Human Rights

Like Voltaire in a Frenzy

Like Voltaire in a Frenzy

I am in exile from prosperity
I study the downtrodden
Minorities, elderly, disabled, the poor
I’ve become one of them to

Realize what it means to be human
Perfectly happy in struggle and stress
I wonder why this is, for poetry
And prayer, and meditation

It’s the gardening of the spirit
In this culture of materialism
Sometimes to live you need friends
Partners, lovers, inspiration

Cajoling life from festivity
Scolding life from monotony
Screaming life from anonymous cities
Cleverly hoping to civilize

I am in exile from justice
I face discrimination, I would know what it means!
I eat poisonous GMO food
I am becoming obese and with diabetes

I hold religion up as an icon of identity
But I believe in the human spirit
In how to overcome adversity
I’ve met my match in this generation

Too poor to be a father, too poor
To know how to be patient like a peasant
I become my own revolution
And find in society a kind of apathy

That the uncomplaining stars understand
But in my lucid song, I do not
I suffering a martyr and I doubt
The world is a kind or good place.

These Social Problems Ignored

A Failure of Feedback

The big hot end of day becomes
The big hot end of the week
All efforts to labour seem futile
All work appears to be for the rich
And every year, economic inequality widens
However, there is no sign of revolution

Quite the contrary, the masses seem
More docile than ever, almost engineered to be
There is no news about injustice, only
Distractions, media blitz, cover-ups, white-washes
After all the shitty advertisements
You’d think we deserve something a

Bit more authentic, but no, culture has degraded
The sociology of control is here
Technology is a now worse-torture
And I can only continue on without being
Half-alive to the rising debt
The inflated house prices, the inflation of

The cost of living that demands budgeting
Without equality, what’s art but
Prayers of the impoverished, celebrations
Of the futile, but even the artists seem to
Ignore the real issues of the day
And prefer instead to write about nonsense.

Minorities

Why do we berate minorities?
It could be us, have you ever
Lived in poverty, gone hungry?
Tried to be autistic for a day?

Survived schizophrenia
Been disabled, grown old?
Have you ever broke your hip
And tried to rehabilitate?

Gone to jail and tried to
Reintegrate into society?
Have you ever been black
Or Hispanic in a society

That has predetermined your fate?
Have you gone to college
Only to find yourself
Unemployed and in debt

With student loans and credit cards
That you may never pay off?
It could have been you
Who got cancer while still young

Or suffered from depression
Until your wife left you
Or been that single mother
On welfare and without a friend

Or that immigrant who
Had to work a dead-end job
Just for a chance for their children?
Maybe it was you, who knows.

Lessons from Aquarius

The Ego is that
And the pure self is This
Man is not intended to be
A self-centered being

He is not intended to be
Limited by form or by gender
Love is not meant to be a means
To profit descendants over others

Where there is conflict, there is ego
And where there is harmony, there is
Pure self, identity in others
Empathy for nature, for life, for

A bit of everything
Don’t let that unfathomable secret
Be hidden from you, don’t only
Settle for your own profit, it’s not enough

The secret Tao means to let go
And be a part of everything
Not to divide or create boundaries
But let the world in and go into the world

Then your ego will disappear and
Your self, will become the entire world.

‘Mong Such Unique Society

When Diamonds are a Legend And Gold, the cry of moths Then will the riches be spread And Love, be accounted for The Human Rights of patrons Where each citizen is truly free When Rubies are a Fiction And Money, …

Divorce, Death & Taxes

I’ve come to realize, the day will come
My mother will die, maybe
Before my daughter is even born
It’s a cruel world, where this is possible…
Sometimes I wait for something

Special to occur, especially to me
And then I stop myself –
Feeling guilty for those with serious
Disabilities, in war-stricken countries
I’ve come to realize, my ability

To practice social justice, is limited
Like altruism turned on its head
I’ve grown weak with failure, rejection, poverty
Whereas I once wanted to change the world
I’ve come to realize, I’m not so different

After all, my mother will die
And then all this abandonment will know
That this truly is a cold cruel world
Where we are bodies in transit
I’ve dreamed enough about bodies
Maybe it’s time to be spiritual again.