inaction, reaction

Billions overpopulate the surface of our tiny speck in the universe.
Still how we sit inert before our luxuries while thousands die is a mystery
It's not that the machines don't hum the gentle tune of information
but that mob mentality that it takes more than one
it takes more than one, two, three, and a,b,c
to save babes and mothers being shot dead with one bullet for being other
other than the person with the gun.

50 years ago that other was me, 25 years ago that other was her,
12 years ago that other was you, today who is it?
Each time we sat up straight and tied our hands in loop knots
pretending there is nothing we can do.
Blindfolds of self-government and power
prevent us from joining the international community
let them use our lines against us, that our justice system will take care of it.

Our justice system is the mockery of the world,
torturing suspects, holding them indeterminably without trials
driving them mad by sensory depravation
we can't save people from the hands of our government,
how do we expect to save others from theirs?
But we have to try, on all counts, try.
Write, speak, scream, for all those who've died,
Write, speak, scream, for all those who've been denied the right to do so.

H2O

Trapped, I flow between snow-capped peaks and ocean waves;

crashing my head against 10,000 foot-tall-ridges, and 5-foot sand bars as I undulate.

I try to sail over the mountains, catch a gust of wind east

back to the arms of that pinky finger lake, where I first burst from the ice.

I fled from its cliffs, little water-droplet afraid to fall that’s me.

I hopped a cloud across the mighty Mississippi,

Now I’m on the left coast, water’s everywhere,

rising fast with the fog I’m caught without solitude.

The only moment to myself I keep is as dew,

until the sun rips me from my blade of grass into another day.

Mist evaporates, another fruitless venture into the hills,

I turn to the waves wishing a current will whisk me away.

But she’s not on a faraway shore. Not anymore.

The friend who needs no words to know

my fear of fishbowls; my love of a quiet evening

condensing on a tulip tree leaf, and letting fireflies illuminate our surface.

She’s by the pinky finger lake, I left so long ago,

for the romantic beauty of a voyage, or to escape the fall.

Yet nature’s mousetrap won’t release any who’ve made the fabled western journey.

So here I sing trapped between the mountains and the sea.