A blanket, wrapped, did fall
from over wicker cage—
a basket or a golden carry-all—
and with it flew an ebon rage
upon the doves of heaven.
They pirouetted, by and by
yet though we cried for thoughts to leaven
they flew on until the sun between them sighed,
us standing pinioned beneath
daggers flown beyond their sheath.
Freedom
No Master, No Servant
Alone among the pines
No servant
No master
only the mountain
ascension starlight left behind
when celestial fingertips
brushed our dreams.
Bedside
Three times the circling crows
three notes like fleshed blows:
“What more to see?”
all upon the roost but he,
one foot to grave, yet wings to spread:
“Nothing more, and no thing to dread.”
Hollow Song
Round and round about they sang
the freedom of the hollow frame
it withers with the whistle-winter
flutters as petals on the grassy heather
same, and yet, a broken same
lost but never found its earthen pang.
Empty Drink
The lake is empty.
Roots have left this shore.
Freedom to be free,
containment shattered by the waves of yore–
all of It will cease to be
before they see that less is rarely more.
Empty Lake Bed, (from iDesign iPhone Wallpapers)
Of Freedom
“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”
~Dwight D. Eisenhower
“There are two freedoms – the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought.”
~Charles Kingsley
Freedom Fall
Wings stretch,
every breath
another life
Dawn stirred.
The wind
knows you,
sings salvation
walls contain.
“Pull up,”
sunlight cries–
the horn,
the fall.
* For the vat of creativity and expression known as dVerse Poets Pub…check it out!
Poetic Spotlight: Let America Be America Again
Langston Hughes, image care of Wikimedia Commons.
This week, we’re trying a little something new (with a little something old) here at the Waking Den. Every Thursday I’ll be doing my best to sift through my library (yes, I’m 22 and I would say I’ve got a good start on a library going) for some of the great works by classic poets – both known, and unknown – to bring before your eyes. Some will be personal favorites. Some will not. All will be here for your benefit, put forth, archived, and ready and waiting for any of your discussions of these immortalized poetic greats.
Today, we kick off the affair with something hardly “lightweight” in subject matter – Langston Hughes’s powerful “Let American Be America Again”. It packs a punch, as a forewarning, as well it should – it speaks to matters many would wish to forget, or to sweep under a rug and keep out of sight, at the least. It speaks of freedom and equality – critiques and hopes, longing–it rings out in a voice that echoes through the ages…and works as such are rarely gentle. Enjoy.
“Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!”
Existential Freedom
Existential elation
The night’s revelation
Soul’s sweetest evocation
Mind longs to improvise
To sleep, yet rise
Above the lies
Until we admit
The body is unfit—
Do not think to hear it
To bear the broken madness
Never fail to aggress
This fairest stress
To break the blind
That stalks the mind
May yet free mankind.
* For the first Monday Poetry Potluck!
To Whom it May Concern
Destiny
Quite the rest for me
Put far from mine own hand
A tourist in a foreign land.
Fate
May invoke a wait;
Still, not quite the range
Or any real sense of change.
Independence
Quite the instance;
Do what you will
Any need fulfill.
Freedom
Is quite random
But worry, worry
Leaves the future quite so blurry.
Decisions, decisions.
The Waking Den 