Come gather ’round people wherever you roam And admit that the waters around you have grown Accept it soon, you’ll be drenched to the bone…”The Times They Are A-Changin’” by Bob Dylan
oh, the road is impassable
and there’s no light ahead
bleakness has grown
and leadened our eyes
deserts have spread
over this land
water is scarce
and common sense too
we’re back where we
started so very long ago…
misogyny is alive and sickening
bigotry has become pathological
no one blinks at wars and unrest
the worst is the killing of our spirits
but no one notices as they slowly
slip away, replaced by rampant indifference
the good and merciful
are no longer valued
they’re seen as weak,
coddling freaks
nature was where
we once could worship
but our greedy ways
diminished it to nothing
a sterile world
is what we have left
because small-minded
people thought they knew best
Bjorn is our host for Meeting the Bar at dVerse Poets. Head over there to read his presentation on our prompt for the day. Bob Dylan is in the spotlight for winning the Nobel Prize for Literature 2016.
Bodhirose's Blog 
Björn Rudberg (brudberg)
/ October 13, 2016This is so sad, but sometimes I feel we are led to believe that all is so terrible, that things is actually going well… and that bigotry is really going away…
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ihatepoetry
/ October 13, 2016This is a powerful, sad despairing poem. Well done. I could feel the weight of it all.
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Sanaa Rizvi
/ October 13, 2016This is so sad a truth.. the closing stanza is especially powerful! ❤️
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navasolanature
/ October 13, 2016Very bleak and I think it is a difficult time for hopefulness. I feel a bit despairing too but I think it is about the good voices rising up above the ‘locker room’. One of our famous politicians and historians said something like’ each generation has to learn how to fight the battles that have been fought before’ And I think we have moved on but i suppose it seems like it all the good can so easily be unhinged. Your poem is very real in expressing that and sharing it.
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ladynyo
/ October 13, 2016This is good, but I started to laugh. Not at your poem, but I was reading the opening stanzas to the rhythm of his song, and then it expanded!!!! LOLL! I guess it was the line: bigotry has become pathological…. Not that I disagree with you at all….but it jerked me out of his cadence and I lost the song! LOL! But I agree, I agree! with your social observations.
It doesn’t look like be have progressed very far. Perhaps like the Russian:”One Step Forward, Two Back”.
Jane
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Grace
/ October 13, 2016It seems that we have gone backwards in our ways & diminishing nature along the way ~ Love this part Gayle:
water is scarce
and common sense too
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Dr. Crystal Howe
/ October 13, 2016Unfortunately so true. May times change for the better, and the betterment of all!
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kanzensakura
/ October 13, 2016Powerful and true. We have changed but not for the best. In spite of the angst and breast beating, we have gone backwards instead of forward. Excellent wfite.
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Sherry Marr
/ October 13, 2016The thing is, with timely, CONSCIOUS inspiring leaders, our hearts would leap up in hope, as mine did when Obama was elected. He did not disappoint. His hands were tied by an opposing party who wouldn’t work with him, but he still got a whole lot done. This election is sucking hope right out of me.
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Bodhirose
/ October 13, 2016I agree 100%, Sherry, and I had that same hopeful feeling when Obama came into office. He was blocked from carrying out much of the good works that he wanted to accomplish. The hope is sucked out of me too, thus my despairing poem!
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kim881
/ October 14, 2016Like Jane, I got into the pace and rhythm of the poem, so like the original, and then was reined in by those lines:
‘misogyny is alive and sickening
bigotry has become pathological’
and
‘slip away, replaced by rampant indifference’
You created a false sense of security in this poem and then sucker-punched us!
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Bryan Ens
/ October 14, 2016I think, if Dylan read your words, he’d say, “I wish I’d written that!” Too much truth in your words.
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Brian
/ October 14, 2016Angry folk – music screams – soon a changin’ time, again, nothing new here. I ‘like’ your poem, I like the anger and the frustration. I understand despair too.
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lillian
/ October 14, 2016Killer words on how these times have evolved and where we are. Last stanza is such an indictment. I feel pain and hopelessness in this…It is palpable.
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Laura Bloomsbury
/ October 14, 2016a dire Dylanesque dish you served up here from those opening impassable lines – “coddling freaks” is a great phrase
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Victoria C. Slotto
/ October 14, 2016This reality pains me–but you have nailed it, Gayle. There are times when I am glad I’m the age I am. I don’t like where I see things going. Doesn’t this sound way too pessimistic?
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paulscribbles
/ October 14, 2016Deep and profound and full of truth.
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mother wintermoon
/ October 14, 2016Powerful work incorporating current events and states of (un)consciousness into your Dylan inspired poem. Really poignant and evocative. x
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Glenn Buttkus
/ October 14, 2016Damn fine word smithing, Gayle, catching us on the downbeat. One of the great things about being a poet, is that we can write about where our soul, our heart is at that moment, and at another time dance on the ceiling, or samba on the clouds. I fear sometimes that my poetry is too angry, sarcastic, even dystopian–but then dVerse hosts have us doing limericks or nonsense verse. You’re so right, that our inspirations from the same song occupied different spaces on the poetic spectrum; very cool actually.
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Miss Stacy
/ October 15, 2016there’s so much sad truth to this. so much like the original, but with a fresh new modern-day take.
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ZQ
/ October 15, 2016…You be feelin’ it…
BUT, remember the times are a changin’…
now what are we supposed to do?
As Dylan suggested,– change reshapes change. “For The times Are Changing…”
🙂
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