Gods or Monsters

Because We Have Not Stopped
A Poet’s Words with Poets’ Words

When myriad commit cruel murder, macho maniacs brutally rape, mad hermits dream and decimate,
Then will we need to know where the sidewalk ends, where a phenomenal woman’s secrets lie
With daily tribunes crying madness, feasts of destruction, humanity the savage, ravenous beast
Will it matter if we take the road less travelled; pray, to what earth does this sweet cold belong

In the long sleepless watches of the night do we whisper we are too young, we are too old
We who court peace do sorrow and despair; have we come too far upon this dark and lonely road
Will we hopeless languish out our days that end this strange eventful history, sans everything
If we dare speak or write of hope and transformation we are branded sanctimonious preachers, fools

Learned men label humans blind, rapacious in our endless quest to replicate our worst, our best
Is all we see and seem just a dream within a dream, in spite of war and death, in spite of all sufferings
Cannot we reason, choose, grow, transfigure, let strength of numbers overwhelm the strength of arms
To be angry with our friends,  tell our wrath and have our wrath end, and so live both wise and simply

Will we be angry with our foes, hold our wrath, watch it grow, as the moment our greatness flickers
Are we weak, too timid to call for metamorphosis, afraid someone will shoot us down or simply shoot us
Will they write us down in history with their bitter, twisted lies, politic, cautious, and meticulous
Will they expose our deepest, darkest secrets buried deep inside, sacred silent places where we hide

Will we glory in our differences, fire guns in lust for blood, without one thought to our universal bonds
See a falling tear and not feel sorrow’s share, to leave tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night
Addicted to power, greed, hatred, fear and death, in blood we write our future; it’s etched behind our eyes
We do not carry our hearts within us, so new meaning cleaves to rage, rage against the dying of the light

Because we have not stopped for death, it will surely stop for us; oh yes, we thought it looked familiar
All conflicts will not cease, nor do we think they should, but we must box and put away the toys of war
Cannot we teach ourselves all this is folly, for want and hunger have hardened all this loveless land
Saddened we seem too weak to learn, to understand, we must forever sing our songs of hope and love