Flags

Too often we still wear our skins
as a distancing patriotic flag,
used not only as a shield,
but as a weapon against another;
against a man, though the same,
has committed the only crime
of having a different shade of flag.

The true sadness is:
That other man does exactly the same
and where does the blame start and end?

Too often we still justify righteousness
by saying “God resides in my house, not yours”,
if you don’t follow my word,
my prophets, my law and my faith,
then you are nothing more than subhuman,
barely above the animals,
I can do what I wish to you in my God’s name.

The true sadness is:
It has happened many times before
and continues to happen today to those we call ‘enemy’.

Too often it is cliché to say:
“The more that things change
the more they remain the same”,
but we cannot arbitrarily ignore a cliché,
especially when it happens to be true;
we divide by colour, language, heritage,
religion, nationalism, politics.

The true sadness is:
At the core we are all the same,
suppression and violence harms us a whole.

Too often we never realize
until it is too far too late,
that these flags we drape ourselves in
are meaningless barriers causing fear,
that shroud and hide our true souls;
the longer we diminish ourselves,
the harder it is to bring to an end.

The true greatness is:
One man recently said “Yes we can”,
let us hope that we all can hear.