"newsreel" poems
Oh, the sensation, the media frenzy,
The spotlight, the fame, the hullabaloo,
When anti-evolution laws
Were challenged by the ACLU!
The year: 1925.
The place: Dayton, Tennessee.
To say it was an extravaganza
Wouldn't be hyperbole.
For many people it was hard
To find a way to reconcile
Biblical accounts with science,
So science found itself on trial.
A young teacher, John T. Scopes,
Was willing to face prosecution
For breaking a Tennessee law for having
Given a lesson on evolution.
The "Monkey Trial" it was called.
The challenge meant swimming upstream
For the feisty lawyer Clarence Darrow,
Who helped to lead the defense team.
A prosecutor was William Jennings
Bryan, who with no apology
Loved to stir up outrage against
Evolutionary biology.
Defendant Scopes quickly found
It wouldn't take long for him to know
What it was like to have a part
In a multimedia reality show.
The courthouse received a make-over:
Platforms for newsreel cameras were built;
Extra spectator seats were added.
They were playing the trial to the hilt.
Concession stands sold food and drinks;
Toy monkeys were on display;
A chimp was dressed in a suit and fedora;
The clergy also joined the fray.
The media and the public loved it!
The country watched the trial progress.
What would win: science or scripture?
The answer was probably easy to guess.
After an eight-day trial, the jury
Deliberated. Nine minutes later
They had their verdict: guilty! How
Could someone question THEIR creator?
Scopes had actually never given
The lesson. That's what he later said.
Strangely, five days after the trial,
Williams Jennings Bryan dropped dead.
Laws later changed, but even during
Current times, some people feel
That stories from the Bible should be
In science textbooks. Now THAT'S surreal!
-by Bob B (11-6-18)
Nov 6, 2018
Nov 6, 2018 at 9:00 AM UTC
I don’t want to make a big ordeal,
but the way you see me is not ideal.
The world expects me to conceal,
but wouldn’t that be unreal.
Now that I’m saying this it feels surreal,
like someone grabbed my steering wheel.
My body feels like oatmeal,
and I’m trying not to kneel.
You turned this into a newsreel,
I wish I could repeal.
I tried to be stainless steel,
but you’re a spiked heel.
May 8, 2017
May 8, 2017 at 12:22 PM UTC
You were fourteen in Dr. A.’s class
when on that day you proclaimed
to have learned nothing and on that
day Dr. A. held no doctorate degree.
You were fourteen in Dr. A.’s class
when bodies: sick, overweight, in-shape
fell from buildings and into to TV screens
into history books, only to be stuck forever
in a New York newsreel in their Tuesday
outfits with Monday night’s love and touch
brewing, aged and earthy, from their falling
lives. If you listen closely on the eve of this day
the wind still whispers their scent of perfume
trails, still whispers what really happened
that busy day in the clouds, in the sky.
I was ten and can’t recall where I was
or in whose company but like the waters
stretched between Europe, Africa, and the
America’s, I was (am) far removed, was (am)
still putting together the blue-black lineage
of my triangular history that drowned
in the salty waters stretched, flowing
between three continents. But fifteen
years later, we (you and I) have overcome
the billowing black clouds of Tuesdays
the Monday night upsets, and the routed
maritime of our ancestors. 15 years later
you are still alive with your blue eyes
and clear face, are still four years my senior
are still my guiding light and sight of sun.
Sep 11, 2016
Sep 11, 2016 at 11:59 PM UTC
Your gentle breath
Stirs autumn leaves in the streets of my mind
Your eyes are so promising,
Rolling like newsreel camera,
Your pupils shifting like lenses
Their tender glint
Swears there is something better
Something bigger than this
Somewhere, perhaps soon
Somewhere the sparrows sing
Without cages
And the summers are blue
And the satin is black
Your hands on my back
Rub and comfort for what I will remember
Was an eternity
Someday maybe you'll sway with me
Sing, sing willow tree
We'll pretend
We've always swayed together
Maybe one day you'll engulf me
When I, fed to the tongues of fire,
Will turn my face to the flames
To the burning, divine kiss
But it would scorch my heart
With a single ember
Of a charred willow tree
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 5:45 PM UTC
The night they shot Dr King, Stokely Carmichael pulled the pin out from the grenade in his heart and made ******* sure the world knew he and his brothers would never be weak again,
The night they shot Malcolm X, the liberals shook their heads, clicking tongues about how "violence begets violence", and sometime later they put his face on a stamp, taught his corpse to dance, taught their children that this is the fate of a man who never gives up trying to change the world
The night that Missouri burned down they sent in the tanks, steel goliaths prowled small town streets looking for anybody black, or angry, or conscious, or any combination of the three, and every time their guns went off a new revolutionary was born in rage and desperation
Who are your comrades gonna be when the cops kick down the door?
Who are your comrades gonna be when the drug raids come?
Who are your comrades gonna be when the crowd control rounds turn to live ammunition?
Who are your comrades gonna be when the talking heads condemn the martyrs to hell on a twenty four hour newsreel?
Who are your comrades gonna be when the streets split open and the riot swallows everything in its wake?
Who are your comrades gonna be when the prisons crumble brick by brick?
Who are your comrades gonna be when it all burns down?
Who are your comrades gonna be when we rebuild this world from the ground up into something beautiful?
When they tell you, "Do not resist"
Resist
When they tell you, "Your methods are too extreme"
Tell them, "By any means necessary"
When they tell you, "This is the way things are"
Change. Everything.
When they tell you, "You can't change the world alone"
Tell them, "Solidarity, forever"
Oct 20, 2016
Oct 20, 2016 at 3:29 AM UTC
The plums were ripe in their bloom
A touch of a season change that would be coming soon
Yet leaves falling from the trees in where they lay
Careful foot steps in caution in being ok
The skies having their own surprise
It’s another day that the mind becomes a continuous wise
A short moment to think on
Living and feeling where you belong
As time brings on struggles with thinking in being strong
A choice being a reason to live
A sacrifice being thankful to give
Hope being a purpose to rejoice
The King above who holds and deserves the praise
Not a newsreel broadcast
It is the hand of life
Life being the open door
All you have to do is just explore
Dwelling on ignore because you are uncertain with a darken sure
The way it was is what can change
What has been changed can never remain
What efforts that weren’t made, it is you the blame
The way it was is what was from the very beginning
A change in what was expected and a new horizon coming at the very end
You now have a new agenda to begin and it continues until when.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 7:34 PM UTC
there is violence
at flash points south,
a time of marches and indignation,
of martyrdom and mayhem,
a young man tearfully eulogizing:
"i am tired of funerals,
i don't want no more funerals..."
and there is a war somewhere faraway
mushrooming on
a half-buried map
a friday in november.
a motorcade proceeds
under an endless texas sky,
then gunshots are fired -
there's a fleeting glimpse of death...
shock...distress...
time leaps and lapses,
reality struggles
while the brain chews fiction,
unwilling to process,
unable to comprehend
the widow's clothes change
from blood-stained pink
to somber black
she radiates dignity,
strength, character...
gliding into history
with her veiled grief,
her purposeful stride
we bow at such majesty,
such inner grace
we are transformed
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 1:14 PM UTC