Imagine Peace

"Imagine Peace," said John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Imagine Peace....
We are here, Imagining Peace.
Imagine the Patriot Act rolled back, and the next step, Patriot Act 2, stopped in this
    Administration's bloody tracks.
Imagine an end to poisoning the ocean, and the atmosphere, and the food we eat.
Imagine creating universal health care.
Imagine an end to homelessness and hunger.
The City of Baghdad is one front in a huge war. It's one war against nature and human nature. We
    are at countless fronts of the war around us as well as the foreign massacres and hells created by
    this unelected government.
Keep armed force out of Syria.
Imagine civil liberties, and foreign liberties, restored.

The 19th-century rebel poet Shelley said:
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number
Shake the chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you.
We are many, they are few.

Here's a poem of mine, beginning with words by Thoreau:

THAT GOVERNMENT IS BEST WHICH GOVERNS LEAST
Let me be free of ligaments and tendencies
to change myself into a shape
that's less than spirit.
LET ME BE A WOLF,
a caterpillar, a salmon,
or
an
OTTER
sailing in the silver water
beneath the rosy sky.
Were I a moth or condor
you'd see me fly!
I love this meat of which I'm made!
I dive into it to find the simplest vital shape!

AH! HERE'S THE CHILD!!!

WHAT'S LIBERTY WHEN ONE CLASS STARVES ANOTHER?
WHAT'S LIBERTY WHEN ONE CLASS STARVES ANOTHER?

—Michael McClure
Civic Center Plaza Peace Rally
San Francisco, April 12, 2003
(delivered in the pouring rain)