Posted in 100,000 Poets, Musicians, Artists and Activists for Change, The BeZine Table of Contents

100TPC — 2016

Posted on by The Bardo Group Beguines

Welcome to The BeZine’s online,
virtual 100,000 Poets for Change event!

This past week, an international aid convoy in Syria was attacked with devastating results, during a ceasefire. Bombs went off, as usual, in Iraq. They also went off in New Jersey and New York. There were terrorist knife attacks in Jerusalem. And knife attacks also in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Police shot (at least) two unarmed African-Americans in the United States. Police shot “terror suspects” in Israel. Iran arrested dissidents. China gave a dissident’s attorney a 12-year sentence.

Climate change has reduced the arctic ice sheets at record levels, this summer just ended. The Fertile Crescent, where Western civilization began, has suffered such a devastating drought that farmers have fled it for years now—a contributing cause to the Syrian civil war and the refugee crisis. The hardened, drought-stricken soil in the region, broken up by heavy war-machinery, artillery shelling, and bombs, has turned into dust that the wind picks up—a contributing cause of record dust storms throughout the region.

It is time for global change

For the past six years, 100,000 Poets for Change (100TPC) has inspired and supported events on a Saturday in September. This year, there are over 550 events scheduled throughout the world. This blog/zine is one of them. The goal is for poets (artists, musicians, actors, even mimes) to band together and perform / exhibit their work in a call to change the world for the better.

The 100TPC themes are peace, sustainability, and social justice. The September 2016 issue of The BeZine, edited by Priscilla Galasso and Steve Wiencek, focuses on environmental justice. This focus relates to social justice and sustainability, but is a necessary part of obtaining peace.

If we still have poverty and homelessness, what is sustained other than inequality? And, without social justice and a sustainable environment, could there be peace? Could peace be maintained without both social and environmental justice alongside environmental and economic sustainability?

Share your work here, today, as part of our 100TPC online event—help us create a space for change. As in past years, the event will be archived and made available later on The BeZine’s website and will also be archived at Standford University in California.

Here’s how to post your work

For today’s online event, our choice is not to put one of the three themes—peace, sustainability, and social justice—above the others, but to recognize that all of these three necessary areas of change interrelate in complex ways.

We invite you to participate. Share your writing, art, music, videos, thoughts that relate to these themes on our website today.

It’s actually easy to do.

  • Click on Mr. Linky below and follow instructions for posting a link to a post on your blog:

  • You can also post a link or writing directly into the comments below!
Come back during the day

Please return often today (Sept. 24, 2016) to read what others have posted, follow links, like, and leave comments—and to see and reply to what others have commented on your own posts and links. We would love to see an active dialogue!

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Author:

The focus of "The BeZine," a publication of The Bardo Group Beguines, is on sacred space (common ground) as it is expressed through the arts. Our work covers a range of topics: spirituality, life, death, personal experience, culture, current events, history, art, and photography and film. We share work here that is representative of universal human values however differently they might be expressed in our varied religions and cultures. We feel that our art and our Internet-facilitated social connection offer a means to see one another in our simple humanity, as brothers and sisters, and not as “other.” This is a space where we hope you’ll delight in learning how much you have in common with “other” peoples. We hope that your visits here will help you to love (respect) not fear. For more see our Info/Mission Statement Page.

165 thoughts on “100TPC — 2016”

  5. Hi all! I have a few haiku that I have been saving for this day. 🙂

    old growth forest tree
    webs wicking barren branches
    looks are deceiving

    move your gaze upward
    canopy of green extends
    an elder tree’s reach

    …

    soft moss-hued bark
    dresses the risen cedar
    anchoring the earth

    …

    petite brown squirrel
    scampers, searches, and plays
    people arrive

    Love you all!
    -Terri Stewart

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

        1. Thank you, Jamie! You are too kind. 🙂

          Thank you to you and Michael for hosting and running this effort. I’m about to set up the peacemaking circle! I’ll snap a couple photos of the set-up and post it in our group.

          Much love to you all!

          Liked by 3 people

          Reply
  8. Pingback: 100TPC — 2016 | Fragmentarily/ Meta-Phor(e) /Play

    1. Thank you, Renee! You and others make the work worthwhile and I am so touch by how many are so graciously opening their hearts via their art and sharing here. Happy day, Renee, hope all is well in your world.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
  15. Pingback: ***MANY COLORED PATTERNS *** | Turtle Flight, Angels & My Muse...Sometimes

  16. I’m enjoying the beautiful poetry that’she been posted here and on Mister Linky. In a world that often appears broken, it’s comforting to know there are people who want to be the caretakers and peacemakers to ensure that future generations have something to hold onto.

    Liked by 3 people

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      2. Osama Massarwa, an Israeli Palestinian reader last night at the Tel Aviv said something about this, too—that he wanted also to bring more people from the West Bank to join such meetings / readings so we could make peace together. Osama, from Taybeh on the West Bank, is a poet-writer in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

        Liked by 1 person

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        2. Osama Massarwa asked me to post the poem he read at the Tel Aviv 100TPC event:

          contemplations

          I look back and see through the mist
          How a ruthless and angry fist
          Has been crushing my precious peace
          And devouring it piece by piece.
          I was born on a land of mine
          Beautiful, splendid and fine,
          But, unfortunately, I am now
          A stranger and I don’t know how.
          A citizen of a third rate
          That’s what I’ve become, what a fate!
          A man who is always busted
          Because he cannot be trusted.
          I’m the native of this great land
          Just like its shores and golden sand,
          My rights are elementary,
          Say geography and history.
          It’s my right to grow and prosper
          And lead a life nice and proper.
          I’m not to be bound and deterred,
          And ultimately be transferred.
          I should be allowed to survive,
          Live in peace and, hopefully, thrive.
          Remember this is also my state too
          Whatever you inflict or do.
          Compromise is the stepping-stone
          Toward peace in this, land war-prone;
          Peace is the greatest gift and grace
          That can save us from this war-curse.
          Peace depends on the sanity
          Of those who deplore enmity,
          And those who have seen so much blood
          That can begin a second flood.
          Treat the others with the respect
          And love you demand and expect.
          Be curious to learn their culture
          That adds to the human structure.
          The world’s full of different colors,
          Like a garden full of flowers,
          Ah, what a dull and boring place,
          The world will be with just one race.
          Respect every identity
          And every race’s entity,
          Don’t hate this or that religion,
          Every one has its origin.
          If you form the majority,
          Still you are a minority,
          For it’s a relative matter
          So think it over, don’t stutter.
          I’m a man not just blood and flesh,
          You can’t treat me just as you wish.
          I’m a man as free as the wind
          That all enmities can transcend.
          By building barriers and that wall,
          Of course peace will eventually fall.
          They’ll definitely undermine
          All efforts for peace just and fine.
          We need to remove every cuff
          That hinders peace or such a staff.
          Don’t talk about equality,
          Do make it a reality.
          We all have to be courageous
          To do what’s just and righteous.
          To no avail is every deed
          That we do if it hate does breed.
          Why is it so easy to hold
          Onto prejudices so old?
          Why do we stick to a belief
          That leads to bloodshed and mischief.
          Why is it easier to stir
          The inhuman elements’ flare
          Than build up the mutual trust
          Between nations which is a must.
          Why should I prove my loyalty
          Every day to the royalty?
          Why can’t a citizen pursue
          His dreams despite what may ensue?
          Between the hammer hard and cold
          And the anvil they me do hold.
          Am I guilty of no reason?
          Is my survival a treason?
          Life by itself is a value
          Not land or any revenue.
          Love, compassion, and tolerance
          Are the paths to coexistence.
          Killing and assassinations,
          Violence and accusations
          Repeatedly reiterated
          Make me feel so irritated.
          Your arrogance and vanity
          Won’t make peace a reality.
          It can’t grow and it never will
          As long as you destroy and kill.
          Peace can’t live and dwell in a swamp
          Where prejudice does leave its stamp.
          Peace needs leaders brave and plain
          Who seek no political gain.
          Nations can’t live just by the sword,
          However strong they are and bold,
          Constant wars are to no avail,
          They only let hatred prevail.
          Peace is the key to all conflicts;
          War only disasters inflicts.
          There are no winners or losers,
          At war we’re all the abusers,
          Let’s all set up peace high and grand
          And not put it down to the ground,
          Narrow mindedness only leads
          To destruction and pains it yields.
          It is much wiser not to fall
          In faults whether big or so small.
          Why aren’t we any more thinkers?
          Why can’t we remove our blinkers?
          How can you get the other’s trust
          By being unfair and unjust?
          How can you be safe and secure
          While the other’s rights are obscure?
          Acts of mutual violence
          Lead to more and more vengeance.
          Compromise, on the other hand,
          Will make us share this splendid land.
          Greatness is the ability
          To give up one’s hostility.
          Only just peace can make amends,
          And make previous foes become friends.
          We need a world of peace and love
          That glitters like the stars above.
          We don’t need the narrow minded
          Who make the world with blood flooded.
          Peace won’t come through a gun’s barrel,
          This way you can’t win this battle.
          Peace comes through reconciliation,
          Not through acts of retaliation.
          To make peace a true prophesy,
          You have to change your policy.
          With love, honesty and good will
          We all can stop this useless kill.
          A ceaseless conflict nothing brings;
          It will render peace without wings.
          We have to live in harmony,
          Not in despair and agony.
          It’s the duty of everyone
          To fight for peace not for the gun.
          It’s a pity that the extreme
          Have become here the ruling stream.
          If we focus on the welfare
          Of nations and not on warfare,
          The world will be a better place
          In which everyone will live in grace.
          You can’t be oppressors for long
          Even if you’re now great and strong.
          You can survive by honesty,
          As well as thrive by modesty.
          Wars can end everything but hate
          Which keeps running deep like one’s fate.
          Mad power is self-destructive,
          However, it seems productive.
          I’m optimistic I confess
          No matter how much you oppress.
          I do believe that tomorrow
          Will yield no more pain or sorrow.
          However, it will take some time
          To get peace precious and sublime.
          Peace will eventually come true
          For your own good and mine too.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

  17. Please to post this on behalf of Thomas Higgins. Look for more from him – including artwork – in future issues of the Zine.

    It’s a Hard Life
    How hard it must be
    To make your living from
    Making bombs, and missiles
    and planes,guns and shells,
    and mines, and tanks
    and helicopter gunships, and drones,
    and rpgs and nerve gas,and training mercenaries,
    and marketing them
    as if they are as harmless as sofas,
    but selling them to every thug and
    murderer, and gangster and dictator
    on the planet.
    It is obviously difficult for you to make a decent living,
    but very easy to make a killing, or two, or three,or……………………..
    Tom Higgins 22/09/2016

    My name is Tom Higgins, I am sixty two years of age, and I live where I was born in Northwest England in an area known as the English Lake District. I have been married to my wife, Gill for thirty three years and we have two daughters, and so far one baby grandson, who is three months old.
    I started writing poetry when I was fifty five, and prior to this I never wrote anything more than business reports, and when I was sixty I started to draw and paint, another pleasure which now enhances my life.

    Liked by 3 people

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  18. The second of three from Tom Higgins
    Cannon Fodder.

    I was too young
    before I lived,
    much too young
    to die,
    I never thought
    my family
    would ever
    have to cry,
    because they had
    lost a son
    who died
    in a needless war,
    without them
    being given the chance
    to talk to me once more.

    I heard the clarion call
    I saw the banners wave
    they beckoned me and I
    went off to an early grave.

    I died before I
    had a chance
    to be a creative man
    and do whatever
    a thoughtful young man can
    and work to make the world
    a better place for all,
    a place where
    we can live a life
    without the bugle’s call,
    a world where
    we can grow in peace,
    and never be stunted by
    those who pay the bugler
    to call us up to die.

    (c) Tom Higgins 15/04/2015

    Liked by 3 people

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  19. The Third of Three from Tom Higgins

    Blessed are the Meek.

    He awoke under the rubble
    the weight pressed down
    his breathing laboured,
    he tried to move
    but he had trouble
    feeling his legs
    or his arms or hands,
    only his mind was not numb
    he could hear the screams,
    and he could see the flickering flames
    and he could taste the dust,
    and smell the blood,
    and the bitterness of burnt meat
    rising from below him
    within the smoke and
    the heat.
    He tried to shout
    he raised a squeak
    he was six years old,
    “blessed are the meek.”

    Tom Higgins 20/07/2015

    Liked by 3 people

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  21. Pingback: Nature’s Example #100tpc #poetsforchange | poetry penned in moon dust
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  23. Reblogged this on femidadaadedina and commented:
    It is the paradox of the black dot in the middle of the white paper. Those who made violence, injustice and inequalities their sonata are very few in the world. The armoury merchants, the sponsors of violence and the barons of industries are a small percentage of the billions in this world. However, they are empowered and and have the media which they use in cowering the 90 something percent down . A forum like this is an attempt to poke injustice in the eye. Read the tarry a while postings , most especially the “tarry a while vii ” on my blog- https://femidadaadedina.wordpress.com/ . This is a good project but we can go further than words by networking and contributing to raise funds and start projects that will contribute to fighting social injustice and bring about sustainability.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  24. Modified Justice Statue Iran: From Wikimedia Commons
    Modified Justice Statue Iran:
    From Wikimedia Commons
    empty pages
    embossed
    with
    invisible ink
    pages
    that
    blisters
    when
    hate’s heat
    of
    reality
    is applied
    and
    another mother’s son
    lies bleeding
    along
    a city street
    warm blood
    fuels
    the fires
    so
    the words
    no justice
    appears
    upon
    the page

    [audio mp3="https://slpmartin.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/posca.mp3"][/audio]

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  25. posca…

    empty pages
    embossed
    with
    invisible ink
    pages
    that
    blisters
    when
    hate’s heat
    of
    reality
    is applied
    and
    another mother’s son
    lies bleeding
    along
    a city street
    warm blood
    fuels
    the fires
    so
    the words
    no justice
    appears
    upon
    the page

    [audio mp3="https://slpmartin.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/posca.mp3"][/audio]

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply
  26. Pingback: It is a Sunday | BUTTERFLIES OF TIME- A CANVAS OF POETRY

  27. Here is another poem from the out of print Poems, Parables and Prayers for the 3rd Millennium (Plain View Press, 2001) for the occasion:

    Who will stop the tanks from grinding under gardens,
    the mortar shells from shredding towns, homes, and
    children who. pray for deliverance that never comes?
    Who will dig up mines hidden under roads
    that weary fathers travel, looking for work
    so they can feed their children,
    knowing they can survive the mines and
    still find their homes ground under and
    their children’s bodies shredded by
    mortar shells, or grenades, or charred by napalm or
    buried under rubble or bleeding to death
    while watching the medics who rush to save them
    float toward the sky on shrapnel clouds and
    land with a leg here, an arm there,
    eyes glazed, not comprehending?
    Who will stop the bombs from falling,
    from laying waste to block after block,
    burying living and dead under cinder and
    rubble while fires sweep from ruin to ruin?
    Who will stop the terrorist bombs from
    reducing buildings to flesh and debris,
    crushing victims who never realized
    that time had stopped for them?
    Who will stop the death squads,
    using the night to steal away someone’s
    father, or mother, or brother sleeping
    beside books which inspired his letter of protest
    about which they will question him before
    tossing what’s left of his body into a
    pickup truck and dumping it in an alley
    as a message, a cipher written in blood,
    a symbol of hope’s futility?
    Who will stop the mobs from pulling drivers
    into burning streets. from smashing store windows,
    from torching neighborhoods to unleash their rage?
    Who will stop vigilantes, filled with hatred,
    who dress their children in field gear,
    teach them to field strip rifles in forty seconds, to
    target the Black, the Atheist, the G-Man, the Jew?
    To target teachers, skeptics, and, sooner or later, their friends?

    In church we pray for God’s love
    to heal our hearts and planet,
    to deliver us from evil and
    bring justice, freedom, peace.
    We pray in safety, we pray from sanctuary,
    we pray in our living rooms far away
    from mortar shells and gun fire.
    Love that costs us nothingI is whimsy,
    as powerless as an infant
    trapped in the predator’s teeth.
    Do we lay in front of tanks before they roll?
    Do we storm air fields before the bombers fly?
    Do we offer our bodies as instruments of peace?
    Or do we write checks and poems,
    attend concerts to write more checks,
    send care packages to wish the dying well?
    Who has tested the power of love
    to turn back the power of hate?

    What kind of love can stop a bomb
    when it can’t stop pointing fingers,
    child beating, or even divorce over
    petty grudges. different faiths,
    wounds nursed for years until the
    infection kills any feeling that remains?
    What kind of love heralds peace on earth
    when it can’t stop the day-to-day
    carping and back stabbing in the work place?
    What kind of love can restore the soul when
    a question, a disagreement, a point of departure
    can tum one holy Catholic church into a
    million squabbling screaming factions with
    their own initiations, colors and turf?

    I don’t mean the Beatles kind of love,
    the teary-eyed, hug-giving,
    all you need is, endorphin pumping,
    brain-wave altering, sing along with
    your neighbor. revival meeting
    kind of love that sends you home filled
    with fuzzy feelings and grandiose resolutions that
    fade with your buzzing alarm clock.

    I don’t mean tough love,
    the kick the kid out or get daddy into detox
    because coddling will get them nothing,
    they have to take their problems head-on
    kind of love that leaves them to succeed on
    devices that failed them for years.

    I mean the God-given,
    takes practice to do right.
    lots of practice every day
    with people you can’t stand but
    try to love anyway kind of love.
    The kind of love where you dig in,
    grin and bear with people who could care less
    if you’re dead, and, if the truth be told,
    would probably like you better dead, and,
    even worse, you have to love them enough to
    respect their beliefs and not shove
    “Jesus loves you” down their throats
    every chance you get, but bide your
    time and find ways to support their needs
    and respect their beliefs. and
    (and this is the hardest part of all)
    be content to help them with the problems
    they want help with and resist the. need
    to make them just like you.

    That kind of love.

    The kind of love that makes you
    hold your child to your breast
    after you bailed him out of jail and
    he won’t even look at you and
    says, “Fuck you, I don’t need your help.” and
    still you hold him to your breast
    even though you realize you have a
    lifetime of work ahead of you.
    The kind of love that leads you
    into the county jail to talk to
    a prisoner who hasn‘t bathed since Monday,
    who’s sweating out the whiskey, and
    whose smell overpowers you in the close room
    with no fan and no moving air,
    and you help him work through
    his anger without trying to sell him
    the prepackaged belief system you
    keep on the storage shelf of your faith.
    The kind of love that makes you pray
    with those who meditate,
    to meditate beside those who pray,
    to pray in silence beside those
    who prefer to pray out loud for hours,
    to pause from your own eloquent prayers
    to hear the chants and mantras of others and to
    hear the silence in a room filled with
    those who pray in silence without,
    even for a moment, questioning their love for God;
    to choose not to lift yourself up and
    the god of your understanding for
    others to see, but to lift up others and
    the god of their understanding to ask,
    “Where is the God we worship in common and
    how can we show our love?”
    The kind of love that happens in small steps,
    one at a time,
    whose results you can’t measure
    for years, if ever. the kind of love that says
    you sit in a room of Southern Baptists
    if that’s what it takes to bind together to
    pray for peace, and sit down with
    the Pentecostals and speak in tongues
    if that’s what it takes to bring justice to the world,
    and then go the next step and bring
    the Pentecostals together with the Baptists and
    toss Catholics into the mix. and Episcopalians and
    then Buddhists, Krishnas, Moslems.
    Taoists, those who seek the goddess to
    transform themselves, transform the world, and
    stop speaking their names with contempt and
    stop, arguing ahout salvation and how to pray, and
    whether we worship a godhead, goddess or trinity,
    but to agree to love each other. and
    send up prayers of love, and do it now,
    not to wait for the millennium or the proper
    alignment of the planets or the Harmonic convergence
    but now, this minute, at the first opportunity,
    even if we’re in a room hy ourselves,
    or a handful of us in a living room,
    or in our offices remembering to
    hold hack those unkind comments
    or handing a dollar to the homeless
    or refusing to flip off the driver
    who pushed us out of our lane.
    We could unleash the power of love
    onto the planet, pour out God’s spirit,
    unleash a tidal wave of compassion
    that will push hack the tanks,
    bury the mortars under dirt,
    and bring the death squads to their knees
    begging for forgiveness from their victims.

    lnstead we argue about the nature of God,
    the manifestations of God, and the shape of the afterlife
    while the tanks line up at the edge of our own city
    and the soldiers drop shells into their mortars
    and our factories open their sluices
    to release their toxic sludge into our river,
    and the death squads prepare their lists of victims
    which include every member ofour families.

    In our domain we point out each others’ frailties
    to mask our own self-righteousness. The prudent
    accuses the activist of hrashness, the activist
    accuses the reveler of levity, the reveler
    accuses the diligent of obsession, the diligent
    accuses the skeptic of godlessness, and the skeptic
    chides the alcoholic for her lack of self-control.
    In God’s domain alcoholic leans on the prudent to learn sobriety,
    the prudent leans on the activist to leam initiative,
    the activist leans on the reveler to learn humor,
    the reveler leans on the diligent to learn restraint,
    the diligent leans on the skeptic to learn judgment,
    and the skeptic leans on the alcoholic (who prays to the
    God of her understanding for one more day of sobriety)
    to learn faith. As we lean we support each other,
    and as we support each other we build an unbroken
    circle of power, a ring of love, a wall of forgiveness
    and compassion to drive away the demons
    we created to destroy our world.

    Liked by 1 person

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  28. No option to peace
    Paris
    Beirut
    Belgium
    Mumbai
    London
    Bamako—
    The list is endless.
    Terror is unleashed
    By the masked young
    Spouting venom on everything.
    The violence, murders, mayhem
    Caused by random acts of hatred
    Choreographed by the merchants
    Of death has, always, an opposite effect:
    It unites Paris, Brussels, Mumbai and others
    With a grieving world.
    Masses turn out offering flowers, candles and tears
    To the slain innocent persons.
    Love united common humanity
    That chants Peace!
    And hatred gets defeated.

    Liked by 2 people

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  30. If I understand time zones enough and my calculations are correct, it remains the 24th of September until noon UTC-0 (GMT) in the last time zone before the International Dateline. I think this covers Samoa. In honor of the Pacific Islanders from Hawai’i to Samoa, I have chosen to continue to check in as EmCee through 14:00 my time, at which point it should be the 25th of September in 23 time zones and the 26th in one.

    That means, in simpler words— three more hours from the time stamp on this post.

    Liked by 1 person

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  35. Thank you everyone for your participation! The BeZine 100TPC 2016 event will soon be archived. In the meantime, please feel free to browse the comments and links. We received a lot of wonderful poetry!

    Thanks to Jamie Dedes, Terri Stewart, Priscilla Galasso, and Steve Weincek and all of the rest of the Bardo / Beguine Again / BeZine community.

    Like

    Reply
  36. Pingback: Saturday in September – Words for Life

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