Due to the atrocities in the US, I’ve decided to release the poem for free. I ask, as a writer and fellow human: if you share this poem, please credit me as the author. You can also show support at this link Gianni Franco
Freedom Weeps
Blood spews from punctured sores,
Lashings, slashings, bullets burrowed;
Flags flap half-mast, batons beat like a drum
Against their wall of shields
Commanded like pawns by the hounds
Of a waning regime: they pause and charge,
Their boots shudder the earth,
The Innocents await; praying, kneeling, shivering,
Freedom Weeps.
Sirens wail behind a wall of tanks,
Engines roaring, bucking them forward,
Strangling any point of escape,
Batons raised overhead, they strike like sledgehammers;
Skulls crack, bones snap, skin tears
Blood pools around the blameless bodies
Infused with the burning blacktop tar,
The Innocents shriek, howl, moan
For the pain today and hundreds of years before,
Reverberating throughout alleyways,
Up towards the darkening sky,
They whimper, moan, plead,
Freedom Weeps.
The dead piled two by two,
The maimed claw to safety,
Fingers shredded, nails unseated,
The pavement unforgiving.
The batons have eased,
Replaced with a toxic downpour,
Bombs blast poisonous gas,
Grating lungs, siphoning breath, burning tears,
Freedom Weeps.
There will be tomorrow, and the day after that;
Months, years, eternity,
The Innocents will continue to rise
With fists in the air, and fervent strides
Justice sought, justice fought, justice obtained,
The Innocents will rise,
Regimes will fall;
The Innocents will rise
Destroying the cycle of their prior demise,
Freedom weeps, but no longer for sorrow.
by Gianni Franco © 2019
