John

The wisest ones are always called crazy
ratty and preoccupied
pockets full of proclamations
muttering their way through the crowd
with bits of wilderness stuck behind their ears

Possibly he could carry on
in that fashion forever
if people didn’t start to listen,
gathering with hesitation
that turns to alarm
and then conviction
around his street-corner sessions,
each day a new rambling
making more sense
answering the questions
they had forgotten they needed answers for,
lulled as they are into sheeplike acceptance
of the status quo

But once a flock grows,
the state takes notice,
grows its own alarm,
makes its own convictions
to reinstate the order it prefers,
brings its fist down to scatter the people
again, driving with their ruler
to compel them apart
again, reinstating complicit silence

nipping wisdom’s voice in the bud
cutting hope off at the head

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So I’m writing on Medium again, but as many of you (most? of you) aren’t members there, and I want everybody who would like to read what I write to have access to it, I’ve decided to share those poems here too. Right now it’s all Advent all the time!