of half a metal heart for a pendant
Knowing the other half was lost to the bullets.
They share stories of passion and fury
To hide the void within
Their hope, their faith, lost.
Their sacrifices in vain.
The protests grow old
With news, numbers and names of the players
Of this sick, faux patriotic game.

Lebanon:
The Chaos has affected them far too long
They now out there looking for peace and hope to now spread out more
Havoc almost birthed, they circle and stop the creation
Letting the higher-ups know
Who brings the forth the negatives and hurt
Food and shelter provided
Streets cleaned and maintained for use by all
Wish the world could learn how to function together like this
Imagine a world where
Little children are smiling, greeting other children from different countries and cultures
Living and playing together without a worry in the world
Men and women living in harmony and happiness
Peace an actuality in the world
But that’s only in your head
In reality
Little children are bombed and interrupted by death
Men rather **** the women and **** or shoot down the men that don’t agree with or are against them
Peace is being held on a leash by Chaos
That’s happening in front of your eyes
And right now, you’re probably just gonna read it, like it and move on, but nope.
I see people sharing
More is needed to be done
As I said, I and my friends are bringing the tools
All you have to do is use them properly
If you really want to see peace, you’ll know what to do
I know what I’m doing
Perspective I gained
And now I’m making sure it happens.
mark john junor Jun 2020
There at the heart of the nation a great edifice
a temple if you will
erected to reflect the very best and greatest hopes of a nation.
While the cities burn
is it swift breaking dawn of a new age for the Republic,
or is it a last whispering death rattle of Democracy that we witness from the steps of these hallowed grounds
I tell myself not to fear
our nation has struggled through many great trials
to have found its way back from many dark days...
yet, still, the cities burn...
yet still, our nation divided...
We can only stand on these steps of Lincoln's epitaph
bear silent witness and hope
hope
james nordlund May 2020
Your living was a gift.
Your life taken shows us
All how we're not being.
Taking our own lives,
In effect, by not doing
All we can.
You may be dead, yet,
Still, you give us insight,
That we're not fully alive.
May your memory be
A constant reminder of
What we lose when
We fail to be,
That being everything.

Cops asked an African man,
In N.Y.C., "show us I.D."?
He reaches for his wallet,
Before he can even pull it out
His body's riddled with 20 bullets,
The cops reload, shoot him with 20 more,
Making sure he couldn't live to tell.
In memory of the assassination of Amadou Diallo, 2-4-1999; posted in memory of Ahmaud Arbery, who was assassinated on 2-23-20 by an ex-police officer and his son; Breonna Taylor, who was assassinated on 3-13-20 by police; and George Floyd, who was assassinated on 5-25-20 by police   :)   reality
Saturday, April 4th, 2020

“I hang my head from sorrow, the state of humanity,” sang the Sapient Songbird. Amid surging torrents, the serpentine blights of the human condition, there are spasmodic glimpses of hope. Listen unwaveringly to the voice within as you take an opportunity to confront your sufferings. Self-sovereignty can naught be acquired without introspection.  

What is the essence of the diadem of ascendency? Is it reason & rhyme operative, reverberating upon the wavelength of the sublime? Perhaps, forsooth, it’s law, edict, spawned to envelop all within the delicate balance of governance?  

Boundless freedom canst naught be apart from precept. True manumission is obtained within the analogical perimeter of law. Therefore, rulings & revelations only serve to banish evil, virtue always remaineth unbound. Paradoxically, the soul procures boundless freedom through willful obedience to precepts of the same Progenitorial One by whom we stand.  

Submission is ne’er captivity lest we forget the benison of willful surrender. Moreover, obedience heralds further effloresce in the Light of the Empyrean One, the Cosmo-Plexus of Empyreal Love, Jah.  

Law is not fetter, nor is its absence liberty thereof, but pandemonium. Whence we gaze betwixt lines and letters of the law, we find the Element of Freedom; we find equity; we see in ourselves and others inherent depth, height, width, and breadth of moral character. Yes, even in regulation, the captive is unfettered; the wraith becometh revenant; the vexed soul, is lifted. Consequently, the ultimate law through which the liberation is acquired is the Law of Christ: Love.  

Sometimes I wonder upon the meaning of this life. Where do we find intemerate justice as an existential commonality? Whence shall armistice seize the Hands of Warfare that bruise Terraqueous Mother Earth’s Gaian epidermis? Whence shall every anima know the limitlessness of love? Terrene-scale answers are not mine to behold, nor ascertain, nor fathom.  

I must do all I can to metamorphose as a Kantian phenomenon, a Universal Force. Only when a heart teeming with love takes action, that it emancipates itself & others. Love is Nirvana.  

Each day that passes bringeth more discernment, more understanding, more knowledge, more wisdom. Moreover, I acquire greater “...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, mildness, self-control...” with the passing of consolidated aeons. (Galatians 5: 22, 23) The spirit flows abundantly through in & throughout: it guides each one of us into the infinitude of virtue: love, wisdom, justice, power. All excellency, all grace, and all formosity, are found in Jah. Se’ lah.
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