Independence

Settling down after watching fireworks on the beach.
I had the day off from work. It's a national holiday.
The celebration of the day of independence.

I take a look in the dictionary and I read:
Main Entry: independence
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: freedom
1: freedom from control or influence of another or others.

The irony is almost impossible to express.
The people of the United States of America take this
day to celebrate...

freedom?

Our 'perceived' freedom is nothing more than a
falsehood, say I.

To say that we are free from the control
or the influence of others is to believe in
fairy tales.

We ARE controlled.
We are very controlled.
We are VERY MUCH influenced.
We are lied to daily.
Lied to by our allegedly 'elected' political leaders.
Lied to by the 'voluntary' members of the armed forces.
Lied to by the mainstream 'free' press.
Lied to by the corporations that employ us.
Layers upon layers of lies, so cunningly
wrapped around each other in a gigantic
tapestry of deceit and betrayal.

I sat there on the sand, looking up at the sky
and watching the explosive colored lights.
Wondering what it must be like to live in
Iraq, or Palestine, or any of the other numerous
planetary locations where bombs and missiles
light up the sky.

Do the children in these places scream with
excitement and glee when they see and
hear the bombs? Of course not.

These 'other' children are living a nightmarish
reality which manifests from the lies we so
willingly swallow.

I can't help but wonder what it must have been like
in days of old...

before we succumbed to the outcomes of
our choices. The time before the discovery
of electrical power and 'artificial light'. The
time when dawn and the arrival of sunlight
was a natural occurence of nature. The time
when people looked up at the night sky and
rested their eyes upon the infinity of the stars.

Oh uni - verse where we have written
words of blasphemy and irreverence,

Oh parchment where I lay my blood
stained instrument,

may the lessons be quick and forgiving,
for I am weary and I have learned.