PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Show me the time
When the oppressed were the better men
And I'll inch back your line
To where they conquered and stood reigning.

It's not to justify
Mistreatment,
Nor to excuse
The horrors.
It's just to remind
The new rules
That who shares the blame depends on the line you choose

With which to begin the story.

This is not an homage
to 1776,
Anymore than it's pointing
to 1619.
Go back further and topple
Columbus,
That's fine -
But please grind
The crumbled rocks into humility.
Because the rubble was once shaped like tyrants before him
And, left to be, it'll make busts for new tyrants in the future.

Truth be told,
Few nations have lived
In grace for long -
Only a few more, at all.
If shoes were exchanged,
The sad truth, probably,
Is that the shoes would trample
Other bodies the same.
Collectively,
Shoes rule the day
With rare defection.
Individually,
is the only place sanctity is earned exemption.

So salvation
- here after this hour -
For civilization
Comes in one single honor:

That the one and only true measure
Of the value of a person
Isn't remotely etched in
The physical traits from mother and father..

If humankind ever writes a 'higher plane' future,
It is this theme with which we'll begin the story.