What is it about a national flag
draped over shoulders,
tied at the neck
or wrapped like a toga
that makes me cross the road?
Why do I suspect it covers anger?
Why do I hear a shout of challenge,
rather than a song of honour?
Was it too many urban marches?
Flying London bricks?
And cracked skulls?
Let's put flags beyond reach
on flag poles,
and preferably not at half mast.

The pamphlets are blank,

that is their message, surely --


it's commonly known.

Considers protest at disrespect,
To be the sigil
Of a *****.
In reality
He who chokes down ****
And smiles through it,
Is in actuality.
But what is it,
To remit?

I dance out my anger in the name of the priestess,
draw in her power to extinguish my unrest.
I worship my body in a state of undress,
let my rage break free in radical protest.
I surrender myself to this sacred process,
stomping my feet like an unbridled tempest.

I won't bite the hand that feeds me,
But I'll fight the man that bleeds me
Though the fear of him may sieze me
I won't let the terror freeze me

If we have a rightful reason
To commit an act of treason
Then I see no better season
To do more than put our pleas in

And so what if someone sees it?
Don't be quiet to appease it
To the system you don't matter
So be heard over the chatter

Can't you hear the summon pealing?
From the body comes the healing
Till the time of our releasing
Our resistance be increasing!

they say it's a god-given right
a necessity, meant to be
a part of the American life

but tell me, do you know what it's like
to have to the cold steel of a barrel
pressed between your innocent eyes?

My name is Martha and I'm very tired
my patience as such has long expired
so you don't want my brown skin next to your white
well madam I'm tired so I'm sitting tight
it's hot and I waited my turn in the queue
and I paid, just like him, just like her, just like you
you can carp, you can moan, you can cause all kinds of fuss
but lady I'm keeping my seat on this bus
because I'm tired

The world is a dark and complicated morass,
Wherein countless lost children pass
In and out of the shadows and greet each other with a smile or a nod.

Isolated, lonely little hearts playing
With complex emotions in a word staying
Abreast of all the troubling events for better or worse.

Light and laughter dwells but a moment
In tender unions just before fears foment
A cascade of ****** worries filling up the eternal halls.

Then a single flame at first finds another
Huddling in the dark over scraps Mother
Left for kindling a fire in the depths of destitution.

At first the two but soon three and more
Shelter the faltering fire taking hold for
Reviving communion among the distanced souls.

As more join a bonfire starts and talking
Not just of pleasantries you hear while walking,
But of sincere connection between scared children discovering they can conquer the dark.

Some children still pass in the dark hall,
Knowing not the darkness nor how small
They really are in the scope of the full extent of the world.

But every once in a while, more often as it grows,
A child stops and really sees what the others chose
In banding about a fire fueled by the scraps of a difficult time.