This was a writing assignment from my senior year in High School, a slam poetry writing prompt that needed to be based on voting. This was in 2008 before President Obama’s election. Really interesting to see where my head was at, and then think about that I didn’t go on to officially start voting until this past election.

Looking back, I think it is the President’s #1 job to leave the nation in a better place than when he took the job. This is not a political space nor will it ever be, but I do think in a lot of ways he accomplished that. I just wish he did better about getting us out of the middle-east like was promised to my teenage self.

Gears of Change.

The river is calm,
it’s about to change direction.
The mountains are quiet;
an avalanche will reshape the land.
The herd is steady,
stampede is imminent.

The gears of change are oiled and ready.

But are the cogs between the nations?
Will this change be of hope? Progress?
Or of futility and shame?

For the billions of stars in the sky,
there are fifty.
Fifty that are on edge.
What will those united do?
To correct a wrong,
To establish hope once again
that the red white and blue stand for
Justice, freedom, and liberty.

We are hated
Despised
Mocked
Powerful
Free
And lost

Lost to the power of freedom.
Everyone must be free!
Under the rule of, red tanks
White bombs
And blue blazes.

We are disconnected from an infection on the people of the middle-east.
An infection of bomb shrapnel
in a child’s chest.
An infection of bodies crushed
by fallen debris.

Burned bloodied and bruised by a democratic hand of liberty dripping in the blood of 4077 of its own children.

After the towers that reached the sky fell, we stood tall.
Seven years later some barely remember the exact year they fell.

The eradication of terrorism was used as an excuse to render an opinion of evil powerless and gain control of liquid gold.

Lady liberty cries “Welcome.” Somberly as the broad striped doors begin to close behind her.

But the sun is getting brighter.
The river is whispering.
The mountains can hear the echoes.
And the herd? It’s tense.
Ready to stampede into the hands of every person willing to make a change.

And if you are for that change,
That hope.

Bust down that fuckin’ dam!
Scream in the mountains ‘til they crumble!
And stampede with me!

Vote for change
Vote for your country
And vote for yourself.

©2008 Trevor Elms