Concrete Hive
I heard a voice from years ago:
Solidarity has come of age.
Echoed songs heard throughout the streets
of lessons learned from Gandhi and King.
For what had been promised
was a brand new way,
yet the poor received nothing
at the end of the day.
So quiet were the thieves
that stole the people’s dreams.
Silently packaged and bundled
then secretly sold overseas.
Unknowing, the concrete hive
hand-crafted a perfect plan,
sold our kids as collateral
to live monetary selfish lives.
Sworn to serve, embedded with pride,
a young warrior’s blood ran thick –
staining sand of foreign land.
All for black oil in a can
or was the repression, depression, taxation
that broke the silent majority’s back?
I never thought I would live
long enough to see
a new generation’s uprising,
claiming their voice, now free.
“Raging against the machine.”
I watched for years,
the youth blindly squeezed
into the fitted mold
of a stolen society.
Cookies cut by MTV
distracting minds of our youth.
Disregarding the discontent;
ignoring the rumblings underground.
Oh! to my surprise when I saw
the young, arm in arm with the aged
at last take a stand. A loud stand!
To finally break free
from the cage.
Peace be with all of you.
☮TheMsLvh © 2011
Image from #OccupyBerkley Riots Nov.9, 2011
Riot Police wanted students off the grass.
For the dVerse Poetics Prompt on idioms: http://dversepoets.com/2011/11/12/poetics-what-did-you-call-me/.
Click on Award for details
California Ink In Motion by TheMsLvh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
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Poets United
is this supposed to be about “Occupy Wall Street”
Glad you’re back in blog action!!! :)
nice….you capture well the mood of the moment…if only we could all join together what would they do…here locally they brought in bull dozers to push all the OWS people out of the public park…ugh…nice spin…
Good poetic take on the current situation!
I agree with Mary…a good take on the current situation…a slice of life preserving the moment. Thank you.
Peace,
Siggi in Downeast Maine
Yay, you’re back and writing with passion, shout it out!
I miss reading your poems…this is a nice reflection, one I am empathize very well. I am happy for the youth caring deeply for our society’s ills and concerns.
Happy weekend ~
Love the way you used idioms for a contemporary issue :)
One thing for sure about oppression: at some point, the human spirit will always rise. I love this and also love the photo of idealistic youth pressing for much needed change. Awesome!
Nice capture of the political warfare in our country right now. I like this:
Cookies cut by MTV
distracting the minds of the youth.
I’ve been thinking lately that we need to hit the streets again. A good revolution is in order! Excellent.
Right on, sister! OMG we said it loud, we said it long, we walked the streets with placards all night long…and nothing but lies, lies, lies. Didn’t matter the party or president. All lies, all business, all fair in greed and war. Now I’m old; my generation huge, idealistic, old and not as bright, sassy and free as we wanted to be. Now less than we were.
So glad to see you back :)
You’ve done this well and captured the issue brilliantly…”the young, arm in arm with the aged” very powerful!
think it’s awesome how you wove the idioms into a political poem..not an easy job but really well done…and good when old and young stand together..
I’ve been observing our world for sometime now, and could feel the rumbling under my feet and just smiled.. If we don’t take back lost power, speak up respectfully then all is lost..
You have captured these scenarios very well here..
viva la revolution (w/out violence)!!!!
Lynne
you have really captured what this movement is about – caught it and run with it
:)
Damn, Ms L, you have done it. This is the best account of the Occupy movement, as well as events leading up to it, that I’ve read so far.
Your take on youth hearing the rallying cry… I was in tears. Something had to shake us all out of the glazed-over zombiefest of the last ten years (yes, I am including thusfar in our president’s term). The fact that youth are out in droves (they were here in Madison, in support of their teachers’ union as well) makes me SO PROUD. God bless them and God bless you, lady. Amy
http://sharplittlepencil.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/o-men/
The arm must be okay, you can make a fist. Welcome back, you’ve been missed.
Great piece. Inspiring and encouraging words, that I know reflect some of the relief we should feel, however it also tells me to not be so inspired, encouraged or relieved. It’s similar to the protests in London that ‘Occupied’ St. Paul’s Cathedral because they couldn’t occupy the FTSE London Stock Exchange. Lack of leadership, lack of coherent message, lack of media management. I may be cynical, but to borrow a phrase from a little red book, we need a permanent revolution, not a flash in the proverbial pan, and it ain’t gonna happen when the protesters inherently reject leadership and heirarchy. Sorry, I’ve bloviated too much now. Anyway, lovely write :-)
This is an elegant write.
Hope all is well,
welcome joining poets rally week 56 today, best.
Have nominated you for the Liebster Award. See here for more details!
http://theedexperience.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/awards-and-such/
it’s so great to have one of the best poets in the blogosphere back and writing at the highest level once again. Love the socially conscious message and relevance of this!
Pearl. S. Buck talks about this type of popular reaction in Good Earth — it happens when the gap between the have and the have nots become too wide.
Excellent poem!
A formidable share, I simply given this onto a colleague who was doing somewhat analysis on this. And he the truth is purchased me breakfast because I discovered it for him.. smile. So let me reword that: Thnx for the treat! However yeah Thnkx for spending the time to debate this, I really feel strongly about it and love reading extra on this topic. If doable, as you change into experience, would you mind updating your blog with more details? It is extremely helpful for me. Huge thumb up for this blog put up!
I find this poem and this movement very hopeful. And the jaded cynicism of the concrete hivers is just astounding beyond words.