you dance
mad child dances in the street
playing rhythms that make my feet have their own agenda
on upturned buckets
and you tie off an intersection
with yellow yarn
and dance in the center
as if your dancing will make your tiny epicenter of peace
spread like shockwaves through the world
and chant your tired slogans
they only fall upon deaf ears

and i take my love's hand and we follow the mad ones
i follow and dance
as we wind through the streets of downtown
and people stop their cars and we flash peace signs
not realizing our signs have the same effect as trying
to illuminate the blackness
of the universe by lighting a match
and i follow dolled-up gutter punks carrying a cloth banner
talking about war

and i wonder what we know about war
what they know about war
and the reality of suffering
if they know how real it is about to be
to these people across the globe
that most will never know

i know a boy
who lives in kuwait
a friend from college
he has been looking for his
gas mask
and i hope for him
that he won't have to wear it

i have a cousin
who grew up under the repressive eye
of her step-mother
like a west coast cinderella
only raised as a jehova's witness
and she joined the navy
as her father before her
and my mother sent me a letter
and told me she'd gone
and i wonder if she believes
that she's protecting the world

and i watch and i dance
and i think of these things
and i love and i wish for them
and i wish i could find some wishing well
and i'd throw my whole wallet in

and i wonder why people can truly believe
the treacherous lies that they hear on tv
because cnn told me so i have to agree?

and so i scream out and i dance with kerouac's mad ones
updated for this new time
this new generation of things the tv tells us
and as a nation we're imploding and can't even see
but believe the liars figuring the news blurbs on our screens

and i smile and i dance
because i am a butterfly sneezing
that changes the weather in china.

====================================

oh god, this turned out so long...and so rambling...

anyway. this stems from me and my boyfriend accidentally stumbling into a peace rally in omaha over the weekend. that, and watching too much cnn.