Somebody Is Murdering Democracy

 

Somebody Is Murdering Democracy

Nobody sees their crimes on Pennsylvania Avenue

We don’t have fingerprints or the weapons Putin used

But they’re murdering democracy, cutting out its heart and soul

They’re getting away with murder on Embassy Row

 

The almighty dollar and the lust for worldwide fame

Are killing democracy and for that someone should hang

They all say not guilty but the evidence will show

That murder was committed on Embassy Row

 

Unfed children cry and the Puerto Ricans pray

Treason and Russian hackers are right up in our face

Hillary didn’t have a chance against criminal politics

Trump has murdered democracy and it makes me mighty sick

 

Trump thought no one would miss it once it was dead and gone

Putin told him no one will ever  know Just keep up the treason and sing a pretty song

Well there ain't no justice in it and the hard facts are cold

Murder's been committed down on Embassy row.

 

Unfed children cry and the Puerto Ricans pray

Treason and Russian hackers are right up in our face

Thomas Paine wouldn’t have a chance in today’s politics

Trump has murdered democracy and it makes me mighty sick

They’d even tell George Washington to pack up and go back home

Since Trump murdered democracy on Embassy Row.

Copyright 2018 by Roger D. Hicks with consideration to Larry Cordle

 

My Concept Of Writing

The little ditty below is a brief statement I wrote a couple of years ago for posting on the internet literary website, "Creativity Webzine", which is based in Germany and on which I have had three short stories published over the recent years.  It is separate on that website from my primary biographical statement and was published as part of a larger section by numerous writers about how and why we write.  While this little piece and about two dollars will buy you a cup of bad coffee from your favorite gasoline station, some of you who read this blog regularly might find it interesting.  As for my work on "Creativity Webzine", you can go to this link "Creativity Webzine: Fiction" and by using the "Find On This Page" function in your web browser with my name "Roger D. Hicks" and find each of the three stories.  Sadly, the website does not have a direct search function which can take you directly to any particular author, story, or other aspect of the voluminous website.  If you actually go to all the trouble of finding and reading any of my stories there, I'd love to hear what you think of them by having you leave a comment on this blog post. 

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My Concept Of Writing

Roger D. Hicks grew up in Appalachia, writes as an Appalachian with publications in numerous print and online venues, and was mentored by nearly a dozen of the best writers in the history of Appalachian Literature.

For me, writing is a natural part of life.  I write to help explain, preserve, protect, and defend the vibrant culture which made me what I am today.  I write both fiction and non-fiction with the intention of producing the best work of which I am capable.  My writing has been influenced both by the Appalachian writers who have been my friends, mentors, and role models and by the great masters whom I have read for my entire lifetime: Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Pearl Buck, Flannery O’Connor, P. J. Laska, Bob “Billy Greenhorn” Snyder, James Still, Kate Chopin, Kerouac, Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, George Eliot, Guy de Maupassant,  and dozens more.  I don’t write to emulate anybody but I attempt to learn from everybody whose work I read from the penultimate masters to those mistaken idiots who crank out drivel without the ability to understand just how awful their scribblings are.  Examples must be inspirations, objectives, and warning signs along the road of literature and life in order to be well rounded and useful as a whole.  I hope that the last thing I write is the inscription on my tombstone. 

Love Must Be Forgiven

 

 

Sometimes, I get some ideas which are not fully hatched.  As I recall, I was wondering if I could have ever been a country songwriter when I produced this which I now consider just to have been bad poetry.  I was trying to write a country lyric with a hook.  For those who have never heard that word, a hook is a repeated line in a song.  The most memorable hook line in a  hook song that I can think of is from "Baby, Don't Get Hooked On Me" by the great songwriter Mac Davis.  As I recall the story I heard him tell once about the song, he was in a dry spell with writing and hadn't produced anything significant in a while.  He said he was talking with his producer or music publisher one or the other about the problem and that person, whomever they were, suggested that Mac write a hook song.  So he sat down and wrote "Baby, Don't Get Hooked On Me".  It was a massive success.  The song reached No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Easy Listening charts in September 1972, spending three weeks as the number 1 song on each chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 8 song of 1972.  That is the best story about a hook song I have ever heard and actually one of the best hook songs I know also.  My little piece of work below is very ordinary in my opinion and won't amount to a hill of beans. 

Love Must Be Forgiven

She said she’d love me all her life.

She said she’s proud to be my wife.

She said we’d be together till the end

But the end came early my friend.

She just left without a fight

Love must be forgiven somewhere tonight

 

She said we’d raise children just like me

She said how proud you’re gonna be

But when I look for what I cannot see

She’s missing from the family tree

She just left without a fight

Love must be forgiven somewhere tonight.

 

We never fought She never cried

But soon her love was denied

I loved her so Lord knows I tried

She just left and I could have died

She gave up without a fight

Love must be forgiven somewhere tonight.

 

I never saw the end until it came

My tears fall down just like the rain

I think of her through this refrain

She gave up without a fight

Love must be forgiven somewhere tonight.

Copyright August 2, 2021, by Roger D. Hicks