Globalocracy

Have we become spread too thin?

With the Global-ocracy of all that we do we have no time to effect the things that affect us.  Has the world become too small and our reach gone too wide?

Think global, act local.
Leave local, live global.
Love global, snub local.

Have we empowered the pieces that control too much of us?
Have we fed the greed of men?
That voracious appetite that will never be satisfied takes us to the bone without thought.

Do not advocate for isolationism.  Celebrate the world.  Enjoy uniqueness.  Love differences.
But do not hold them so high that they are the mass that we are crushed by, hold them as the equal for which to strive.

I Can See Through

There’s such a population in the world that we can’t comprehend it.
A billion is enough to run the mind.
How about 7?
But how many of those billions can do what they really want to do?
How many are drones, like me, wasting time to waste time.

But I can see through it all
If only I could touch it

Rinse, repeat and rinse again.
Finding little joys in life to see the tunnel through the end.
Like me?
Live for the weekend and die through the week.
It’s not possible for everyone to live their happy life.

But I can see through it all
If only I could reach it

Do you even know what you’d do if you could do what you say you’d do?
Maybe that’s the problem that a lot of those billions face.
They don’t know which way they want to face.
Not like me.
I know how to be in that happy living space.

Because I can see through it all
If only I could mean it.

I can see through it all to the things I want to do.
For that happy ever after thing that we grow up with.
The meaning of making every moment worth a damn.
And not just wasting it.
Like me.

Because I can see through it all
but that’s all I ever do.

Idyllic

Poems and prose comparative to old never seem to to hold the same weight.
Talking of love and lust and greed.
It all seemed so new then, but wanting it now would be akin to long walks on the beach.

Everybody loves those.
Everybody does those.

We want to be unique.  We want to be pure.
We want to feel the feelings and through them be the cure.

How are we poets now?
Everyone has their words.

How are we poets now?
Everyone is so sure.

There is no understanding of the plight of woman or man.
We don’t use words the way we used to, now it’s video that holds our hand.
Yet the words written, or typed, hold strength and power still.
These words are burning fire to show the oppressed’s will.

It will come from bordered lands with fences high and sharp.
It will come from wombs and bills that voices will never cease

and never stop

The people will feel the passion through the words and never let up.
The people will be the philosophers and poets.
The people will be the people again.
Poets will be poets
and we will feel the words once more.

When your daughter’s school is anti-woman

I don’t do a lot of blogging.  I prefer to lose myself in creativity but something recently pissed me off and I wanted to vent about it.  It’s going to make me jump off of a cliff of ranting but it’s frustrating and doesn’t seem to be changing, despite the bullhorn placed to its mouth in today’s society.  I’m afraid it’s just going to fade away.

My 11 year old daughter told me on the drive home from school last week that a boy called her a Stupid Ass Bitch in class.  She said it without any emotion and it didn’t seem to upset her but it made me mad.  I asked why he did that.

She said, “because I wouldn’t let him use my glue stick.”

I seethed during the ten minute drive home from school.  I ran things through my head about just letting it go because it didn’t bother her, but the more I thought about it the more angry it made me.
She wouldn’t let him use her glue stick and that’s the natural response he gave?  It was extreme and vulgar considering it was a boy calling a girl these names.  The word bitch has much worse connotations when directed at women, so there is no “it’s awful when anyone gets called a bad name” nonsense.

I asked my daughter if she told anyone and she said she did, she had told the teacher but the teacher was busy and didn’t hear it.  The only answer my daughter was given was “okay, sit down,” and a passing “I don’t want to hear any cussing” to the class in general.  This boy’s verbal assault was not addressed individually.

So I decided to email the teacher and I wasn’t satisfied with the response.  I didn’t tell her the exact words that were used, simply “some vulgar language was directed at my daughter.”
The teacher’s first line was apologetic in favor of the boy.  She said that the girls were rude to him but she would investigate further (this despite her saying she didn’t hear what was going on).   At that point I decided to let her know what words were used and was further let down by her follow up response.

My daughter is a rule follower.  She is pushed to tears if we’re going to be late for school because she doesn’t like the attention of walking in after the bell rings.  She finished homework well before its due.  I’ve asked her numerous times to skip half days because no work gets done anyway and she refuses to stay home.  The information that the teacher gave in response to my email and her follow up goes against everything I know of my daughter.

The teacher said that the boy had his feelings hurt by nearby girls not wanting him to use the glue stick.  The boy then lashed out with “you stupid…” but managed to hold back the nasty words.  Yet, according to the teacher, the “bolder and more outspoken girls” filled in the blanks and spread rumors of what he said.  They then went onto harass the boy at lunchtime so he had to go to the Vice Principal.
The teacher followed this asinine description of events by informing us that she told the boy to ask other peers or her for supplies if needs them in the future to avoid these kind of triggers.

I was floored by her response to this situation.  I was not expecting them to string this boy up on the flagpole by his underwear, but she completely ignored any wrong doing of his and took his words as to how the events occurred!  She called my daughter a liar by saying he never said mean words.  (We confirmed that she heard the “stupid ass bitch” part first hand and she said yes, she heard the words out of his mouth).

The way she categorized the other girls as bolder and outspoken made it come off as a negative trait.  That these were mean girls picking on this poor, little boy.  That they were a scourge of the playground and the boy needed to be coddled.  How can a woman in today’s society be taking this position?  Outspoken behavior should be encouraged when constructive.  Boldness should be cheered.

I didn’t respond to that email.  There was no point in doing so.  I wanted to.  I wanted to email the principal and ask if this is how the school sees the female population.  I wanted to ask why the boys take on events were accepted as what actually happened.  I wanted to cause a fuss and make problems about this incident.
The reason I didn’t was my daughter.  She didn’t care.  She didn’t want the attention and I didn’t want to cause problems for her with a month left in school.

Which is a shame because I wanted to be her guardian.  I wanted to defend her and if she said this boy spoke those words then she isn’t lying.  I wanted the school to know that this kind of bullshit is unacceptable.  I feel like I should have kept pressing and made a bigger deal so the next time a boy verbally assaults a girl a proper punishment will be applied.  I wanted this boy to know that he can’t get away with talking to girls like this because he’ll grow up and it’ll be acceptable if that’s his initial response to adversity with women, to call them a nasty name.

I’m glad my daughter wasn’t bothered by it because, unfortunately, I’m sure it won’t be the last time some neanderthal male calls her something awful.  I just hope she knows that I will always be there to defend her when she needs it.

Hedonist

I’m indulging in a bit of everything at the moment.  I’ve got my fingers sticky in the sugary sweets of many different candy bags.  I’m even licking my fingertips after each plunge and pulling the salt and sweet together from my skin.  Don’t you wish you could be free like me?  Doesn’t it look fun?

 

 

At the garden’s gate

Can we overcome human nature?  Is there a point in trying?

When a little boy picks a flower, he picks the most vibrantly colored flower.  He doesn’t go looking for it, he just notices it.  It’s beautiful and he wants it, so he trudges through the garden and picks the flower for himself.

He doesn’t think if it belongs to him or someone else, or whether he has a right to pick this flower.  There is no consideration that other people might find this flower beautiful and they would like to enjoy it as well.  The little boy doesn’t stop to think of the flowers he tramples to get to the one he wants.  The path is now strewn with crushed stems and petals from his triumphant charge.

As the boy gets older will he stop and think that the flower does not belong to him?  Will he consider the collateral damage of trampling through the garden to pick it?  Can he consider other people’s enjoyment of the flower as much his?

Is human nature the destruction of everything in pursuit of individual wants?  Or is it the realization that there are other individuals with other wants that are just as valid as anyone else’s?  Perhaps its both and one overcoming the other.  That it’s the growth from one phase to the next and not everyone is able to complete it, and that’s why we’re in the world that exists today.

Hopefully we can all notice the flower and appreciate its beauty while, at the same time, allowing others to appreciate it too.  And, maybe more so now, protecting the flower from those who haven’t overcome the urge to pick it.

A sweet kind of sickness

It’s sticky and we can’t resist it.  It’s sweet and we need another taste.  Some sicknesses you don’t recover from, they merely go dormant.  Then you have that craving crawl up your throat and through your fingers until you have to feed it.  It isn’t pretty, it’s an addiction.

I’ve been trapped in honey.  I’ve been swallowed by the night.
Cleaning memories from my mind is pointless.  The honey is too thick.  The night is too deep.  I can’t come back from that.

So we indulge ourselves.  We try to live for the better and say we’re over it.  The sickness doesn’t show any signs at all, until you taste the softest sweetness and want to be consumed.  Until you see the darkest nothing and want it too surround you.

I’ve got it at arm’s length.  It’s biting and gnashing its teeth.  I can feel it’s breath, heavy on my skin.  I want to let go.  I want to drown.  Tell me not to let go.  She’s not there.  Tell me she’s not there.

Earth

I went to sleep last night and woke up in the future.

I went to sleep last night when I was in the past.

And in the future everything we know is different.

In the future, the past we know wasn’t at all the same.

I don’t know how long I slept to wake up in the future.

But signs I see of weathering tells me it was quite a while.

The thing, you see, is that you can’t, or at least I couldn’t find

hints of life, communities or any proof that we were still alive.

The air was thick and the ground was bare,

no grass, no green, no trees.

There were no animals, there were no people.

Just emptiness as far as I could see.

I wondered how long life lived and when we went extinct.

I worried about my own life too and if I was here to stay.

We destroyed the planet and we sacrificed the future,

we didn’t listen to what science, or nature had to say.

Rich old men who would die before any of this came to be

didn’t believe, or didn’t care about, the youth, or you, or me.

They didn’t care about green grass or the blueness of the sky.

They didn’t care about pollutants infecting sea to shining sea.

I fell asleep in these horrors of the future,

laid my head down to cry.

I was shocked when I woke up in the past

and learned I had a second chance to try.

To try and convince the people.

To turn the fortune of our desolate fate.

To treat our planet better

before it’s too late.

Even with my vision

of a future dead and bare

some people can’t be convinced

what it means to have clean water, land and air.

All I can do is heed myself

my children, and my space.

If there are still people who try

we may still save this place.

 

 

The Colosseum

They are gladiators.  They are warriors.
Men held in high regard.
And they fight on the floor of the Colosseum.

The raucous roar of the plebeians
fill their heart with pride.
So they can fight without fear in the Colosseum.

Battle ready.  Armor fixed.  Introduction echoes through
the audience and cameras show
how they fight on the floor of the Colosseum.

How violent the crash of weaponry and skill
leaving bodies beaten and broken
carted off the stage in the Colosseum.

One victor, one week, then again they arm themselves
To fight for fame and fortune
on the floor of the Colosseum.

Heroes don’t get hurt.  Heroes never die.
Mind, body and soul overcome
for glory, for camaraderie in the Colosseum.

When the fight is over and the cheers catch their breath
the gladiators prepare again
for their next time in the Colosseum.

Although some cannot separate real life from spectacle
adrenaline and testosterone still high
taken home from the Colosseum.

Violence carried out against those who cannot defend
Some beaten, some broken, some worse
and only silence in the Colosseum.

Transgressions committed of various degrees
brushed aside or looked away
as to not taint the image of the Colosseum.

These gladiators are gifted as we all can see
but without consequence or reflection
some will live their life as they do in the Colosseum.

We cheer these men who wear our colors
but we cannot dismiss bad deeds
just as we cannot dismiss the obligations held to the Colosseum.