Everyone in the settlement
It is invited to hurry and take
One thousand visits at the temple,
The time for the invocation arrived.
Take care and not stumble or hesitate on your way,
I know you might have plans, errands,
and occupy yourself with mundane delights.

Everyone in the settlement
It is invited to hurry from gate to gate,
and from heart to heart as we all need light, and can’t afford any longer misfortune.

Hurry and see that
there is no supremacy
in terror, in blood, and in sickness.
In me, and in you, and in everyone,
There is only one source of creation.

Hurry and take Sendo-Mairi
One walking and praying a thousand times,
Thousands walking and praying one time,
Hurry and see how
One can be free in the temples of humankind,
Sendo-Mairi

Imagine you're in class, and there's a boy with a cross dangled on his neck.
I bet everyone thinks it's normal because his name's Jared, and his daddy drives a Corvette.
What about Isaac, the boy in English class who wears a yarmulke on his head, and fasts for holidays?
Were your anti-semetic slurs not enough to make him want to end his days?
And how about Iman from your class of History?
Why do your peers at school same her because she chooses to practice her faith differently?
Society has taught people that there are only certain religions to follow,
So excuse me, supremacists,
If America is so great, why does the environment feel so hollow?

So Jared, he must be pretty cool, right?
I bet he keeps his hair gelled and his jeans real tight.
He doesn't get called weird, and he doesn't get asked to take his necklace off.
So why does he get a free pass when everytime Iman walks by, a few people stare and scoff.
"So like, do you even have any hair?" they ask her as she walks down the hall.
She fixes her hijab annd puts her head down and drowns in a sea of embarrassment.
She can't help but sit and wonder why she even came to school at all.
the next day the kids at lunch rip off Isaacs yarmulke,
and ask about the labor of his ancestors.
"Well you have to know. you're Jewish!" they say. but they don't acknowledge his pain inside that festers.
"You should be proud of who you are and not judge others" the teachers chant.
But they cannot look me in the eye and tell me that that they haven't give "The Muslim and the Jew" a second glance.
So, excuse me, supremacists,
I beg of you; Let the children be free, let them dance through the day.
Let those with shadowed beliefs speak out, and say what they want to say.
Let the broken hearted children have the freedom to peacefully pray.

In your so called "Pledge of Allegiance" that you make the children rise for, you recite that we are all indivisible, and under God, but do you really believe that?
I mean you must not, since half of you reading this have done nothing and seen someone of another religion or race treated like crap.
So tell me, when was God decided to be marked absent in the classrooms where we are supposed to be taught?
Freedom? Equality? Justice? Aren't those the things for which our brothers fought?
Excuse me, Supremacists, let me tell you that closing the doors to God, opens the doors for the Devil,
and we cannot let the ignorance of those who are afraid to believe bring us down another level.

Those that you pushed down before? They pushed back, only harder
The boy you called a "***** Jew" , his faith only grew stronger.
The girl you called a "terrorist" and a "*******" , she went home and prayed a little longer.
Your hate wiil only fuel their faith. Your negativity is what burnt yours out.
You gave up on God, and the belief that he wasn't there to help you, filled your heads with doubt.
So, tell me supremacists,
Is it really those who peacefully practice that are in the wrong?
Or is it you, who lost faith and is scared,
So you keep singing the same old song?
Let the children be free,
Let the children live,
For if you deprive them of their religious freedom and acceptance,
They will have nothing left to give.

The sounds of another toxic culture
Letting out their voices
In red and white hats
With ******* answers to ******* problems
That don’t exist but the man on the cold screen
Told em’ it was true
Well, my friend, they told you a lie

What’s real or fake
It’s hard to tell
When the businessman
On the television
And tablet screens
Demands once again:
“It’s fake news!”
And the uneducated eat it up
Ignoring the fact
It’s like eating a Big Mac
For breakfast and lunch and dinner
Clogging your brain with absolute junk

Another day
Ten thousand more buzzes on my phone
Of breaking news

Maybe I should just throw the **** thing in a ******* river
And meditate and medicate for as long as I can
God knows I’m tired
God knows I’m tired...

And the kids in the red and white hats
Are standing in the way
To keep on a legacy
With historical ignorance
That only says:
“I belong here. You don’t. Stay out.”

God knows I’m tired.

My child doesn’t need to behave.
Yours can be consigned to a grave.
My child is a bully, and that’s OK
Yours shouldn’t be in public anyway!
My child should go to any school he wants
Others only if they don't choose to flaunt.
Too bad if yours suffers misery,
We whites will just re-write history.

We prefer blacks go away and roam
Because we won’t finance their home!
We point to ugly days like Attica
Then tell them to go back to Africa.
Don’t bother with a Freedom Bus!
Equal rights is only for us!
Interracial relationships sicken,
Just a case of the plot thickens!

None of this outrage would be true
If it was what whites get subjected to!
All that crap about White Supremacy
Has not one claim on legitimacy.
It’s totally wrong down to the ground,
Just an excuse to keep others down.
Criminalizing rights protestors
Is a social outrage altogether!

People at this stage in history
Still so unevolved is tragedy.
To even utter these hateful words
Are among the ugliest ever heard.
They only have themselves to blame
That they still remain the same.
It’s up to them to accept the challenge
And work to put mankind in balance!

Today was every other day.

My boss says
"Hey Joe, where you going with that staple gun in your hand?"
I draw a blank on my face and turn to face his
.
"You don't really know, do you, Joe? 

You don't know where you're going.

You don't really know who you are.

You don't know much of anything anymore,

Do you now, Joe?"

Then he laughs at me 
In front of everybody
He laughs and points at

What everybody but me can see.

And everybody laughs and they laugh and they laugh

But nobody talks to me anymore.
My boss don’t talk to me anymore.
My neighbors don’t talk to me anymore.

My girlfriend don’t talk to me anymore.

My doctor don’t talk to me anymore.

My mother don’t talk to me anymore.
My father don’t talk to me because 

He's long since gone

Flown far away from the words to this song.

I call my girlfriend up on the telephone

She says,  "Joe, I'm not your girlfriend anymore"

And hangs up the phone.

Nobody talks to me anymore.

I call my doctor on the telephone

He says, "hello, is there anybody there"?
I say, "it's me, Joe, doctor help me, nobody talks to me anymore!"
My doctor coughs and hangs up the phone.

Nobody talks to me anymore.

I call on my priest in the church down the road

I say "Hello, Father? my Father, is that really you?"
"Please tell me, dear Father, what should I do?"

My priest says "Joe, God don't love you anymore"

And throws me out through God's front door.

Even God don't talk to me anymore.

So, I go down to a bar to have a little swim.

There's a bar stool there where the Cross should have been

The bartender looks at me,
But he doesn't say a word.

I hold up *******  pointing up at the sky
So he pours me a double, ten-year-old rye.
Which I toss down and motion for another
All the while calling him "my brother".
The bartender stares at my face
As silent as the stone sleeping inside of that wall.
Nobody talks to me anymore.



On the street, the headlights blind my blinking eyes.

Strangers push past me, some I know, most I despise.

A cop car pulls up and flashes his bright light on me

The cop points his flashlight in my eyes so that I can't see.
But we already know, there's nothing he or I need to say.

He won't arrest me.
It just ain't worth it to talk to me anymore.

A ghost walks up and stares into my face.
He doesn't say a word; 
just hangs there in space
And  spins ribbons of colored lights

Inside my head.

There's no knowing with ghosts no more
The dead don't talk to me anymore.

Suddenly I see an explosion of lights

There's trumpets and harps and angels in sight
A liquor store, neon vision of light
Promises me the spirits of salvation
 and delight,
If I just step inside.


While next door, a gun store slowly cracks open its door . . .

I am my father and my mother's son and

I’ve never before bought me a gun,
But nobody, nobody talks to me anymore.

Igor Goldkind © 2018