Tag Archives: intolerance

Believe As You Will

“Believe as you will”,  you say,

“I can respect that”, you say with a smile.

In your heart of hearts you are only tolerating,

You know they are wrong,

They don’t believe as you do so they must be wrong.

It matters not that we share this same walk together,

They have the same pains,

They have the same hopes,

They have the same dreams,

They fear,

They mourn loss,

They live and die just as you do,

But yet you self-righteously sit in judgement.

Is that what your God wants,

Is that what my God wants,

I seriously doubt it.

If you wish to be judge and jury,

Look no further than the heathen within

And you will find plenty of crimes to punish.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

Winding River, You Are Full Of Stones

Winding river, you are full of stones

Each covered in the blood of hatred.

Claiming to do as God commanded

You are false interpreters of the Word,

Stoning humanity into submission.

Under the guise of love you preach–

Conversion or death your message.

Yet in Heaven your Gods are the same,

Your aggressions on earth intertwined;

Surely there is enough blame for all.

Look! Your Holy texts are riddled with violence,

Deaths of men, women and children– so graphic;

Still you have the gall to point fingers at another!

You hypocrite, you heathen, you betray yourselves!

Each of you should be stoned for your digressions

You perpetrators of hate and death.

None of you are without human frailties,

None of you can claim to be speaking for Almighty God

For that–would be blasphemy,

Yet still you proclaim to know what is in God’s Heart!

Put an end this senseless bloodshed,

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”,

And nary a stone will ever be cast again.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

I Gathered Stones And Pebbles

I gathered stones and pebbles

For a fortress to build,

Bulwark against the evils of this world.

Having fought them for so long

I am weary, fearing that I have no fight left in me.

My swords I’ve dulled, sharpened and dulled again

Beating back the cruelty and injustices of man

Only to have them retake territory.

This has been the history of our species;

Seek, conquer and destroy our lasting legacy.

So cocooned in my citadel I shall wait,

Quietly, patiently, until the day of reckoning,

Praying for this succession to end.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

To Protect And Server

To protect and serve

Whole communities in fear

Race should not matter

But it does and always has

More so in this day and age

Policing has changed

More vicious, less tolerant

They’re militarized

Controlling people by fear

Instead of using respect

When did this happen

Jackboots on the peoples necks

Tanks in city streets

Science fiction is now real

Welcome to the brave new world

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

‘Tis Not The Fragrant Flower I Once Knew

‘Tis not the fragrant flower I once knew,

Pleasing to the senses,

Brightening the world with her effervescent palette.

Her silky petals crumble, fragile to the touch,

Falling like toxic ash in the putrid air.

She pollutes the earth that feeds her,

Poisoning her waters making them non potable.

Oh how her beautiful bouquet has mutated,

Turning ugly and angry in the midst of the garden.

Those not of her kind are suffocated as weeds,

Trampled, then pulled out by their roots.

Intolerant and hateful she has become,

The prick of her thorns has turned fatal.

Her beauty, now masticated by selfishness

Sets her on a path to destruction.

No longer prized, no longer admired,

She will be turned as mulch–

Into the soil from whence she came.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

War

Race wars,

Culture wars,

Gender wars,

Drug wars,

War on freedom,

War on religion,

War on women,

War on drugs,

War on crime,

War on terror,

War, war, war–do you see the pattern!

Still we call ourselves peace-loving,

We call ourselves civilized.

Fighting against each other,

Fighting against our beliefs,

Fighting against enemies of our own design,

Intolerance of one another,

Physical and verbal violence

Waged against our own and the world,

Tell me–what is peace-loving and civilized about this?

We have been brainwashed–

Brainwashed by our government,

Brainwashed by the media,

Brainwashed by our own ignorance!

We continue this spiral into oblivion,

Year after year,

Decade after decade,

Century after century

As so many have done before us.

Perhaps one day we will learn

That constant war tires and diminishes a people

Until eventually they plunge into the abyss of history

–Under the weight of their own arrogance.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

Frozen To The Bone

Frozen to the bone.

Bleeding heart ripped from its soul;

Faith in man–fading!

In an eyes blink we do kill,

No remorse ‘til it’s too late.   This seems oh so cold,

Against what we preach is right,

Yet it doesn’t stop.

We are Neanderthals still,

Little evolved from our past.

Please don’t fool yourselves,

We are wolves disguised as sheep,

Prepared to slaughter.

 

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

More Cold Than The Season (Sonnet)

More cold than the season could possibly express,

Hangs in the air and the hearts of man.

We speak not of atrocities, we’d rather repress

Waged against others by their brother’s hand.

.

Considering ourselves a civilized sort,

Still in prejudice and intolerance we stand.

Giving no venue for them to retort

In what with affection we call the promised land.

.

This promise so cruel–seems held for the few

While the rest us are left to our own devices

The whip of the wealthy cracks to tame the shrews

While living high amongst their golden vices

.

Inequalities based on race, creed and color exist no matter how we wish them to fade,

Persisting throughout the years, not because we are right, but instead because we are afraid.

.

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Destiny (Acrostic)

Dogma plagues our human existence

Erasing common decency–trading it for war .

Souls bought and sold because of inspired word;

Thrown to the wolves by those in sheep’s clothing.

I do not hate religion, I do not deny its inalienable right

Nor do I deny the good which it contains.

Yet zealots pass judgment in the Name of their God–

destroying the lives of others…this I despise.

.

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Its Hard to Believe

Its hard to believe that it is but a short dozen years

A dozen years since this world changed

Changed a nation and its ideals

The ideals founded on a promise gave way to extremism

An extremism not so unlike that of the terrorist

The terrorist has taken away our freedoms

Our freedom to assemble, our right to privacy

Privacy is a thing of the past taken away by our government

Our government says they must take it to protect us

Protect us from whom, who will protect us from them is the question

Questioning however, is taken as unpatriotic

Unpatriotic! This is our right and our duty as citizens

Citizens who have become nothing but pawns

Pawns to governmental corruption and big business

Business’ who are now treated as citizens by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court who was supposed to keep the executive and legislative in check have let us down

Down are path I fear is collapsing

Collapsing with each step we take down the road

A road, one way, on which their is no return

Oh…to return our moral compass to true

Truly that would be our greatest strength

Strength of character, morals, of humanity that we so long ago lost

Lost to our greed, selfishness and intolerance

Intolerance for ourselves, other nations, other ideals

Ideals that were long deceased before September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001 was just another nail

A nail in a coffin already occupied

Occupied but not inescapable if we would try

Try to resurrect the intentions of our founding fathers

Fathers far wiser than the lot of thieves currently in office

Offices held by both parties

Parties that no longer represent the people

A people that deserve better

Better than to live without freedom, in oppression and under tyranny

.

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~