Sides

I tried to find the most unbiased article I could for the Trayvon Martin case. Much harder than expected. I searched Trayvon Martin on the Miami Herald‘s and had to go page 34 before I found an article describing more or less the facts of the case, not the racist aspects of it. I wrote this poem more as a response to the reactions of Americans than as a response to the case itself. I don’t know if George Zimmerman is racist or not because I was not there when the shooting happened. This case has changed from one about seeking the truth to one about racial injustices in America. Perhaps this is therapeutic, but we must not forget what this case is really about, the unbiased version of it, and hope that justice is reached, whatever the side.

One side is white

And the other black

In the middle huddles red

Red is what happens

When black and white mix

Red is dreams lost

Red is lives whisked away

Red is the tears of yesterday

You’d think it’d be gray

That mixed stain of colors

Gray is what they should make

Black and White

White and Black

It makes sense

But humanity never has

So the red is still there

A stark reminder of prejudice

The blemish of a failed mass wish

A wall for those

Too something to mix

White and Black

Black and White

Both are colors

But not really

Both do exist

Fact acknowledged or not

Black and White

White and Black

Have much in common

More than they realize

It’s time for them to start

Relying on more than just their eyes

Revolution of Justice

I wrote this after watching the KONY 2012 video.

                     Voices, voices to be heard

                     Listener, listener spread the word

Raise, raise, raise your hands

Today, today we the lambs

Bare our teeth and shake the land

Growing, growing are the small

Tremble, tremble if you are tall

Brick by brick and stone by stone

We tear down a wall so overgrown

Oh hear it, hear it creak and moan

As it tumbles to the ground

Resonating with freedom’s sound

Together we all can surpass

The few who hold the cards

They have power but we have voices

Voices loud and not ashamed

Voices speaking of those to blame

Voices so many they have no name

Too long we stood aside

Til’ hope had all but died

Today is the day fate is defied

With joined hands

And a billion footfalls

We answer the desperate calls

Of the oppressed and the ignored

We’re shaking the world straight to its core

Today, today and forever more

We take our stand

Because justice is worth fighting for

Choking For Words

There is a Chinese girl in my history class whom I have become friends with.  She has only lived here in the states for a few years and all things considered is quite fluent. Today we had to read aloud in class and when it got the person before her, it hit me: What would she do? Her accent is rather heavy and she is very soft-spoken.  She started to read and I cringed as the other students snickered. It was all I could do to not slam their cruel faces with my textbook. For a country that encourages immigration, we are so mean to the immigrants once they arrive.

In my recent endeavors to learn Spanish, I have realized how hard it is to learn a new language, particularly one as irregular as English.  I have a new-found respect for the bilingual.

To me it seems like choking

Air supply beneath that of mere survival

Knowing so well what you want to say

Only once translated, it’s all twisted

The words don’t properly form

A new language has turned you forlorn

You cannot fit in

When you can hardly talk

And at your oddly said words they balk

Going out of their way to make it harder

Not even realizing that you are smarter

Because they can’t hear over their own laughter

That’s what it looks like to me as I watch

Her face says she knows she can’t belong

When the language she does know is all wrong

 

 

History Fair: Survival of the Fittest

Sorry, I’ve been gone for almost a week.  I have two words. History. Fair.  If you are the parent of a child who has ever done one, then you know what I’m talking about, if not, then go check out this link www.nationalhistoryday.org   Hopefully my verses give you an idea My topic was “The Royal Society and the Scientific Revolution. I was the only person in the entire school who did that. The most popular topic by far was The Beatles. Gee, I wonder why. I chose to do an exhibit for several reasons, the main one being that I possess neither the time nor the patience to find the large number of sources needed for a research paper.

I promise to get around to checking out everybody’s pages ASAP. I have a bunch of comments to respond to and a Spanish oral presentation to memorize so it will probably be tomorrow or this weekend.

These are not my best verses, but history doesn’t usually rhyme anyway………

xoxo Andrea

 

Sit down my friends

Listen close

And I will tell you of a historical toil

So please with me bear

As I orate on the torture that is History Fair

“Revolution, Reaction, and Reform”

From this theme your topic must be born

Your topic must relate to the theme

And by that I mean

What was changed?

Was it good or bad?

Then you must cite sources

Primary and secondary

To make your bibliography

If that was hard

You just wait

For now it’s time to annotate

What is your source about?

Does it have any clout?

Why did it help you?

So much information to carry!

Now the fun begins

Will it be a research paper

A wordy history

Or perhaps an exhibit

For the visually strong

There are of course

Websites and documentaries

For the tech-savvy

Once it’s put together

Write your process paper

About where your research was done

How it relates to the theme

And why you chose it

After you turn it in

Go and collapse on the couch

And hibernate for a few days

 

Midnight Murder

Five gunshots resonated in the night

Waking me up in a startling fright

I brushed it off, nothing could be wrong

But then I heard the ambulance’s song

And quickly proceeded to bite my nails

Thoughts of  a murder and all it entails

I made up a thousand stories in my head

Though nothing could mask the worry and dread

Not a mile from my home a soul just went dead

The ambulance resumed its death-tolling cry

As it lit up my neighborhood and charged right on by

Eventually I fell into a stiff-no good sleep

So scared was I to make a peep

The next morn I studied the news

But failed to find any useful clues

To a murder that last night had happened

Surely a disaster not deliriously imagined

Ban Censorship!!

– This is the poem I had on my blackout page yesterday.  I decided to post it again for those of you who may have missed it and also because the protest may be over, but the bill is still in existence and that is unacceptable.  My poem is applicable to this bill, but also to all other forms of censorship. As an avid reader, the banning of books has always been something that is especially wrong to me.

I was planning on choosing one quote as a representative for my feelings on censorship, but I could not choose, and here they all are:

“You can cage the singer but not the song.”  ~Harry Belafonte, in International Herald Tribune, 3 October 1988
“The paper burns, but the words fly away”.  ~Akiba ben Joseph

“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.”

― Mark Twain

“When you ban a book you ban an idea, and that’s communism.”

– Andrea Z. 🙂

Hold back the curtain

Don’t let the wretched thing fall

Come to freedom’s SOS call

Ideas are truth and they are free

How dare they hide them so the people can’t see

Writer’s, join your hands

Preserve the freedom of this land

We are the backbone

Of every revolution

We are the first ember

Of a raging fire

Sing with this written choir

Raise our standard ever-higher

Quills raised and held in an iron-tight grip

Ban the despot that is censorship

The Idea

I love quotes and I love poetry, so I had an idea to combine the two.  I hope to do more quote inspired poetry and perhaps even hold some contests in the future…….maybe…….I do encourage you to write words that the quote evokes from you, if any.

It is useless to send armies against ideas.

-Georg Brandes

An all-consuming fire

Carried by winds

Higher and higher

Blasting straight through

Every brick wall

Adversaries forced

On their knees to a crawl

No bullet can harm it

No jail can contain

Or knife try to maim

This unseen force

Of so many names

Fight it

Deny it

Close your eyes

And not see

This age-old fury

Like pounding rain

It cannot be ignored

This ultimate instigator

The Idea