Thursday, February 11, 2016

Brotherhood


image by etsy.com


Brotherhood

“We don’t need holy wars. What we need is
tolerance & brotherhood--simple humanity.”
--Arien Specter

Dare we dream of perfect brotherhood
within a world strangled by greed?
If goals are checkmated by need,
are politician’s promises any damn good?

Our democracy perhaps should
be less other-directed, and take heed;
dare we dream of perfect brotherhood
within a world strangled by greed?

We are a nation of can’t--if only we could
actually govern from love, and not impede
those beautiful dreamers who want to lead
us out of chaos, to where equity is understood.
Dare we dream of perfect brotherhood?


Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub MTB

A humane, political plea in the Rondel form.

20 comments:

brudberg said...

Dare we even dream of honesty, and politeness.. it seems like politics is just being rude and shouting to each other... I cannot even listen to politicians these days.

Victoria said...

The repetitive nature of this form works well to drive home the central message of this poem. Nice work with the form and I always enjoy the quotes you use to lead in to the body of work.

Sanaa Rizvi said...

Yes! we might as well dare if we are to make a difference.
Brilliant write :D

Lots of love,
Sanaa

Anonymous said...

Yes! I dream of that. The flow of this is as lovely as that thought of peaceful coexistence.

AnotherFearlessYear.net said...

A wonderful dream, indeed! If only we could rid the world of pride and greed. As the bumper sticker says, "Wag more, bark less." Peace, Linda

Anonymous said...

perfectly stated! what has happened to honesty and compassion?

Blogoratti said...

Unfortunately, the world is filled with too much selfish interests to make brotherhood a reality. Great piece!

Mary said...

This is a strong plea, Glenn. I think there is one candidate who is inspiring those dreams in the young & inspires hope for a better tomorrow. Makes me feel perhaps idealism is still alive. I do wish I were optimistic that perfect brotherhood could be achieved though.

Grace said...

Don't we all wish for this, a perfect brotherhood ~ But there's so much in stake in politics that all politicians just have a vested interest ~

Kathy Reed said...


I think if one was ever an idealist, one always retains hope the world will change with the right impetus or leader. Whenever my faith in mankind is restored, I revert back to Camelot and think maybe, just maybe, this is the change we need .. goodness and brotherhood will win out in the end. Nice emphasis in your repetitions here, Glen.

Bodhirose said...

We do wish for a perfect brotherhood but I don't think we will ever achieve that. We can hope for a semblance perhaps but there will always be rumblings and chaos in this world. "--simple humanity"...isn't so simple. It is what it is.

I love the topic of hope for brotherhood and your strong repeating lines in this, Glenn. If only the leaders of the world would heed the voices of their constituents.

Truedessa said...

Glenn,

We must always dream of brotherhood and maybe someday it will be so but, probably not in my lifetime. You like to get to the heart of the matter :)

De Jackson said...

How well this repeating form works for a political plea. Well done.

Rosemary Nissen-Wade said...

Great questions, well posed.

Carol Campbell said...

Indeed! Can we? So well written and meaningful!

Sumana Roy said...

oh i'm a pessimist in this matter...as long as greed reigns perfect brotherhood is a mere utopia ...you've really played with the form so well...i see that the refrains work wonder here...

Unknown said...

It must be hard to be a politician who has reasonable goals when they have to fight against a corrupt and greedy system

lillianthehomepoet.wordpress.com said...

The "dare we dream" repetition is so powerful here. You've posed some age-old questions in this piece. And as MLK said, "I have a dream...." There are those who dream and only wonder....there are those who dream and work to enact. Let us hope to decrease the apathy and move forward! Very well done piece! As always.

Katie Mia Frederick said...

SAdly again..
when no longer
the hunt for
food is a j)int
effort oF forAGe
true.. stores become
real in yesternowmorrows
no longer now relevant..
a fiGht oF Survival Love..
moving connecting
creating live dissolves
iN human sidewalks
of order
over free..
iN other words..
freedom can only
be attained at the individual
and smAll group level.. in human
eyes only evolved to flesh connect
wITh 150 to 200 or so eYes of homogenous
other.. there is no escape from Nature..
but free iS Nature
so at least we
can come back
for now
wHere we
are.. insanity
oF a society iN
population exploding
sTill oF hairless small
group apes.. is no
escape but
back to the
past as future
now once
more
now
free
iN
fur
of ancestral
truths core to uS..
liGht in smAll moving
connecting creative now
homogenous groups..
strife will always be
the different
of us togetHeR
iN Black and
White Spectrums
of aLL wE can beE
iN colored Life
oF RainBow
hopes..
now
iS
ALL that counts
for now at least and
so much more human
potenTial great!ER N0W..:)

Margaret said...

I feel I need to just say " Amen"