This Nation Has Changed

This nation has changed

Sadly not for the better

Our blood has gone cold

Selfish, greedy and fearful

Unaccepting of our own

~

Once there was a time

Neighbors were as family

Help and help alike

Now it is all about self

Friends and family be damned

~

Love of another

Has been supplanted by greed

A match made in hell

Corrupting our very souls

Leaving us numb and hollow

~

We have become mice

Under the weight of our fears

Freedom taken back

Under the guise of safety

All done for our protection

~

We allow this theft

By elected officials

Willingly chosen

Buying into double-talk

Believing it to be true

~

The Constitution

Used like the Holy Gospels

When convenient

Equality guaranteed

Unless you don’t fit our mold

~

What happened to us

Give me your poor, your tired

Your huddled masses

Until you get in our way

Or we get tired of you

 ~

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Dry Tears

Dry tears dull her cheeks

No more left has she to cry

All has been taken

Her life, joy and only child

Squandered by a tyrant’s hand

~

Our inaction screams

Falling upon bloody ears

Looking like cowards

We cower in our corner

Pompous in isolation

~

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

The League Of Nations – A Tanka

This league of nations

Diversity on the streets

American life

The greatness of our nation

Is its mixed soup of cultures

~

~~Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Nation Of Ideals – A Haiku

Nation of ideals

Letting down those that believe

Great Experiment

~

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Drawn To A Mirage

Drawn to a waterless mirage,

Sustenance proffered from behind a smiling facade,

We long for what was, the honesty, the promise given at inception.

This nation…this world, is not what they envisioned!

Never-the-less, weak-minded and self-absorbed we self-inflict

Over and over and over again.

I too have inflicted myself on more than one occasion,

Placing faith in the faithless, trust in the untrustworthy

Only to have hopes dashed to oblivion.

You also, in honest appraisal, must have done so as well.

When will we wake up to the traitorous criminality of those entrusted with the sacred,

The injustice, the deceit, the blatant prejudice toward the people?

We the people comprises every citizen,

Race nor creed nor color nor sexual orientation has bearing,

Not just for those deemed as righteous or worthy in another’s eyes.

They are us…beholden to us, answerable to us if we demand it,

But instead we cower with an air of disinterest, taking our medicine

Like good subservient children.

Who is to blame for this debacle?

They are,

We are,

We are the true culprits,

Complicit in their scheme!

Complicit through tolerance or blindness, neither an excuse.

When will we awake from our slumber to hold these servants of the public accountable

We have an obligation to the experiment, yet we have faltered.

Laziness and ignorance are our legacy,

The legacy we have created in our own image.

How sad to see our path toward the annals of history,

Strewn with the sacrifices of the fallen.

If not for ourselves, for them we should correct course,

Return to the greatness that was us,

If we still know the way.

~

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Tears for Damascus Road

Damascus Road – Syria credit – biblewalk.com

By D. R. DiFrancesco

~~~~~~

Children’s faces gnarled in fear,

Mother’s scratching and clawing through smoldering rubble,

Eyes blurred with salt of tears,

We did not ask for the master’s trouble.

~~~

As sounds of jets unseen scream overhead,

Bombs and bullets rip their way,

A bloody path paved with the dead,

That no longer live to love another day.

~~~

While nations watch the slaughter unfold,

Antiquities cities fall in ruin,

Tragic stories as yet untold,

Of a once great civilizations grievous undoing.

~~~

How sad an era of humankind,

While those with influence and power wait,

Their hesitance astonishes and confounds the mind,

As their fellow men perish at the Devils gate.

~~~

How many more must fall at the feet of tyranny,

Before we rise up and unite as one,

The reasons given there have been many,

Act we must before the next setting sun.

~~~

Damascus and Aleppo cities on fire,

Assad fails to heed their sacred call,

Culture replaced with razor barbed wire,

A world dreading the day that they fall.

~~~

Still terror rages on, tens of thousands are dead,

Calls for help, no one raises a hand,

Contracts and money for their coffers are fed,

To look away from the graves in this ancient land.

~~~

Wake up all you Caliphs or next could be you,

You cry for justice, cry foul when it serves,

Your neighbors huddled masses are brothers its true,

Misery and suffering never did they deserve.

~~~

Our President he sits with hands folded tightly,

Decrying the wrongs so harshly inflicted,

More deaths to report with each update nightly,

Calls for more U.N. sanctions restricted.

~~~

Is it not our divine duty to aid those who are weak,

With all might and resolve in our hands,

To grant refuge to those with the safety they seek,

From torture and their tombs in the sand.

~~~

Do pray my dear friends for peace in our time,

That dictators and tyrants succumb,

To consensus and strength so mightily sublime,

Before to others pain we become numb.

The Land of Disillusionment

By D. R. DiFrancesco

~~

Faces of color,

Eyed through blinders of suspicion,

Had we not buried this decades back,

People minimized for political gain.

~~

Grasping for a solution,

The problem steeped in your imagination,

You’ve convinced yourself this is righteous,

Yet racism and bigotry fester in you.

~~

This is not sacrosanct,

Taking hold of the weakness of the innocent,

Illegitimizing their right to be represented,

All for an ideal that isn’t your own.

~~

The media claims to be fair and balanced,

While corrupting your mind,

Brainwashing you with their hatred and mistrust,

As you mindlessly tow their party line.

~~

You despise him as an archvillain,

Is it his race, what you perceive his religion to be,

Is it his name, his father, his mother,

All targets of your aggression.

~~

Your side spouts lies,

Making claims they know to be blatantly false,

Saying whatever you want to hear,

Sycophants following like lambs to slaughter.

~~

This is what they want from you,

Belief in a past that can’t be resuscitated,

The future won’t settle for the lesser,

Still you continue to drink from the tainted well.

~~

They view half of us as leeches,

Feeding off of the system for our own personal gain,

Who are they, the elderly, children, disabled,

Do not judge them unless you have walked in their shoes.

~~

A sad state of affairs,

Pitting brother against brother and sister against sister,

The weapon of words no less brutal,

Leaving victims on both sides bloody and disillusioned.

Image credit: theatlantic.com

Independence Day, A Day to Remember – (A Poem)

The smell of powder,

Clouds of smoke sting the eyes,

Tearing, trying to see beyond the fence line,

Nauseating odor of sulfur offends the senses.

Screams!

Blood curdling screams!

Pierce the sound of canon fire,

Tattered flags wave wearily above the shouts,

The cocking of flint locks magnified by thousands,

Fire!

Deafening explosions,

The buzz of lead fills the air,

Surreal as comrades fall,

The sting of the cold,

Numbs as we move forward.

Snow covered fields no longer virgin,

Crimson corrupts the purity,

Flowing like rivers from the lifeless,

Moans echo through the trees.

Corpses, limbs, appendages litter the plain,

The stench of death!

Repulsive!

Time to reload,

Focus or die,

No time for regrets,

This is a cause far greater than ourselves,

Fire! the General’s call

Sabre raised overhead as the stallion rears

He is gone!

His station irrelevant,

War plays no favorites,

Blood flowing warm and freezing,

Staining the newly fallen snow.

We must carry on,

No time to mourn,

Remember why we are here.

Remember how we got to this place.

History, our history,

Freedom,

Independence,

For the birth of a nation!

America!

Born on the Forth of July!

Honor

U.S. Army 4th Infantry Afghanistan

Sun blinds me,
Sweat blurs my vision,
Leaving me disadvantaged,
Reliance on the senses,
An inconvenient certainty.

Stride faltering,
Dustdevils swirl behind me,
Exhaustion clouds my mind,
I can’t think straight,
Thoughts congeal in random patterns.

Skin burns,
Ultraviolet rays scar me,
Dirt covered crimson,
Cringe to the touch,
Sundown brings little relief.

Feet blistered,
My boots, my next best friends fail me,
Rest, not an option,
I must keep advancing,
Being left behind, inconceivable.

Backpack strains me,
My worldly possessions contained within,
Life and death kept at bay,
Sustainence, munitions, reminders of home,
All I have to call my own.

Never complaining,
Unspoken duty of every man,
Doing what must be done,
Personal harm not considered,
The oath more hallowed than hallowed ground.

Honor me,
Honor me not for the sacrifice,
Honor me not for the blood I’ve shed,
Honor me not for the widow I left behind,
Instead honor me.

For my love of God and country.