This Strange Country
© Surazeus
2018 07 05
I love this strange country where I was born,
the towers of glass, the gas-guzzling cars,
the spirit of love who sings in the corn,
the old man who measures the light of stars.
The boy whose mother died when he was eight,
whose foster mother makes him leave her house
because he will not join the National Guard,
earns a doctorate in structural engineering,
but someone calls the police to report
he is stealing his own car, so they point
guns at his face, slam him to the cement,
jam knees in his back, and punch at his face,
then they charge him for resisting arrest,
because his skin is brown as chocolate,
but though the court judge dismisses his case
he must explain in all job interviews
that he is innocent of evil crime,
having worked so hard to earn right to live.
When I hitchhike from sea to shining sea
and play guitar while singing on the street,
I exercise my right to liberty
because my skin is white as freezing sleet.
We walk together in garden of roses
and taste the raindrops falling on our tongues
which cycle through bodies of organisms
over millions of years of evolution
to activate the spirit of adventure
so we explore beyond the walls of heaven
and recourse through spacious intangibles
intent on encountering our secret selves
to seek the remnant of forgotten dreams
and thus invent this space within our space
unfolding like the petals of the rose
as we transform the story of our land
and prove our right to live within its space.
I hide my secrets in words of the book
which recount the deeds that people perform
in national narrative of saint and crook
through fools who refuse to follow the norm.
The wise Governor of the colony
founded on shores of Massachusetts Bay,
Simon Bradstreet, born in mists of Avalon,
took ground in favor of freedom of speech
and voted, in honorable opposition
to the majority of magistrates,
against silly presentments and fines
for words that normal people often speak
in contempt of the ruthless government
that seeks to enforce peaceful interaction,
for Simon was a man of deep discernment
whom neither wealth nor honor could allure
from duty as he governed the young state,
because he could poise with equal balance
the formal authority of the king
and the controlled liberty of the people,
proving his right to govern its strange space.
The sign of settlement in cultural growth
requires emergence of conventional forms,
so build foundation for Temple of Truth
where we gather to sing our sacred hymns.
© Surazeus
2018 07 05
I love this strange country where I was born,
the towers of glass, the gas-guzzling cars,
the spirit of love who sings in the corn,
the old man who measures the light of stars.
The boy whose mother died when he was eight,
whose foster mother makes him leave her house
because he will not join the National Guard,
earns a doctorate in structural engineering,
but someone calls the police to report
he is stealing his own car, so they point
guns at his face, slam him to the cement,
jam knees in his back, and punch at his face,
then they charge him for resisting arrest,
because his skin is brown as chocolate,
but though the court judge dismisses his case
he must explain in all job interviews
that he is innocent of evil crime,
having worked so hard to earn right to live.
When I hitchhike from sea to shining sea
and play guitar while singing on the street,
I exercise my right to liberty
because my skin is white as freezing sleet.
We walk together in garden of roses
and taste the raindrops falling on our tongues
which cycle through bodies of organisms
over millions of years of evolution
to activate the spirit of adventure
so we explore beyond the walls of heaven
and recourse through spacious intangibles
intent on encountering our secret selves
to seek the remnant of forgotten dreams
and thus invent this space within our space
unfolding like the petals of the rose
as we transform the story of our land
and prove our right to live within its space.
I hide my secrets in words of the book
which recount the deeds that people perform
in national narrative of saint and crook
through fools who refuse to follow the norm.
The wise Governor of the colony
founded on shores of Massachusetts Bay,
Simon Bradstreet, born in mists of Avalon,
took ground in favor of freedom of speech
and voted, in honorable opposition
to the majority of magistrates,
against silly presentments and fines
for words that normal people often speak
in contempt of the ruthless government
that seeks to enforce peaceful interaction,
for Simon was a man of deep discernment
whom neither wealth nor honor could allure
from duty as he governed the young state,
because he could poise with equal balance
the formal authority of the king
and the controlled liberty of the people,
proving his right to govern its strange space.
The sign of settlement in cultural growth
requires emergence of conventional forms,
so build foundation for Temple of Truth
where we gather to sing our sacred hymns.
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