Black smoke wafts skyward
Baltimore the latest nail
To be pounded home
How many more before the
Coffin is sealed and buried
Repeated killing
Just a different city
Will we never learn
These–our brothers and sisters
Share the same constitution
But not the same rights
They are treated as lesser
By their skin color
Disgusting as it may be
This is our America
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Faded asphalt riddled with glass and stone
Scorched deep black by disenfranchised frustration.
Called thugs and lawless, anger bubbles over,
But still nothing has changed.
The sixties are alive in well in the twenty-first century.
Civil rights are still just a dream for many
Though we’d like to believe otherwise.
So what! Segregation has been legally abolished,
The back of the bus is no longer reserved,
But what the law cannot abolish is racism.
It cannot regulate the prejudice minds of man,
It cannot extract it from our senses,
Perhaps blindness is the answer,
Plucking of the eyes from the skull.
What else can save this species,
It has been on this spiral for eternity?
Look at our history!
Enslavement, segregation, discrimination,
Poverty, lynchings, so little progress.
Yes, some of these have faded,
Replaced by polite prejudice,
But still nothing has changed.
Perhaps one day,
The ignorant will close their eyes,
Open their hearts
And realize that color is only
…Skin deep.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Anger spilling o’er,
Flashes of violence burn
Though not sure it helps.
Those in authority point
Proclaiming, “See they are thugs!”
It’s not that simple!
Centuries of abuse live,
Their pain is not quelled,
Wounds scarred are ripped wide open,
Dried blood turns and flows freely.
We have learned nothing.
Seemingly daily there’s death
Because of color.
Where’s accountability?
It’s hidden behind a wall
…and that wall is blue.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Pondering things more now than ever
I’m finding out how little I know.
I don’t understand human nature;
Its incessant need for power,
Its unquenchable greed,
Its innate ability to hate,
Its thirst to subjugate others.
Look no farther than the news;
War is spreading at a rapid pace,
Our young men and women are sent to fight,
For what…our freedom?
Only true if freedom flows from a pump.
Their blood is being exchanged for oil,
Sounds criminal unless you are a capitalist.
Poverty is running rampant,
The rich are getting richer
While the middle-class drowns
And the poor are being mowed under.
Our children are sunk into debt
For the privilege of an education.
Education is not a privilege but a right,
Only a fool would think otherwise…
You laugh…
Well then, a fool I must be!
With no where else to turn
We look toward the government,
Corrupt, divisive, they are of no help.
No! Don’t dare pull the party card,
Your blind faith in either cesspool is deplorable.
Don’t think for a second that they care about us,
Most of us don’t have the money to buy that kind of loyalty.
These behemoths only tolerate us because they have to.
Lobbyists and corporations are their real audience
Purchasing the destruction of our environment,
Sending our jobs overseas,
Corralling wealth for the pleasure of the minority
All for the destruction of the majority.
We…are…expendable!
In the end, what do I know?
I know what this country…this world could be,
It wouldn’t take much,
Just a little love,
A little compassion,
A little humanity,
But then…I am a dreamer
Who just realized…
How little I really know.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Racism lives on
Examples emerge daily
On the local news
Has anything really changed
Except the wall calendar
.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Shoot first…too common
Racism alive and well
Rise of the old south
Were it not for video
The Blue Wall would have stood firm
.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Labels separate
Segregation of masses
For the unknowing
Republican, democrat,
Gay, straight, rich, poor, black or white
This life and body
Are but temporary things
Gone in an instant
What is left behind
Spirit and spirit alone
Each one is the same
Void of race, creed and color
Void of all man’s influence
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Religious freedom
Legal discrimination
For modern zealots
Jesus Christ would be appalled
At your narrow mindedness
Constitutionally guaranteed
Why do we need another law
.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Our tide, in great waves rolls out,
Back to a dark and murky ocean.
So long we have struggled to crawl from the slime
To a place of light and enlightenment in this New World.
Holding up the Statue of Liberty as a sign of hope,
As a sign of our lust for freedom and equality,
We are showered in a torrent of our own hypocrisy.
There are brothers and sisters among us
That still struggle for whole-hearted inclusion.
Cast to the fringes they are ostracized and criticized
For their God-instilled proclivities.
As men, who are we to be judge and jury of our peers,
This was not ordained upon us by the Creator!
Time and again we wander this rocky treacherous road
Seeking to impose man’s prejudices upon men.
Would Christ whom you hold so dear have been this cold,
Tossing his brethren out into the desert?
You dredge up this muck with arrogance under the guise of freedom
Plotting all the time to shackle others for your cause.
Put yourself in your adversaries shoes,
Do they not feel worn out and ragged?
Early in this twenty first century I was optimistic,
Hopeful that common sense and compassion would prevail,
But now I am left disgusted and embarrassed.
Is this what America has devolved into,
A nation of oppression, prejudice and inequality
Based on twisted interpretations of God?
A travesty we have become…indeed!
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Bringing out the worst
The anonymity
Of technology
Accountability lost
Amongst the zeros and ones
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Dom DiFrancesco 