1
The revolution starts again,
Another year, another number,
Added on, commemorating Earth’s rotation ‘round the sun.
2
A rather silly moment
we indulge in,
Taking time to state once more
A resolution that
the lot of us are bound to break.
It’s arbitrary, even crude;
Irresolute.
For every day, at any moment,
we are free to bind ourselves to promises,
then in the next, to let them die.
In earnest, though,
we should be made to
answer for them…
Often, we would rather not.
3
This attitude prepares us
for the disappointments and deceptions,
degradations, harm and hardship
crushingly imposed,
as days progress,
as time unfolds.
But from these impositions,
must we acquiesce?
4
We’re always free to face the consequences
of our promises,
Imposing on ourselves the discipline
to persevere,
to follow through,
Perhaps to bend — but not to break,
To do what’s right for your own sake.
5
Not only yours—
for you, too, live within the world,
And all of us are held together in the fold.
Your choices, promises,
accountability for failings
each have impact
as we act together,
or opposed to one another.
We’re bound up, interwoven
In and through the fabric of the world
and of life itself.
6
The monarch butterfly will flap its wings,
Which generate the smallest wisps of wind;
they swirl and slowly gather,
growing, building, coalescing,
moving ’cross the globe,
expanding, speeding, darkening,
into a raging tempest,
wild and now unleashed,
a drowning, overwhelming flood
of catastrophic force.
But all the while, the butterfly just flaps.
7
Akin, we read of how the kings
Of old would point and execute
Those close or far,
Expand dominion,
Squeeze their peasantry,
Yet dared to call themselves divine.
Some fast, some slow,
All festered devastation.
But like the papillon, their executions
Still reverberate and harm:
They manifested selfishness,
Mistrust and hatred of all others but their own.
(Even of themselves.)
They pillaged, murdered, looted
All they could.
But worst they spun their webs,
Of terror and deceit,
Ensnaring and enslaving all
Unto the whimsy of their moods and lusts.
Across their dynasties
It has been hard to purge their sicknesses—
the waste they laid upon
our spirits and our kind,
infecting our polities right up to present day.
8
Although we did resolve to end their kind,
And gave them to the guillotine,
The vacuums left us ripe for war
and further exploitation,
cruelly at the hands of
their inheritors:
monopolistic money gluttons—
Tech bros, finance titans,
Tycoons of oil, min’ral, seed, and chemical,
The data miners of your privacy,
The lenders, launderers
And lords of real estate.
9
Across the board,
They’re narcissistic vermin freaks,
Diseased with greed,
Who squeeze and squeeze
Who choke the necks of all of us
And squeeze and squeeze
The life, the liberty, the possibility
of happiness,
‘Tis not without good reason that these
Men and women, too, are known as
oligarchs.
10
A blight, they are, upon the human race,
Accelerants of our demise.
11
The hist’ry of humanity
Records us stunted, mutilated,
And manipulated
Into loathing and mistrusting of
the colors, sexes, shapes
And sizes not our own.
To wit:
“The hoipolloi, the riffraff, rabble,
Are mere sheep that bray,
Deserving nothing but the slaughter,
As we have engineered,
But also to enjoy their squirm.
For when some of the peasants steal
each other’s crumbs,
We name that criminal,
Then when the criminals are rounded up
And sent away,
The scraps are theirs,
Still not enough to live,
As we’ve designed.
They whittle and struggle,
Fall to their knees and hope
As they’ve been taught
That all the goods
That we deny
Shall one day fall
Down from on high!”
12
Do you not see the meaning of their falsehoods?
The fork-tongued words
To play you off against your neighbor,
Drive you to a frenzy
And destroy the solidarity
You naturally share?
So turn, instead, the arms and hate
That have been
Forced upon us by these oligarchs;
Take back your health,
your body, spirit, energies, and mind.
For far too long,
we have been taught
to kill each other,
Let us turn them on the perpetrators,
And then lay them down,
Or leave them hanging
so that we then bend the arch
of our existence
finally — and firmly —
to the side of righteousness,
Toward a path for anyone and everyone,
As brothers, and as sisters,
But most importantly
As fellow human beings.
As one, we are a multitude,
And as a multitude we too are one.
13
We’re also taught to love and honor
All the freedoms fought and died for,
Although hitherto these lessons
Culminate in giving us away
To servitude.
Millennia of human slavery must end.
We need to truly live,
to feel, and to experience
What freedom really means:
Its openness, unbound
and its responsibilities,
To liberate those not yet free —
Including ourselves.
To learn to care and lift
Up everyone in need,
For we contain
the best and least of us.
We owe this fight unto each other.
We owe it to ourselves,
To find resolve
To shift from “I, and for myself alone”
To: “Since I’m free, I
Hold my hand out
Beck’ning you to join;
For I am nothing
without you,
“I” does not exist
if not with you,
And then, together,
Each for each of us.
As one,
We reach that state
in which there need not be
A state at all,
When all are free.
For then and only then—
Prosperity made manifest—
Are our hearts made light.
14
It’s in the future, yes,
And there’s much darkness,
Violence, and dread, ahead.
While now is ever here
It’s also ever leaving,
In motion, always,
Onward, forward,
Whether we are in or out,
Or resolute or weak:
There is no option, is no choice,
It’s coming, coming, coming.
Now lend your powers
And your spirit
To the cause
You do believe in,
Consciously,
Or outside your awares.
You’ve read this song,
Awaken now,
Or if not fully ready
For the freedom that you seek
Allow what can be yours,
What can be shared
And should be cared for,
Make a home
Inside your mind,
Of just how good ‘twill be
To open and embrace
Its dignity, respect,
Responsibility and sweet delight.
15
We’re closer now than ever before.
It’s yours to take, to hold.
To be a brother or a sister,
Friend and lover,
Owner, sharer,
Teacher, student,
Servant, master, too.
Held fast and holding fast,
Persisting by just living and
Exerting for the sake of others,
Suffering for your own growth,
And that of others,
The joy, so deep, of inner calm and satisfaction
In your life.
This is my prayèr for the dire times ahead,
Already filled with so much blood and dread;
Persist and live, not just for you
But for your neighbors, too.
16
Now find your voice:
I call upon the Pantheon — the goddess of the aegis —
Invoking her to lend you fire,
To breathe engulfing words
Of heat and power.
To feed the fires within your soul,
Inspiring you to act
And join with open, linkèd arms;
To stand your ground
And push for righteousness,
While knowing well the poisons,
Ever streaming from the god of death,
That long have sapped and maimed
your natural strength and decency.
This is reality; it’s here,
They’re in our neighborhoods,
They’re raiding homes and businesses,
As though they’re destiny.
But they’ve already lost:
For we are one,
Awoken and ignited,
And together we shall win.
17
With every dawn may we instill:
The day is new—
unwritten and untrod;
We are compelled to live
until our breath expires.
So let us fill our lungs
For inspiration, strength, and energy,
To live for what our hearts
And spirits truly seek,
To do our part for each
and every one of us.
It may mean suffering,
It may mean sacrifice,
But we shall grow:
With resolution — revolution.