Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Hope through song for a post-9/11 country

Johnny Booth was a headstrong fella
Even he believed the things he said
Some called him noble, some said yella
What he was was off his head

How could you do it,Johnny,
Calling it a cause?
You left a legacy of butchery
And treason we took eagerly,
And thought you'd get applause.

But traitors just get jeers and boos,
Not visits to their graves,
While Lincoln, who got mixed reviews,
Beacause of you, John, now gets only raves.

Damn you Johnny, you paved the way
for other madmen To make us pay.
Lots of madmen have had their say-
But only for a day.

Listen to the stories.
Hear it in the songs.
Angry men
Don't write the rules
And guns don't write the wrongs.

Hurts a while,
But soon the country's
Back where it belongs,
And that's the truth.
Still and all.

-- from "Assassins," Stephen Sondheim

Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Images of broken light which
dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Sounds of laughter shades of life
are ringing through my open ears
exciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Jai guru deva

-- Across The Universe, The Beatles

You are invited to post your own songs of hope that help to remind you that there is nothing a lunatic with a gun, a pipe bomb, or even a captured aircraft can take from us that we cannot regain, so long as we share the strength of our convictions.

In the months after 9/11 I was taking it pretty hard so I wrote a poem and entered it into a contest and actually was able to have it published by www.poetry.com

Its still online, and you can check it out here: "Where are the Doves?" . EDIT - the link goes to the website so you have to type in my name. I try not to give that out here so crazed Cobalt Kid fans don't end up stalking me (they know who they are Here it is anyway:

Where are the Doves?
"A Hawk flies into our tower, our world now upside down
Where are the Doves?
Our tower falls, and the innocence is over
Who is to blame, who is the Hawk?
An enemy will feel our wrath, we will have revenge
Is it the right enemy?
We, too, can be Hawks, and we, too, can destroy towers
Is this the time and the place?
They run and they hide as our Hawks return the favor
But where are the Doves?"

I have the published book at home. I have some other (not as good) poems on there, but I actually had a much better poem published by an actual publishing house about two years later (2003-2004). I don’t think that one is online though, but it won an award and is published in a separate piece, and is actually on page #1 of the collection.

The poem ‘Where are the Doves?’, which I linked to, I literally wrote in November 2001.