The young believe the aged
are forced to live isolated lives
because of aching bones
and wilting blood and sinew.
But, this is not totally true.
As time shortens our pace
and length of our dance
we choose our partners
more wisely, with more patience
and with more grace.
We make each moment count,
and leave less likeable partners out.
Filed under POETRY
This blue earth,
this place of our birth,
grounds us against flight
from this tiny iron rock
hurtling through the dark.
And so, we hold on tight,
bathed in blue light,
sun reflected off ocean’s face,
keeping us in place.
We are cleansed by earth’s air,
a clear and free atmosphere.
We breathe in and then out,
Each breath removes any doubt
that we are of this world, in this place.
We hurtle through darkest space
on this earth, this hard rock
with all its hard knocks.
It is not our imagination.
The gravity of our situation
keeps us awake at night.
We are blue light
against a dark sky.
Help earth and its people survive.
Help keep freedom alive.
VOTE BLUE!
Art seldom follows
where there is nothing new to see.
Art creates new eyes
new ears, new hearts to set us free.
Art imagines what minds can’t comprehend
forging new beginnings as old ways end.
Politics is an art form
tossing power to and fro
showing us what we really think
and where we might go.
Art is everywhere we look
showing us what we need to know.
Art has no end date;
its timeliness simply portends.
Vote! it is still not too late.
Art is our dearest friend.
I had only eight one-dollar bills in my purse that day.
The too-battered man standing at roadside a few feet away
caught my attention with his too-battered sign held
close to his chest, on crudely-cut cardboard dirtied
like him, over time; both dusted clear of all grime.
“Smile today” was the message he carried so closely.
A message so needed, so welcomed, so worthy.
Crossing over a lane to reach his side, traffic waiting
for the light to change, let me and my car, squeeze by.
I passed the dollar bills to an outstretched hand.
Then, the grey-haired man in need of a cut,
leaned in to say “Thank you. God bless you.Have a nice day.”
The phrase a common lingo in the homeless way.
His eyes were lit from inside and he smiled, not trying to hide
his humanity, his sanity, his grace so sublime.
I smiled back and told him that I loved his sign.
Pulling out a second sign he had hidden behind the first,
I read the line, “Always Smile” and felt his thirst
to be seen and recognized and able to offer something to me.
Tearfully smiling in a moment of grace
I thanked him the gift he had given to me,
a smile I had unknowingly needed desperately,
the “greatest gift I had received in very long time.”
a thousands suns lit his eyes and opened mine.
Homeless people need to help others as much as you and I.
They may not have shelter, nor food, nor rest;
yet, they still continue to give their best.
They watch us hungrily as we drive by on the road
They hunger not only for what we can give.
They hunger for what they can give to us.
It unburdens their load.
We are in this world together, one smile at a time.
A message of love from one man, alone by the road.
Filed under POETRY
Better to wait at the gate?
The temptation is to lift the latch and enter.
It is, after all, a public space.
But women know guard dogs lie in wait
on the other side of the gate.
Thus, carefully, we negotiate
each step along the way,
fearful of unleashed dogs nipping at our heels,
ready to tear apart our bodies and our dreams.
And, when they hear our screams
they say, “I had no idea.”
Plausible deniability is their way.
Men, and women too weak to lift latches,
deny that sexism is at play.
They laugh and joke at our fright.
Then simply go on their way,
as they believe it is their sole right.
Anyone who is not Christian.
Anyone who is not white.
Anyone who would lift latches
and move beyond the gate;
only does so, when they can no longer wait
for justice and progress,
which lie beyond the gate,
and the only place
where their suffering can abate.
Are those who lift latches “the enemy within”?
Lift latches in the safest space.
Then, keep the gates open.
It is not yet too late!
Vote!
Ten days left before we turn right?
Ten days until bleakness blinds our sight.
Have we gone so far there is little left
of democratic values clutched to our chests?
Ten days left to fight the fascist storms
unleashed across every institution,
destroying all norms.
Ten days left to remain free,
a freedom based on hypocrisy
and built on lives shipped
across international waters,
slaves to barter and build an economy
upon flayed backs, our own souls slaughtered.
Entertainment is our strongest ally
allowing full inattention to hide
the deadening ignorance that blankets our pride.
The conscience our forefathers followed
has no place in a nation who souls are hollowed
by power and greed’s need to be seen,
even if only on social media screens.
Muscles clenched in taut abdomens
where fear tends to hide
we try our best to hold onto our pride.
Ten days left to turn the fascist tide.
We are not perfect.
It is perfectly true.
But we always keep going forward.
We always try to improve.
Ten days are both too many and too few
to hold a nation together,
for free people to weather
the threat of old evils made new.
Ten days left.
I am counting on you.
Vote!
I dream of Nazis…
men in blue jeans and camouflage
jackets with pockets
to hold weapons,
wearing red MAGA hats;
and bleached-hair women
in comfortable clothes
and comfortable shoes,
smiling at cameras
while they praise
a nobody who makes them feel
like somebody.
Like tools they line up
on his bleachers to be used
to disparage and demean
the others they call fiends.
These are not dreams.
These are nightmares come alive
and rending the seams of a nation’s fabric
with fascist schemes.
I can no longer sleep
in the silence
of so many who stay quiet.
Too ashamed to shout with that lout.
But willing to vote him in
to the place where our destruction begins.
I dream of Nazis,
the shouters
the doubters
the scoffers
the weak
the divided
the insiders
who refuse to give up
position and power,
while hour after hour
the fascist beast devours
airwaves and pews.
Let there not be too few
to block his way
on election day.
VOTE!
Writing romance can only be done in the dark of night
while stars yet dance holding tight
to Orion’s belt, keeping apace in love’s delight,
swaying to the tune of memories so bright,
they light up the darkest and deepest insights,
recalling softly-murmured prose
that touched the heart and curled the toes,
lifted up bodies locked in embrace,
and kissed in rhythm keeping the pace.
Nights seem long to young lovers
but may I remind,
romance too easily fades over time.
The night too soon ends in the glare of the sun.
Oh, what lovers would give to stay young.
Filed under POETRY
Families are strange.
At once a warm, firm embrace;
and, cold, hard shackles.
Families are more
than blood, bone and genetics.
They are countries, too.
Families argue.
Families may often fight;
then set things to right.
VOTE!
All I want
is to avoid
my own thoughts
lately clothed in fear
so pronounced
they bring me to tears.
It finally must be said
anger fades to grief
when death brazenly nears.
Watching a beloved die,
clutching the hand,
wiping the brow,
for perhaps the last time
applies to nations.
I watch my beloved country
whose solemn vow
has always been protect and defend
all those living within
the boundaries of an idea in place
to open freedom’s gates
to all equally, within its small space.
I hold my nation’s heart and soul
with trembling hands
and shortened breath.
In painful realization
that so many countrymen
in this amazing nation
fear not, nor mourn with me
the loss of our democracy.
Friends and family alike
smirk and snarl in true delight
the unleashed dogs of fear and fright
which rip apart all we have built
without a trace of grief nor guilt.
They break my heart
as they tear our world apart.
annarino writes 