Two Voices

Two Voices

Hateful words flying through the air

Like missiles and poisonous gas

They don't listen

Being so intent on trying to come up with

The next argument to prove how "woke" they are.

And let the people say.....I'm tired of this crap!!!

Anger's voice is too loud to talk over

We need a peacemaker like Ghandi, like Martin Luther King, like Jesus

The Bible says: Make no friendship with an angry man

Why?

Because an angry man is a walled city that can't be scaled

Bang your head on his wall, he won't hear you

He only hears the screams of his anger

Anger, non-righteous, is a demon that is only afraid of love

Righteous anger is good but even that must be laid aside

Before the sun goes down.

There comes a time

When weapons need to be laid down

And replaced by handshakes and hugs

And let the people say...I'm tired of war!

You can't rewrite history

You can only write the next chapter of the story

Let the poets and the lovers and the godly write that chapter

Take the thousand dollar pens out of the hands of the one per centers

It is they who wrote the previous chapters of hate and war

And made the innocent masses pay for their crimes.

And let the people say....Ain't that the truth!!!!

We know what's going on here,

We who have ears to hear

And eyes to see

We know who it is that loves war and hates peace

We know who it is that conquers by division

We know what drives men to madness 

And children to nightmares

We know.........................

And we know that the ancient law of "eye for an eye"

Only led to a world full of blind men

"Tooth for a tooth" led to teethless people made even more angry

By their inability to gnash their teeth

The only people who will attain peace in this world

Are those, like Chief Joseph, who say "I will fight no more again forever."

For fighting leads to fighting and killing of the body

Leads to killing of the soul.

And let the people say...... Somebody done growed a brain up in here!!!

All blood is red (unless you're a Martian)

And all men bleed the same color

Why?

Because we are of one race, one species, one family

Sly Stone said it well in "Family Affair" when he sang....

"One child grows up to be somebody that just loves to learn

And another child grows up to be somebody you'd just love to burn

Mom loves the both of them. You see it's in the blood.........

What am I saying?

 We are all one family, one blood

But depending on whose voice you listen to and follow.....

You will either be a good or evil member of that family

You will love your fellow man or burn in  the fire of your own anger

It's your choice to make

 Hate begets hate, love begets love

The Creator will still love you

 But He probably won't like you very much.

Why? 

Because you don't listen to the voice of Reason

But are swayed by the voice of Vengeance

There are only two voices in this world

One wants you to live in peace and love as you were made to love

And the other one knows...................

His time is short.

And let the people say.....Amen and Amen!

(now give me a High Five 

and a hug around the neck, Somebody!)

©by Voo Shining Stone

Sept 29, 2020

8:34 p.m.

Family Affair By The Family Stone

The Eyes Of Old Men

The Eyes of Old Men

We've seen your heart in the eyes of old men

Taken under your wing every now and again

You gave them a home and a laugh, and a meal

You gave them a refuge and some peace they could feel

God was pleased with your compassion, I know

I don't need anyone to tell me it's so.

You grew up strong and you grew up wild

To your parents, a gift and an only child

You got their blessings and cursings, too

For their only desire was controlling you

But you honored them with all that you had

Even though it would often make other folks mad.

When I was a child, you were busy and gone

And left us there often in our hills and our home

At times you were hard and seemed to us, cruel

Provoked and provoking us like we were tools

At times you were gentle and spoke with a soft voice

And we wondered what happened when you made that choice.

You were such a strong bodied and willful man

Guiding us all with your strong, willful hands

Even now as you lie there all broken and weak

You're still making us cower like we're tiny and meek

We try hard to honor you just as much as we can

But we take our guidance now from Heaven's strong hand.

Father, up there You must know just how much

We struggle and long for our Dad's gentle touch

A word of concern, or a soft loving glance

Some interest in our lives. Is there any chance?

Please reach down, I beg You and open his heart

For all we are growing is farther apart.

For we are, as those old men, so lonely and cold

Friendless and untouched, much like things bought and sold

Betrayed by his hard looks, cruel laughs and mean words

Orphaned by his father's heart. Oh, Lord, it's absurd!

We are cut to the quick till the tears sting our eyes

While we reach out in vain for his love like a prize.

Oh, Lord, hear the prayers in our unhealed childish hearts

Resolve and restore before death pulls us apart

We've waited so long for a Daddy that cares

And who smiles with his eyes and doesn't pierce with his stare

We just want the same love that we know he has shown

Open armed to the outcasts, to these outcasts at home.

Daddy, we've seen your heart in the eyes of old men

Homeless old beggars, and you took them in

But Daddy, we need you, to look now at us

Your children, grown up in a world without trust

Trusting in God now to guide from above

But we still need your kindness, we still need your love.

Look now upon us, six trees standing tall

We are your children, you fathered us all

But we need a daddy and we need a friend

And all of those things that you've never been

We're motherless now and soon you'll be gone

While there's time, won't you reach out and make us feel at home

In the eyes of an old man...............

©by Joy and Voo

Jan 07, 08

For our dad
who died in 2014
Don't know if he ever read this or not
but we sent it to him
There are 4 of us left now
and he never made his peace with us

The Green Hills...... in Memory of my brother

   going to the farm.....

The Green Hills

The green, green hills of Tennessee

Were tall and full of glory

As they always were and ever will be

To a barefoot child who ran there.

The skies were bright blue,

Filled with clouds of white cotton

Floating along lazily in the azure expanse,

In the wrath of a gold, blazing sun.

It was an involuntary journey,

Going back into the past

That had molded and made me

Who I was, who I am.

I didn’t want to be there, like that

A stranger, a visitor coming home from the world

One that had run from those wild, wandering hills

As fast as my young legs could take me.

I didn’t know what to do, where to look

I didn’t know how to feel, how to act

It was as if I walked in a long dreamless dream

Where everything was familiar but foreign.

There was family there

Some that I barely knew,

People who wanted to know and love me

But really, had no idea how.

It was strange

And beyond strange

In that pastoral setting

Such a postcard of a place that never quite was.

It was where I learned about life

And how not to live it

Where I learned how to die

And how to avoid it.

My hometown,

A scene that seems never to change,

Those hills rising high in the mists of the morning

Like castles in a little girl’s mind.

It was there I created a world

That would never be mine

Lying in meadows, fishing in creeks,

Praying into blue skies with my eyes full of tears.

Looking for answers

To a heart full of questions

Wondering how, why and when that the answers would come

Listening for whispers that I’d never hear.

That beautiful place

Was my prison, my dungeon

Jailed in that Eden by the need to control,

The need to suppress and the need to possess.

I was my father’s daughter

But he was hardly "my Daddy"

Just the despot of paradise

And a cloud blocking the sun.

Now,

He still lives where the hills make a hollow

Crippled and bitter, with a heart slowly dying,

Failing from disuse, still congested with scorn.

We buried my brother beneath that green earth,

Buried someone so gentle

And someone who was good

In the place of a man who could never show love.

There was a peace there

In the arms of the forests

It crept in with the terror

And the fear of the unknown.

It tried to comfort me, tried to hold me

But I couldn’t see it through my tears

Now, maybe I can feel it’s touch

Now that I’m far away.

I laid my brother’s funeral rose

Against my mother’s tombstone

Her sisters sang, (the two that’s left)

Old hymns from yesterday.

It was surreal, like life and death

And sadly bittersweet

Like a photograph you have to take

But you never want to see.

What is it about going home

That makes you feel so old?

Makes you remember your every thought

And relive your every dream?

There were some mysteries solved

But I left with different questions

So many scars were opened up

That I thought had long been healed.

How can ugliness live in a place of such beauty?

Innocence die, in the face of disdain?

I do not understand, Lord, I do not understand!

Shouldn’t there be answers now, shouldn’t there be love?

I feel like such a child again

A new-born child sent back in time

To the place that formed this wounded woman,

Birthed poems of joy and dark despair.

I don’t know how to write of this

Mere words somehow cannot convey

The pictures painted on my mind,

The flood that’s raging through my soul.

Those green, green hills of Tennessee

My hell, my heaven, my childhood home

Faded now with sunset in the rear view mirror

And I’ve never felt so all alone.

©By Voo Shining Stone

August 28, 2011

the occasion of my

brother Mike's death

The Voice of Her Dreams

The Voice Of Her Dreams


She hears with her heart
She sees with her soul
She knows what is glitter
She knows what is gold.

For she loves the tall mountains
And the sways of the seas
The touch of a sun beam
And the dance of the trees.

In the beauty she finds there
Perfect peace, hidden truth
In the vines, she's untangled
In the sky, she finds roots.

There are no rarer creatures
Than the ones that can hear
When the world stops it's groaning
And the silence draws near.

In the silence, she listens
To the forests and streams
To the mountains and meadows
And the voice of her dreams.



©by Voo
To Mountain Woman
March 30, 2008
1:43 a.m.