Tag: ISIS

In My Comfort Zone

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FullSizeRender 12

It is where I am every day,

my comfort zone,

I give a glimpse into the world

I see,

every hour of my day,

until the sun does set,

hues change, sky becomes a darkness outside

I cannot see as readily.

 

Until the morning comes,

then in rain or sunshine, the view the same,

I always see the leaves in summer,

in winter the naked branch, the neighbor’s home,

I see this every day,

it is in my comfort zone …

 

Where no bombs exist,

shattered windows, glass explodes,

the screams of children barely two,

barely recognizing a reason to fear,

yet they endure,

a daily barrage of human agony,

a tragic reality leaves a shell now,

where a window frame once gave a shield

to the weather, the mortars, the terror, the wind …

carries evil’s wares inside the shadows.

 

It is where I am every day,

my comfort zone,

I give a glimpse into the world,

I see …

 

Check Your Need

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Check your nails,

primp your hair,

fix your tie,

pull that food out of your teeth,

people die

~

Meet the boss,

play the silly fool,

smile to your strangers

walking by,

be sure we all can see your eyes,

people die

~

plan your life,

hug your animal

frolic in the springtime air,

plant your garden,

there’s more beyond the world you live,

people die

~

‘I read the news today, oh boy’

‘if you try sometime, you get what you need’

‘and you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack’

‘there’s a man over there with a gun in his hand’

‘stand up and be counted’

everything sounds so familiar and right when we lose!

~

for the years continue to climb,

lives begin and transpire

incidents define,

heart and soul and positivity decline

while we every day wake up to the morning news …

people still die.

~

© Thom Amundsen 2016 March

Lyrics

Beatles

Rolling Stones

Talking Heads

Buffalo Springfield

AC/DC

 

Listening to the News

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I’m feeling agitation,

listening to mouthpieces slam each other,

slam the office,

slam the American people,

Ignorance, forces themselves to believe

in rhetoric,

‘we will never be great again’

oh my, 6th grade Civics again.

~

‘lead from behind’

Hah! – I won’t go there, but they might,

probably do.

~

Remember when we were told by those we

believed in (we love)

‘you have to believe in yourself?’

I think we forgot,

I believe we have to redefine ourselves

BOOM!

rest assured,

the human condition remains as incredible as we have ever been,

Stop listening to the pretty faces,

turn off the feeds,

stop fueling advocates of fear,

look each other in the eyes again.

Had that moment lately?

when suddenly,

you looked and someone lived a different life  …

oh my, what a change, yes, that remarkable reality.

That ability to trust what it is, who we do,

love!

When we can breathe again …

Her Eyes

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burqa

She sits with cold reasoning

trying to believe

knowing everyone around her

disagrees

decides to illicit a remark

cements her current posture.

If I look across the room

I can see she is different,

her burqa wraps her fears inside

eyes with tears imagine fear.

Yet this is all we have,

the only part of her,

she let’s us imagine without definition.

We haven’t thought about

later in the evening,

when unless she might clever distract

herself from the evening news,

unless she can simply sit and stare at a wall,

a blank slate of reality she’d rather never leave,

unless she can ignore the fear she feels

when her reality is a constant scrutiny.

She’ll never be able to laugh out loud

without an earshot ignorance spewing bigotry.

She won’t ride her bicycle in public without

a young child being told not to stare.

~

When I was a young child and discovered someone special,

I was told to look the other way, not asked, simply told.

I thought that rather bold,

when later on in life I realized I was being asked to ignore

another human being for having a soul I hadn’t seen before.

I wonder if they could feel my fear.

I wonder if tears remain the same after all these years.

I wander about without any confidence,

I live with fear, yet, I’ll take it for granted

because I can,

because she can’t I’ll flow my tears

I’ll ask her about her eyes,

I’ll think her lovely today.

I’ll wish her … peace.

Peace!

~

*photo credit: pinterest

 

Haven’t Heard

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I listened only long enough to fear,

the easiest emotion,

that moment when suddenly confusion, our lives,

becomes less about

being in control,

far more about wanting to

run away.

I want that,

more than anything else in the world,

I don’t want to be there when it happens.

I don’t desire definition.

Whether we begin to accept anything at all,

seems relevant only to those who might no longer need hope,

those who are the souls walking the earth tonight.

They are the ghosts in and around our mechanical antics,

fleshing out the reality of our lives,

while we with little regard for our own sanity,

struggle to understand just why hate needs to be a precedent

in our daily lives.

I cannot imagine the horror beyond my own intellectual

reaction

to all of the cruelty that exist outside my door,

outside yours, theirs, and wherever I walk tomorrow,

well that could be the right place again …

the wrong time doesn’t really have definition anymore.

~

Perhaps there is something to the purpose of faith

beyond expectation, beyond us, beyond me.

“The World is Watching”

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Tradition suggests acknowledge ourselves

In scheme, our spiritual karma wanes,

Like to believe that humanity delves

Where love in peace speaks hopeful gains.

~

Wild abandon ills principled decline

In our children’s eyes we extinguish fire,

That reckoning once spoke roses and whine

Today, private anguish will less inspire.

~

Young minds of tomorrow whose direction

We ask to maintain, we demand they thrive

While daily shattered streams are solution.

Sweet anxiety, media minds strive.

~

In a world, in a place, in a vacuum

Pretense is doomed if we choose to presume.

An Upsetting Time

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Stunned, a brief awareness,

then disbelief, then horrific, ugly,

insane realization.

My people, your people, we people,

all of us trying to

breathe.

We are told to

‘look the other way’

in a manner of speaking only because we still have

compassion.

We are asked to pass judgment upon soul driven desire

across the divide we see only torment,

now on the other side,

resentment.

What world do we live in might refuse admittance,

what scheme, grand design are you trying to sell me,

how should I respond,

when where I lay my head, the roads, paths,

the forest beautiful in all her natural innocence

begins to question

anyone.

What does freedom mean to …

would the real world please stand up.

The Next Day (Why Paris?)

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JeanJulien
Jean Julien

When sun arose to widen sleepy eyelid

A calm begun soon turned memory horrific

We wake shadowed in darkness, a slow embrace

Shattered dreams begun inside stranger despair.

The news however distorted cannot rid

Crying heart, confused eyes, reality’s prolific

Mastery of human nature’s fallible race.

Once thrive her eyes this morning lacking air.

No longer are minds able to disappear

Find shelter beyond the torment of confusion.

Instead again it is sadness, our tears release

That city of lights, extinguished incessant fear

Will rule the day, while gathered in circular motion

We wander, wonder, watchful, gasping for peace.

Hearts Will Cry

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images

Lives are always lost,

that’s nothing new,

we just go on again,

face a new day,

let the sunlight brighten

our lovely sunroom.

Just don’t turn on the news,

stay away from the internet,

water your flowers,

hold court with your pets,

read a newspaper … wait,

only the comics today.

Stay away from the front page,

because the people are dying,

those lives that lived with happiness,

today are bleak and they will cry,

they will shed tears,

until they no longer

can imagine where another

will run its course slow

along a red swollen cheek.

~

I know that we are a world

that forgives the pain

we bring upon one another,

but what about the others.

What about those we

will never ever know who

die.

There’s a child running outside

whose parent will die tonight,

and he’ll never understand why,

just, that, well, that’s how we live.

~

But over here we don’t …

live that way I mean.

We water our plants,

bring the shades down

a little privacy on a sunny day,

romantic as hell.

That’s not any hell we can ever

know in the direct fire of war.

Unless, finally one day,

we realize somehow,

we are all related and responsible.

We are all part of the problem,

the human race; hearts will cry.

Yesterday’s Lives

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war

Once,

I recall

a crisp morning

listening to the radio

describe Bobby Kennedy’s iron lung

By the end of the day

I was listening to music again.

Yesterday, and probably later on today lives

will be lost at the hands of war

all of which are names we don’t know.

~

Yet, in the blogs and commentaries

the incessant threads that expose our world,

in news reports and cocktail hour chats

the name ISIS will become familiar,

Kurdish, Gaza, Ukraine, Israeli, Shiite,

Crips, Bloods, Disciples, Latin Kings,

Jihad, Taliban …

White, Black, Hispanic, Russian, Somali, Asian,

Native American

~

Some names we know,

they live nearby,

walk the same streets as you and I

on any given night,

we read about their activities,

still far across the city,

distant identities across the world,

seemingly wanting the same

still not walking in stride,

yet.

~

We are a talented animal,

with our flaws and successes,

we conveniently forget

matters of hurt.

Wherever our world exists

we must always respond

to the reality around us.

In my own backyard,

I worry  about flowers and trees,

while in a nearby war zone,

families cry for each other’s lives.

We must never forget

yesterday’s lives.