violence – dreaming out loud

cheerful

“I bought some sunflowers today, they were so cheerful.”
i can’t buy flowers. i can’t even cut them.
i let them grow wild.
“You hear the flowers screaming. ”
how did you know?

injustice is born from our very humanity,
our need for power, wealth and our enormous vanity.
we destroy our neighbors, our environment,
the futures of our children’s children, and our souls
with those same promises and lies
that have always ever turned us one against the other
for the benefit of the oppressor
never for our own.

what is today, sadly, is what has always been.
tomorrow, if there is to be one,
will require nothing less than the evolution of our very souls,
from our caves and clubs and petty, excruciating wars
to the open minds of harmony and love,
before the final bits of what was now
are scattered to the wind.

before and after

we keep time
not so much in days or years,
but in moments that stop everything.
some moments create deep fissures
in the skin of our souls,
as though splintering the heart,
penetrating even our deepest being.

each soul is marked by scars
by tears not shed
by pain too great
by fires gone out
by before,
and after.