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hughrbeyer.bsky.social
Hugh
@hughrbeyer.bsky.social
130 followers 680 following 59 posts
Nerd. Programmer. 3d modeler. Maker of game mods and modding tools. Sailor. Aikidoka.
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hughrbeyer.bsky.social
There it lies in ruins, the proud tower Blocks strewn across a newly-barren plain No hope that it can be rebuilt again Leave it there, and let its ruin flower. Some say foundations weak could never hold; Some say the mortar lost integrity. Some scorned the cost of fighting entropy— Would not maintain an edifice so bold. Oh, let it lie! In serenity depart— Stones and cellars never a tower made. Seek those instead who prospered in its shade Join with those who have the will and heart To become the builders of a place So fair and solid we can all live in grace.
March 31, 2025 at 12:39 AM
hughrbeyer.bsky.social
Written on 1/5/2020:
A consensual hallucination guides Our lives. We dream of things we cannot see: Of justice, honor, shared community. We pretend that we are civilized. And our pretense becomes reality Beliefs are real because we make them so And being real they set our lives aglow And so enrich our shared humanity. But, oh, should we the fond pretense unseat Accept the bitter crimson pill and tear From eye and soul every vain deceit What will remain, once we have stripped all bare? If our shared illusions we should forsake To what nightmares might we then awake?
January 6, 2025 at 4:53 PM
hughrbeyer.bsky.social
Do we do this kind of thing here? #poetsofbluesky #poetry #poem
Oh where are you wandering, countrymen mine? How far have you strayed from the land of your birth? You were born in a palace high up in the clouds And now you grub deep in the mud of the earth. You were given it all: a heritage sound Your forebears left treasures in lavish array Your grandmother’s crystal you’ve dashed to the ground Diamonds for tinsel you’ve traded away. And what you have lost, you don’t even know You can’t comprehend the heirlooms you break Once taught to distinguish the pure from the dross Now you’re given true gold and declare that it’s fake. Esau got pottage in trade for his fall But you gave your birthright for nothing at all. Where is the Cowboy whose range spanned the West? Where is the Yankee, independent and strong? Where is the Rebel, fierce and proud Fighting with honor though his cause was wrong? They were myths, they were dreams, a fable we spun From our hopes and our fears and our shortness of sight They were the mask that hid our misdeeds We used them to cover our nation’s dark blight. Instead, here’s the Rube who’ll believe any quack And the Klansman who’s traded his robes for a suit, And the Plutocrat smug with his book by Ayn Rand Explaining his right to keep all he can loot. Once we dreamed heroes but held them for cheap In favor of hustlers who fleece us like sheep. Our failure was not that our dreams were too large Our failure was rather our deeds were too slight The Cowboy and Yankee were never enough To feed us and guide us and hold us to right The cure cannot be to turn back the clock To cover with silence what’s festered too long To teach hate is easy; our more difficult path Is to build on our virtues and counter the wrong For the old dreams were true, though of limited scope We now see the multitudes this land contains Who were left in the dark by our hatred and greed The cure is—dream harder, until justice reigns From the city’s dark ghetto to the pale backwoods boy Let us unite them at last, all divisions destroy.
November 22, 2024 at 3:30 PM