Poetry Dare: Day 2

Today, I was thinking about the prompt that I posted on Monday.  The prompt can be found here.  In short, the prompt asks about freedom and what you think it is.  I'm still not completely sure.  For me, freedom is a tenuous idea.  I don't think there's any way to completely get 100% behind freedom all the time.  If such were the case, we'd move towards anarchy rather than the governance we have.  I think, while some may find this idea interesting, I do not.  I do not like the idea of total freedom...  Unless that freedom is bounded by some kind of responsibility.  This is where I run into a problem with current gun legislation and possible change.  It's as though we don't want to take responsibility for the actions these weapons allow people to commit.  I would love to see common sense legislation about guns, but I'm not sure it's going to happen...  If absolutely nothing else, I'd very much like to see responsible gun owners take a stand and agree that no one but the military really needs to have assault weapons.  I know that bad people exist, and I am all for being able to effectively defend oneself (this is why I study martial arts still), but there is a difference between self defense and making murder far too easy to commit.  I do not know all the facts, but I feel as though something needs to change otherwise we are simply living insane.

Anyhow, onto the poem:

What is the nature of freedom? I
am privy to the calls of coyotes at late night
moon serenades. Birds call their song in flight;
we take caps off bottles and
only dial numbers when we're drunk enough
to forget that we have the freedom to
raise our voice whenever we want. But
something has a bad habit of getting lost; freedom
isn't free from what they've told me, but we
are paying everything we shouldn't be in order to keep
this ideal alive. Please,
tell me why your right
to bear arms trumps
30,000 people's right to life. Please,
tell me why you're right, and
everyone else is wrong. I'm sick
of hearing dirges and conflating them
with liberty's song.

We have lost the right to casually walk
through airports, arenas, capitols, and transportation
stations unmolested by probing question attached to
gloved hands, so why must weapons remain
so easily obtained? Freedom is not attained through force.
Freedom cannot be guaranteed by bullets or anything
material - free may only be forged from the non-
quantifiable. You may have a fist full for a heart,
but it's spirit that
can't be chained, and
bullets will never be able to kill all the world's
words are the way we have to fight
injustice because men can die, but their ideals
live on. So, please,
tell me how your
bullets are enough to quell an uprising
of the spirit - it's like trying to
fire at clouds to stop them from raining -
freedom is an idea too big for bullets to bring down;
it is an ideal that only words
are big enough
to protect.



This is a piece which I would be interested in working with to see if I can get it any stronger or give more weight to some of the ideas.  I think an integral part to any craft is the ability to find both flaws and strengths in the art and diminish the former while increasing the latter - the key is to not focus too much on the flaws and realize that nothing is perfect, but flaws make something relate able.  Regardless of that, I think we need to have an open and honest discussion about many things in our society ranging from guns to mental health to the violence in our entertainment.  There is always a solution, and if art mimics life, then life must also have flaws and strengths.  We just need to diminish the former and increase the latter.  Maybe someday we'll get this thing right.