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Shahriar Shahriari |
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Poems - On Freedom - Group 4
Societal Bondage
Change is good, we are told
Change all the ways of old.
Use poison on the rats
Even though it kills the cats
When more baby rats grow
A new poison will flow;
New problems they say
Change will pave the way,
Change is overdue
Consume something new;
"Change" they call this fraud
And it doesn't seem odd
To the unsuspecting sheep
Who with change try to keep.Slow change, evolution
Quick change, revolution
Change is the solution
To human constitution.But change for the sake of change
Can stupefy, derange;
Changing means but not the end
To oblivion will send,
Changing end but not the means
Human values demeans.Purposeful change, says the sage
Humankind must engage
Purposeless change we must purge
Else unchecked change will surge.
Change is growth, change is demise
With discernment rise the wise.© Shahriar Shahriari
Vancouver, Canada
July 29, 1997
An ad on the television
Promoted a distorted vision
Saying, "You are what you eat
From your head to your feet,
You are also what you feel
You touch, you see, you learn, you heal
You are the things that you read
You write, you sing, you play, you breed
You are the things that you do
But all this you already knew. "
Nowhere in this ad I heard
The thing for which I most cared
That I am what I am
As Blake said, "Gold horn'd Ram".
Above all I am a human being
Not a human doing, feeling, seeing.
If TV mindlessly our brains feed
Social indoctrination will succeed
Our Good Minds always must heed
Till our Ram, our being is freed.© Shahriar Shahriari
Vancouver, Canada
September 10, 1997
They send us first to school and then college
They tell us against the odds our bets must hedge
Then we are ready to work, a job for life
More money we need, we get husband or wife;
Then we both will go to work, one job or more
Work in mall day times, at night sweep the floor
And as if all this stress is not enough
They downsize, fire the work force, and lay them off.
Finally at sixty five, sometimes before
Menial pension we get, retire poor.When we ask about the course our lives just ran
All we see is life of a "Cookie cutter man".
We blame "Them", "They" brought soulless freeze
Inflicting hardships of modern disease
But in truth the cause to ourselves can trace
If "Cookie cutter" lifestyle we embrace.© Shahriar Shahriari
Vancouver, Canada
September 23, 1997
I went to a play that was called "Life",
In which played a husband and wife
They had two kids, a girl and a boy,
And a nanny whom they employ.
He was a doctor, she was a CA
Comfortable income, house, cars, work and play.
If you saw their life, you'd have to say
Such busy people, both night and day;
Never a moment to be still and feel,
Habit numbed their minds, souls caged in steel.
Suddenly one day, they begun to peel
Layers of their shells, started to heal,
Asked the hard questions, who am I, what's this?
And why in my life I feel that I miss
Something meaningful, whatever that is,
I can't even feel my lover's kiss.It then dawned on me that in this play
I had seen my soul, naked out there lay,
No matter how much I deny or say
I live my own life in the same way.
I act in my life throughout the day
And in the eve I watch the same play.
Art imitates life, or the other way
In either case we dearly pay.Like watching a dream within a dream
Awakened from the last by the first's scream;
This time I awake from my dreamy trance
Am ready to feel and take a chance.
So on bended knees, gratefully I pray
For such a shocking and clear display.© Shahriar Shahriari
Vancouver, Canada
October 1, 1997
To choose Pepsi or Coke with rum
In our culture is freedom;
One day to our senses will come
And view freedom from
Other than a superficial bum.Some fear that in the human psyche
Freedom rings of anarchy,
Others say that the individual
Must break away from life and all,
Some say in society one must abide
Only in isolation can freedom reside;
But freedom is none of the above
Freedom stems from a deeper love.
Love of the soul and the spirit
Expressing itself through us with it.
Freedom is not our individuality
Freedom is a spontaneous reality,
Freedom is to be in possession
Of ourselves, our soul's expression;
Freedom is over ourselves command
And fulfill Great Spirit's demand.© Shahriar Shahriari
Vancouver, Canada
September 23, 1997
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