If Not Now When
When sunsets cold and birds decry The silent frozen elegy A testament to time a space And longing from the human race
And space forgot to boundaries make And immigrants left to their own Their children’s hunger kept locked down Discarded rules of decency
We shout forget not history Of holocaust and genocide Discrimination murderous Of lynchings, beatings, tortured souls
But only first rage then put out Replaced by other pillow talk Catharsis kills indignant angst And bar room conversation shifts
We’ve done our part, we gnashed our teeth What more is there when others lead? To background noise we relegate Lest interference it becomes
Our hot complaints soon cool then die And once more tyrants get away With all their deeds though evil be A fact we know with certainty
But life moves on or so we say An explanation of our worst The tendency to then dismiss What we don’t want to work to fix
We cannot understand a world Where Russians bought manipulate A nations leaders easily With greed seen clear on traitors lips
They skew the course of public thought And though they bully one and all The fingers pointed outward must Be turned to point to righteous lot
For blameless not one can assume Such title speaks to fault denied When despot rears their hateful head And hide behind indignant hand
It’s never just one person who Can change direction of the path That future takes for each one must Contribute or accept what comes We allow them purchase then to rule And only then do we object When twice as hard is it to crush Their easy won spun victory
We cannot let ourselves forgive Or throw our hands up helplessly If world we dream of will become Indulgence we cannot afford
A call to arms we must pursue Assume responsibility For action that will change the course Of what we’ll write upon the stars
Natalie Frank (Taye Carrol) has had work featured in Haunted Waters Press, Weirdbook Magazine, Siren’s Call Publications, Lycan Valley Press & Zero Fiction among others. Her poetry has been featured in several anthologies. She is Editor for 1-One-Infinity, The Partnered Pen & One Table, One World and is Editor in Chief for Promposity & Mental Gecko. She is also the Managing Editor for Novellas & Serials at LVP Publications.
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