The True Artist Lives By His Art, or Dies. He Does No Harm to Anyone for not Receiving Him.
One of the joys of reading poetry, though,
Is putting ideas into the poem
And dreaming a life along with the poem.
Reading a poem like it was written today
Can give you insights into our modern time.
Because my poem of the same subject
Would not have been written,
Where I did make the blackbirds poets
Not revolutionaries.
Poetry needs to be both interpreted and interpolated.
When interpreting a poem,
One must read the poem
In the context of the year it was written in.
It might seem too intuitive
To be harping on,
But there are methods which wouldn’t do this.
Because if I did not know that Blackbirds
Were Irish revolutionaries,
A certain poem would be illegible,
And I would have thought it was about poetry dying.
Eagles,
6’ers
Phillies
Flyers.
I love my Philly teams.
In the eagles,
Carson Wentz is injury prone.
He always gets taken out of the game.
We made it to the playoffs by the skin of our teeth.
We like our O and D lines in Philly,
One of the few team bases who make the linebackers stars.
The 76’ers
Ben and Joel are good players.
But, they don’t like each other it seems.
They always do better when not playing with one another.
Tobias Harris is good,
But we need someone who can shoot more consistent threes.
Ben makes a good layup
And Joel, when he’s not injured,
Can shoot pretty well,
But the team is never right in the chemistry
When they’re all together.
Phillies, Bryce Harper was overpaid
But, he did a decent job this year.
Rhys Hoskins was a bust.
We had a good base runner in McCutchin
And a good first at bat.
But he got hurt.
In the Flyers,
There aren’t any shining stars
But they win some games.
Hart, their goalie,
Is alright,—
But Voracek
Giroux and Lindblom
Are decent.
We had a lot of shoot outs this year
That I saw,
And a lot of games won or lost in overtime.
II
The old mantra is this:
“Take your stripes now,
Or take them in hell.”
We’ve forgotten this part of our religion.
I would love to be happy,
But it seems like the prophecies of Christ are coming true.
The world is rejoicing,
Are happy and filled with good.
Meanwhile, the shepherds are idle,
The prophets are prophesying a lie.
What I want more than anything,
Is a wife and children.
I might not get it.
So… what do I have to mourn for?
I mourn for the unforgiveness
Of our modern era.
How men are given swift and harsh rebuke
For petty crimes.
Meanwhile, great men murder,
Take a bribe, and wrap it up.
I
Nature destroyed
And in place there are statues of bronze,
The trees garish
And in place men read my poetry,
The trees bud in the winter
And in place we get plays,
The animals die
And in place we get democracy…
I will not make a prediction.
The trees might live,
But they are budding in January and February.
Something needs done.
The world will rejoice,
While we Christians will mourn.
That is the prophecy.
America is in decline.
It is rejected by our president
But it is the truth.
Simply, if you have a nation of thieves and adulterers
And make them richer,
It doesn’t make the country any better to live in.
If everyone feasts, but have not love
It is not as good as a dish of vegetables where there is love.
What I want, more than anything,
Is to see America be strong.
We have to understand it is not strong.
Our religion is faltering.
It, in name, is Christianity.
In practice it is a falsehood.
What I want more than anything
Is this: Freedom.
My revolution is with words.
To hold the people we elect accountable.
If a gun is fired in my name,
I spit on you.
We need a revolution with words.
We need to wage it with our words
With our bombs and ammunition.
Not with insults, nor petty name calling.
Just with cold hard reason.
It works.
It can take the most hardened idiot
And make them a little wiser.
And an idiot made wiser is one less idiot.
I’m a believer in Green Day’s revolution,
Waged with words, not bombs or Gloria.
If I wanted anything, it would be this:
For the country to stop fighting among itself
And to realize that there are shady things happening underneath the surface.
I, like Warner Brothers,
Give your revolution in words, not bombs.
Because if we patriots are censored,
Then men die, and line up in piles high.
Literature is a purge of our aggression,
And a cry for peace.
No war was ever started by a fact.
Rather, it was the forbidding of hearing that fact,
And covering it up so the populations could laud it as heroic,
That is how every war was started.
Fife and drum go Hum dee dum,
The marching citizens draw their guns
Their words, their airs, their country farms
Did get sold by the county Bar…
Hum dee dum,
Hum dee dumb.
We wage this revolution with our words
Not a bullet we will incur
We shall march in our battle lines
With these words and verse so spry…
Hum dee dum,
Hum dee dumb.
If a martyr we shall make
To speak our words and masticate
That violence spreads in silent wakes
Hum dee dum
Hum dee dumb.
I shall not e’er throw a stone
If I shall die all alone
I shall not ever throw a stone
For my words are mortar bombs
Hum dee dum,
Hum dee dumb.
Wage a revolution wise
That men in flames, they do die
While I have sung my battle cries
For the wasted men who die
Hum dee dum,
Hum dee dumb.
We might have our first president
A woman good with righteousness
She might give us what we need
A stitch, a bone and well hemmed sleeves
Hum dee dum,
Hum dee dumb.
But the ghosts they testify
That with the awful costs they cry,
That they should give a man his rights
When a woman ought to win the fight,
Hum dee dum,
Hum dee dumb.
Trump, I say, is not the cost
He is not the one who robbed us all
It is not Warren nor congress’ cauc…
It is all the specious laws we wrought,
That by liberty’s woes they cause,
Hum dee dum,
Hum dee dumb.
So I sing this verse or two
Of revolution with words couth
That if a woman should not be right
But a man should win the fight,
Hum dee dum,
Hum dee dumb.
A hospital wants to take a child off life support
Without the parents’ consent.
It, by law, says it has the ability to do it,
And it says it’s ethical.
This is what I’ve feared for a long time.
It could be you on that bed.
It could be your child on that bed.
America, in the words of Green Day,
“Give me revolution!”
Because silence is the enemy.
Revolution of Words!
Not just I, but many people
Are worried about this democracy.
Elizabeth Warren could be our first female president.
She’d be a pretty darn good one, too.
As it stands, Pete Buttigieg
Who nobody knows,
Nobody’s heard of…
I saw him in the debates,
And he was wormy…
He wins the Iowa caucus with 26% of the vote.
Warren comes in third.
A socialist comes in second.
Oh, laud him if you will,
These educated voters voted for him
Because he’s Gay and has “Butt” in his name.
As, this is the qualities of a president we want.
Meanwhile, Trump is in office.
He’s looking better every day.
Whatever nonsense is happening,
I don’t think it’s him.
Rather, he said, “I respect all life,”
I hope he does, and stops what I fear is happening.
I petition my president,
But know I don’t want him in office.
I want Lizzy Warren in office;
Why?
Because she’s right for the country.
But with Trump,
Since its inevitable that if Buttigieg won
I would assume Americans would vote for Trump in a landslide,
I know the problems in America are ancient.
I don’t blame Trump for the problems…
I know the problems exist…
But, Mr. President, stop them.
Fulfill your promise,
Because I assure you it is happening.
But, I will vote for Elizabeth.
I will vote in the caucus,
I will use my right to do what every responsible American should.
Do I despise Trump?
No.
Do I truly believe what I’ve said?
Yes.
The reason why is because I have a good primary education.
I worry for this country because the qualifications to run it
Are to have “Butt” in your name, and be openly gay.
This is why…
B. K. Neifert 