RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: LIFE SONGS
Looking Back
Ten year ago pot was illegal
In fifty of fifty states
Twenty years ago killer cops
Never made the news
And black lives never mattered
Thirty years ago gay people
And gay love was outlawed
Forty years ago indigenous people
Had no voice in government
And the American genocide
Was not recorded in history
Fifty years ago the government
Spied on people with impunity
And soldiers returning from Vietnam
Received no treatment for wounds
Of the mind spirit or soul
Sixty years ago college athletes
Beat up hipsters and gays for fun
Seventy years ago we stood in line
For crewcuts and puff hairdos
Eighty years ago we fought
The fascist war machine
And won
The years roll by
Like a river runs
The waves of change
Sweep over us
In many ways we are so much
Better than once we were
In other ways we have advanced
Only to turn back again
The struggle never ends
Yet history still bends
Toward the righteous
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