Are You Free?

If you must carry 

or own a gun 

or many

to be safe

In the land of the free

Home of the brave

Are you free?

Are you brave?

Maybe you are,

But probably not


Unless you live in a place

Where no one

has paid for

Your liberty --

Where protection 

is not a luxury, 

but a need for you 

and your family,

sometimes every waking moment

and countless nights 

without sleep --

Unless you need

Weapons to survive,

You are not brave

Or free.


But you, with your

Mighty God

Who surely is big enough,

Omniscient and Omnipotent,

(and clearly not impotent)

to protect you.

You seem rather

Lacking in trust

Of this Being

Who surely would not

Forget you

If you needed Him

In a moment

When it all came down

To choosing a weaopn

Or not


And speaking of God,

If there is One

or Many

to keep us safe

And only if they

Really care 

to listen to me

and everyone else

just the same,

I offer a prayer:

I fall to my knees

In submission to You

And beg that You

Discontinue

Allowing us to

Be so full of

Fear and hate.

Please teach us

How to be free.

If freedom is real,

how do we find it,

without having to

Win it,

Possess it,

or fight for it?



If being free

is possible,

teach us to 

Understand that

Having it is not 

Enough

Help us know

what it means

to Be it


If freedom is

something to own

like a gun

Then freedom 

is not

Free

-------------------------------------------------------------

Prayer, not included in the poem:

Grant us vision,

Wisdom to love

to Know

How to Care

For the world

And each other

Before We all

Die of Hatred

And Fear

A Song My Friend (who is not a humanist) Sent Me

Second Chances

Gregory Alan Isakov

All of my heroes sit up straight
They stare at the ground
They radiate

Me, I'm mumbling in the kitchen for the sun to pay up
Lonely is a ring on a cold coffee cup
I'm some sick hound
Digging for bones
If it weren't for second chances, we'd all be alone

My hands they were strangers lost in the night
They're waving around in the dusty light
I'm waiting in the wings while the trees undress
Cupping my ear to hear the wind confess
I'm a ghost in the garden
Scaring the crows
If it weren't for second chances, we'd all be alone

I'm running from nothing, no thoughts in my mind
Oh my heart was all black
But I saw something shine
Thought that part was yours, but it might just be mine
I could share it with you, if you gave me the time
I'm all bloody knuckles, longing for home
If it weren't for second chances, we'd all be alone

I'm a shot through the dark
I'm a black sinkhole
If it weren't for second chances, we'd all be alone

Songwriters: Gregory Alan Isakov / Ilan Gary Isakov
Second Chances lyrics © Third Side Music Inc.

Carl Sandburg Tuesday

It was a very good day at Carl Sandburg School. It kind of redeemed my whole day -- and hopefully my week, which has been a real mix of ups and downs.

I would not normally choose this topic, but it was critical timing for me to find this. Even if he never reads this post (which he most likely will not, since this blog is private), this is dedicated to my self-identified as "not humanist" friend who carries a gun, and owns twenty of them -- just to be on the "safe" side. He has also been vegan for 24 years, and cares a lot about the planet. And he loves romantic comedy movies. People are strange.

*This post comes directly from this article.*

U. of I. volunteer finds unknown Carl Sandburg poem

Late writer's 'Revolver' takes aim at guns, violence

January 21, 2013|By Bridget Doyle | Tribune reporter

Photo: "A Revolver" by Carl Sandburg

An unknown poem called "A Revolver" by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Carl Sandburg was recently found in the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He died in 1967. (Ben Woloszyn, University of Illinois)

With the debate over gun control heating up, a retired volunteer at a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign made a timely find.

Ernie Gullerud, a former professor of social work at the university, came upon a previously unpublished poem by Carl Sandburg titled "A Revolver," which addresses the issue of guns and violence.

"I'm no judge of what makes a great poem, but this one said so much and so succinctly and to the point. I thought 'Golly, someone could have written this today,'" said Gullerud, 83.

It's not clear when Sandburg typed the poem:

Revolver 

(text taken from typed poem pictured above, evidence strongly suggesting it was written by Carl Sandburg)


Here is a revolver.

It has an amazing language all its own.

It delivers unmistakable ultimatums.

It is the last word.

A simple, little human forefinger can tell a terrible story with it.

Hunger, fear, revenge, robbery hide behind it.

It is the claw of the jungle made quick and powerful.

It is the club of the savage turned to magnificent precision.

It is more rapid than any judge or court of law.

It is less subtle and treacherous than any one lawyer or ten.

When it has spoken, the case can not be appealed to the supreme court, nor any mandamus nor any injunction nor any stay of execution in and interfere with the original purpose.

And nothing in human philosophy persists more strangely than the old belief that God is always on the side of those who have the most revolvers.

Gullerud has volunteered at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library every Thursday for more than seven years. For the past two years, he's been working to classify and enter a file folder of poems into the school's electronic system.

He was working through poems by Sandburg this month when he came across "A Revolver" typed on scratch paper and recognized its relevance to current cultural debates across the country.

"When I wrote down that last line, I knew this was really big," Gullerud said.

Sandburg, a Galesburg native and at one time a Chicago newspaperman, received Pulitzer Prizes for poetry in 1919 and 1951 and another in 1940 for his biography of Abraham Lincoln.

Gullerud took the poem to Valerie Hotchkiss, head of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, who also noted its relevance.

U. of I. English professor emeritus George Hendrick, who has published multiple volumes of Sandburg's poems, said "A Revolver" appears to be from the writer's later work. Hendrick speculated that the poem could be related to Lincoln's assassination.

Dead Awake

30 January 2017

Dead Awake

I feel dead

Either way

Pills to wake

Pills to sleep

Pills to calm

Pills to fake

Happiness

Manic thought

Has settled

Darkness

Returns

From the

Depths

Again

Again

Again

I might as well be

DEAD

Dead

If

Dead

Awake is

No longer

Available

What about

Alive?

I have forgotten

If I ever

Knew alive

Without

Delusions

Illusions

Once clarity

Now questioning

Of all that

Ever sustained

Hope was

Hope

Even though

It will not

Find me

Now, for it

Demands that

I believe

In truth

That is

Not truth

But madness

Will

Find me

Whether

Hoping or not

Believing or not

Dead, Alive

Awake, Asleep

True or

Not true

Either Way

Madness

Is my

Only steady

Companion

Detail of an illustration of a solar barge on page 55 of Carl Jung's The Red Book. Translated, 
the complete text on the page reads: "One word that was never spoken.
 / One light that was never lit up. / An unparalleled confusion.
 / And a road without end." According to translator Sonu Shamdasani, 
the solar barge "was seen as the typical means of movement of the sun" 
in ancient Egypt. "The Sun God protected the barge against the monster Aphophis, 
who attempted to swallow the solar barge as it traveled across the heavens."

-- Foundation of the Works of C.G. Jung

Words: Short Version

Words do not suffice

When you

Use them

   as weapons,

Disguised as Care

While you

Hide from

   yourself

Too many words

   drown out

Voices of some

Who need to

Be Heard

And to choose --

When to be silent,

When to speak

Words do not suffice

When there are

Too few

Too late

   from those

Not heard,

Not seen

Dismissed

Too few

Too late

The actions

Needed to

Respond to

Stories told

  through eyes

    and hearts

That sometimes

Beg to,

 Fear to

Use words

Too little

Too late

When they

Need to trust

You more than

You need them to

Hear you

Too many or

Too few

Too late

Call for death

Too soon

Quiet now,

Words do not suffice

  for these

Parts that

First need

Holding

January 30, 2017

Words: Too Many

January 29, 2017 (poem still in process -- will be shortened)

Words do not suffice today.

Did they ever make sense of this

Nonsense?

I do not know the pain of a

Refugee torn from roots of land and family

Physical Hunger or thirst

Lack of education

Terminal illness

Having to live in places or spaces of

Constantly battling threats of physical death

Constantly wondering if this breath will be

My last

And still, I know at least

One truth

Words alone are insufficient

And still I rely on them now

To send out a message

In this bottle, to the sea

From this island where

I hope to be rescued,

to step away from this strange

Isolation, even as I am surrounded

By Words without love

Not only those of loved ones who lied

Who still use lies to get their way

But those of my own mind,

Unstoppable at times

Unraveling, and mostly conflicted

How words have carelessly strangled

Or carefully twisted a life inside

a life of lives that beats inside of me.

I have stopped counting

How many now.

A person can be a prisoner

Inside a body of

Black, White

Red, Blue

Shiny and new, or bruised

Fighting, freezing, fleeing

Rich, Poor

And everything in between

I am capable, and allowed

To feel great sadness for my sisters

Who share this earth

Without sharing access to my opportunities

To grieve for all who live on this planet,

And yet lack access to clean water

and places of shelter to give them rest

For my brothers who only learn violence

And weapons as a way to defend

in the same world where I can choose

to detest and protest war, or deny it or just not care.

I can feel gratitude for being able to rest

In a bed for hours and

Days sometimes, not concerned that

I may have to suddenly get up and run

Feeling the rhythm of footsteps of friends

-- Who might never have time

for even one thought of finding a friend in this hell

of a world (we haven’t learned to actually share) --

I sense their fear

as they take their last breathless breath

Unless they are spared from death, this time

Which for some is felt

More as horror than relief

I sense their dread of having to

Keep on trying to survive

With no promise of real freedom --

or even a way to recognize peace

There are cries from every spot where

Someone has dwelt,

Even if only in that moment where

Something was taken, beaten, swollen, numbed, or simply

Not Loved, not seen as living

These are the cries that

Not one of us is spared

When Words are not enough and

Wounds are too deep,

Sometimes harming without consideration

Or accuracy

Sometimes cutting so clean and concise

That the lesion is barely visible

Barely bleeds, hidden

Neatly in its precision

The wound is nearly closed

But still infected

Suffocating those who try to

Inhabit and expand inside

The sickness

Who try to carry the

Heavy heart, like a hero carrying

Too much with too little strength,

Division of purpose, without clear vision

Across the finish line

The heart does not need

A victorious win, or even an end

But a way to start

using its voice

to send and convey,

Instead of only carrying Pain

These hearts that cry

Are calling like thunder calls

a storm to gather

and speak the truth

With noise not made of fear

But with threads of acknowledgment

We were taught to deny

By the ones who are still afraid

Who look to their God in the sky

When the tapestry being woven

Here, is the security we seek

Binding us together

Generations

Nations

Chains of Sisters and Brothers

That each time broken,

Into Freedom,

Each time even one bird

Is released,

or flees captivity --

Flight is a new song,

And also an ancient,

Familiar rhythm

That I recognized the first time

I flew away,

Fiercely and weakly,

Not really flying but tripping

Up North

So many years ago,

That it seems I was mostly a ghost

Just real enough to feel the broken

Fragments of the mirror I finally broke,

No longer able to hold it up

to the one who kept telling me not to leave

That I needed its reflection to keep me alive

But there was only breath enough for one,

Only Life enough to keep me from living

And dying in the body

I nearly had to abandon

Before I began to know

I, too, had been captive

Confined as a prisoner of a War

An invisible one, no less real in some ways

Than the ones we can see as bodies

Scattered, lifeless, waiting for Earth

to gather them back to her

I do not know that life

But I still find bits of hard earth

and death that surround the cell

I still sometimes seek within me

A familiar retreat where I learned

How to fear, and eventually

How to escape it with Madness

But I am not afraid today,

To join the chorus of pain

Combined into hurt that still suffers

But not alone,

No, dear sister and brother, and

All who have ever felt other

*Yes, pain has not escaped

But is united, embraced

By secure love, tried

Not used as a word

Words about love do not suffice

When the inside weeps

Dry tears, there is not

One Ointment

That can sooth or replace

Love that is not so much

An arrival,

But something that is

Always

Abiding, along the way

And then one day

You recognize it,

Allow it to be released

From its contract with shame,

And suffering, meant to protect

Your starving heart

Love can be loud when it needs to

Be heard, when it wants

To be quiet -- not quieted,

But Still at last,

to know its own voice

No longer fooled and falling

into pits of deceit

You keep mistaking for wells

Finding yourself consumed again

By that which will not fill

Or allow you to freely offer

Or receive the kind of love

You and each of us need

The security of a love

that carefully follows you,

Not forcing, but guiding

Until You are freed

From all the hiding you thought

You knew as safety

And you can see without a veil

Or a mask

Or armour

Or a wall of fear

Or a fountain of words

That Love is more than all of these

You will understand it

When you feel held while also

Holding another

--Mary Anne Stewart, January 29, 2017

*Italicized words in gray are not part of the actual poem, but part of my process in writing it.