Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Stand Up for Something

Clifford A. Brown
By Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown Contributor
Retired from the U.S. Army Reserve as a Colonel after 30 years of active and reserve assignments. M.A. Political Science, M.S. Strategic Studies, Army War College, JD. Served in 1st Armored Division in West Germany when the Berlin Wall came down, in 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea during the regime of Kim Il Sung, and commanded a logistics battalion in Iraq 2003-2004. Wide-ranging public policy interests. Occasional home brewer and infuser of alcohol spirits.
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Stipulated, I am no poet. Nevertheless, herein I offer a bit of what I understand to be free verse. It seemed to fit the thoughts and feelings of the moment. Doggerel it may be, but the contents, the realities behind the words, have been dogging my thoughts for some time.

Stand up!

Stand up for the children
gunned down on our streets.

Stand up for Natalia Wallace,
who was 7.

Stand up for Mekhi James,
who was 3.

Stand up for Vernado Jones Jr.,
who was 14.

Stand up for Sincere Gaston,
who was 1.

Stand up for Lena Nunez,
who was 10.

Stand up for Amaria Jones,
who was 13.

Stand up for Davon McNeal,
who was 11.

Stand up for Secoriea Turner,
who was 8.

Stand up for the grieving families,
for the lost children,
murdered by depraved thugs.

Stand up!

Stand up for children,
deprived of education,
American birthrights.

Stand up for parents,
let them send their children to good schools,
no matter where they live.

Stand up for America’s future,
our children.

Stand up!

Stand up for our elderly,
terrorized by gangs.

Stand up for mothers and grandmas,
praying every time their child and grandchild walks out the door.

Stand up for those too often ignored,
too long taken for granted by those elected to serve them.

Stand up!

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  1. Clifford A. Brown Contributor
    Clifford A. Brown
    Post author

    Roll your own or share a bit of verse you like or dislike as part of our July Group Writing theme: “The Doggerel Days of Summer.”

    Interested in Group Writing topics that came before? See the handy compendium of monthly themes. Check out links in the Group Writing Group. You can also join the group to get a notification when a new monthly theme is posted.

    • #1
    • July 10, 2020, at 3:56 PM PDT
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  2. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles

    Stipulated I am no poet.

    I’d say you are.

    • #2
    • July 10, 2020, at 3:57 PM PDT
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  3. Clifford A. Brown Contributor
    Clifford A. Brown
    Post author

    RightAngles (View Comment):

    Stipulated I am no poet.

    I’d say you are.

    I did a quick check of “free verse” and did a bit of rearranging to get a bit of cadence in the lines. 

    Sadly, it could become epic verse if I started going back past the Independence Day weekend to recite each child’s name for the year to date.

    • #3
    • July 10, 2020, at 4:03 PM PDT
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  4. Douglas Pratt Coolidge
    Douglas Pratt Joined in the first year of Ricochet Ricochet Charter Member

    To quote that great literary thinker Pogo, blanker verse was never blunk.

    • #4
    • July 10, 2020, at 4:16 PM PDT
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  5. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…

    I can’t resist. You’re a poet and you didn’t even know it.

    No more rhymes now, I mean it . . . 

    • #5
    • July 10, 2020, at 4:58 PM PDT
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  6. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):

    I can’t resist. You’re a poet and you didn’t even know it.

    No more rhymes now, I mean it . . .

    But his feet show it.
    They’re Longfellows! 

    hahahahahahah oh I crack myself up Okay I’ll just show myself out

    • #6
    • July 10, 2020, at 6:05 PM PDT
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  7. Rodin Member
    Rodin

    [Failed attempt to embed door opening gif.]

    • #7
    • July 10, 2020, at 6:40 PM PDT
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  8. Arahant Member
    Arahant

    Rodin (View Comment):

    [Failed attempt to embed door opening gif.]

    Momo With the Hime Cut!! | allkpop Forums

    • #8
    • July 10, 2020, at 10:48 PM PDT
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  9. Clifford A. Brown Contributor
    Clifford A. Brown
    Post author

    More such marches and lots of presidential tweets and statements supporting these marches: “No justice, no sleep.”

    They were protesting the killing by gang members of an eleven year old boy and the lax policing of their neighborhood.

    The boy, Davon McNeal a budding football star, was gunned down as he was leaving a Fourth of July cookout organized by his mother, an anti-violence advocate. The suspects are members of “the Crashout Gang.” Guns blazing, they were chasing people believed to be members of a rival gang. A stray bullet killed young McNeal, one of eleven people fatally shot in Washington, D.C. in the first week of July.

    According to the Washington Post, the protesters want more, not less policing in their neighborhood. One mother told the Post:

    Police need more presence here. They need to step it up. They’re sitting in their cars. Walk around. Where are all the police people on bicycles?

    The protesters dismissed out of hand the lunatic idea of defunding the police. Said one, “of course not, that’s totally, totally wrong.”

     

    • #9
    • July 12, 2020, at 7:36 PM PDT
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