News of the Revolution

Revolt or riot? Both? Or civil war?
No matter what, who hasn’t realized
the revolution’s being televised.
The camera always wants a little more:
the street churns; a building burns. What for?
I only watch, aghast and hypnotized;
and all the while, an unrecognized,
unmastered thing still hovers at my door.

The TV sirens scream as if accusing
me of being wrong by being me.
I watch, but is this how it’s always been?

Now sirens in the street drown out the news.
The building that is burning on TV
is the building that I’m living in.

 

 

 

 

 

Daniel Kemper is a systems engineer living in California.

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4 Responses

  1. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    For me, this poem says so much about the modern-day reaction to the war on our doorstep. Many are dependent upon the MSM to assuage fear and engage hearts with the term “peaceful protests” for which the Western World is to blame… while the flames are licking away at our collective front door.

    Reply
    • Daniel Kemper

      My failure to be active, though not in hostility, accuses me per Genesis 4:7. “”If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

      Susan, I think you intuit that.

      Reply
  2. sally Cook

    Thank you for a fine poetic reminder to lift up our countenances and speak out.

    Reply
    • Daniel Kemper

      Thank you Sally,

      I was thinking of adding an epigram.

      “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke

      Reply

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