I cannot hear to write when so many voices speak.
At first I was a champion of the poor and of the weak.
Treading lightly for fear of hurting you, I reined my conscience in,
but now I find that I care not and so my healing must begin.
Tales of olden days gone by that never will stay dead
and when I think that all is lost, there is more that can be said.
Pray, tell me of your fears and I will seek to write them down,
and at night when I fall asleep, I think that I shall drown,
in the deep and murky darkness of tears that I have shed.
They seep inside my soul and consume me with such dread,
from all the voices I have heard as misery does take hold,
and of days of yesteryear and of a sun of burnished gold.
Oh, I hear you and I see you but not as individual souls
and whatever has been written can be found on parchment scrolls.
Your life was never joined with mine, we have seperate identities
and no matter what our faith is, we both fill the world with cruelties.
Wisdom, we will never learn and so our burdens shall remain.
Was man ever sound and whole or was man just born insane?
Written by
Shelby I. Courtland
©2014 Shelby I. Courtland
shelbycourtland 
This is an outstanding poem and accompanying art work, Shelby. Sometimes the voices can be deafening.
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Yes Jeff, they are. The sound of so many people in pain, of so many people suffering, of so many people, hopeless and marching and protesting and needing, needing, needing and we just keep pleading, pleading, pleading for peace and not war, for food for the hungry, not bombs to kill. And so that is why I ask, “Was man ever sound and whole or was man just born insane?
Sometimes, I have to shut things down and take a break before I shutdown and break because the people of this world will never get it. It is my opinion that man was born insane because I see nothing else that could explain why history keeps repeating itself. I cannot explain why we keep doing the same things over and over again and expect different results each time. And since this has been defined as the very definition of insanity, there we have it.
Thank you very much for the compliment and for commenting.
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Tubularsock’s answer: BORN INSANE!
Excellent poem, Shelby.
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Thank you SO much for that enthusiastic comment Tube! And ‘BORN INSANE’ gets ALL the votes! It is unanimous and unfortunate! SIGH!!!
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I knew you then, your words were different than they are now. One thing I know, we must all evolve to become who we were born to be. If we don’t, the message we are responsible to share will never be heard.
stay real shelby.
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Thanks Brian! I know, I keep evolving, for better or worse, I do not know. But the only constant is change.
Take care!
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Dear Shelby, as usual your poems are pure humanity, tears made words by a pure loving heart!
I would like to ask you a question: here in Portugal newspapers say that 75% of teh americans are in favour of a USA intervention in Syria. Is this true? Americans really do want Obama to attack Syria?
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Oh, Isabel! Thank you for that wonderful and lovely compliment! I can of course be, quite a handful as I’m sure you have read! It is due to pure disbelief and frustration and anger over man’s inhumanity to man. We never seem to get that shedding more blood will never lead to peace. We insist that the shedding of more blood WILL lead to peace. Seriously? I am so very tired of penning poem after poem and essay after essay saying the same thing over and over and not being able to do much more than that.
As for your question as to whether ‘Americans really do want Obama to attack Syria’? NO! Most of us are against it. When you hear of a poll of Americans stating that they want the U.S. to attack Syria, it is meaningless. If they polled 1,000 people and 600 approved Syrian airstrikes, it would PROVE nothing. There are over 300 million of U.S. and the last time around when Obama wanted to strike the hell out of Syria, congress and the White House was bombarded with calls to “stand down!” That hasn’t changed. Millions upon millions of us do NOT want Obama to authorize military airstrikes over Syria. But what we say is meaningless and if some Americans are FOR airstrikes over Syria, it is because of the hyping up of the beheaded journalists who had no business in a foreign country anyway. If they hadn’t been there, their fucking head would still be sitting atop their neck. They chose to risk reporting from a war zone or from a country, embattled. That is the risk they were willing to take. It is like saying that if I joined the police force, I expect not to get shot at or if I become a fireman, I don’t expect to get burned to death while fighting a fire. It is a risk you accept as part of your job. But what happened to those journalists should not be the impetus to start military airstrikes over Syria, but that is what is happening. Those two beheaded journalists are the scapegoats for Syrian airstrikes. And this time, Obama is bypassing getting authorization from congress to initiate airstrikes and apparently, there is some law on the books resulting from 9/11 to enable him to do so. That is why he timed this perfectly because 9/11 is a wound that will not heal thanks in part to the mainstream media hype about how horrible the people of the Mideast are for having come over to America and caused the 9/11 tragedy. They did NOT, but too many Americans bury their head into their objects of distraction and refuse to do their own homework and simply believe anything that this worthless government and its media whores tell them. So much for individual thinking. We’ve a collective thing going on over here and more’s the goddamn pity!
So, once again, NO, absolutely NO, most of us are NOT and NEVER will be FOR bombing Syria! I am most definitely AGAINST it and I’ve already begun making calls to have my voice heard. Unfortunately, it will make no difference and again, more’s the goddamn pity!
I would apologize to the Syrian people, but what good would that do?
Again, thank you for the compliment on this poem and for your thoughtful question. SIGH! If it were up to me and millions of other Americans, there would be NO airstrikes on Syria!
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Thank you so much for letting people in Europe know how things really are. European media are twisting information and hidding the truth.
Big hug
Isabel
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You’re welcome Isabel. However, everything gets just as twisted over here. And many are quite willing to believe whatever is shoved at them over actually doing a bit of research and finding things out for themselves. I’ve probably already gone over this but it never fails to amaze me, the willingness of the ignorant to remain, ignorant and easily persuaded and led. Unfortunately, we Americans are hopelessly ignorant and oh so obnoxious about it! No wonder many Americans that I talk to have no desire to travel abroad. Apparently, some are finally getting a clue that they will not be well received everywhere they go. I mean, they just could not imagine who could NOT like the Americans. Unbelievable, but that’s Americans for you.
You take care Isabel and a big hug to you!
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