note: I read this at an open mic and it started a controversy about the justification of the bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So I failed to raise our consciousness to the level of what it means to be human and at either end of weapons. My personal opinion is that all weapon manufacturing, small and large, should be stopped and made illegal by all countries. Take that for a controversy. I’m sure many men will scoff at the idea, as they usually do, since they’ve been brainwashed from birth that one should have more weapons than the neighbors in case they used theirs. What happened to talking about our differences? What happened to trying to understand events under a different light? Peace,Guy Thoughts on the Anniversary of Hiroshima On August 6, 1945, this child’s sixth birthdayNever happened, erased from all memoryRecords pulverized by a gigantic mushroomThe fungus on humanity’s footAs it continues trampling onPrinciples, teachings, evolutionAs it continues spreading the seedsOf hatred under engineered flowersSo pretty, so noble, so smart. Sixty years later it …

They say we replay forever in our mindsThe rules learned in the first six years of our livesThe mother of all mantras, like a broken recordImages of your first fearsSeen through your first tearsAdults standing byDeciding whether you will love or hateBe selfish or generousWithdrawn or outgoingA poet or a politicianObserving chaos or causing itAn innocent bystander or a perpetrator. Now we sit on the edge of chaosAnd the voices say, “do nothing, you cannot do anything about chaos, you don’t know how to deal with chaos.”Do we stand up, or submit? Crafty discourse rides on the mother of all mantras, expecting complacency and extinguishing all growth of conscience, as if we were six years old. This could be our collective ageA society unable to learnStuck in its fears and instinctsWhat will we do about it?