Days of slanted rays
dust motes rise before my gaze.
Time for Fall cleaning.
Category Archives: POETRY
THE MOUNTAINTOP
Fingers raised instead of fists
above the mindless misfits
crowded for the cameras’ view
to appear more than just a few
sycophants and cowards driven
to defend the ONE who has given
rise to fascist liars who claim the prize
of a nation’s soul and its demise.
By all means stand and cheer, you fools.
You are now the ONE’s new tools.
The silent Ones allow the game to grow
beyond such crowds, as they sow
discontent and insurrection,
destructive hate and misdirection
to those who do not pay attention;
and attack those who provide protection.
History has seen this all before
The ONE whom we should deplore
markets to the envious a cure
of male supremacy, white and pure.
This has become the new religion
blessed by God, and all The One’s pigeons
who flock to rallies or T.V. screens with raised fingers,
birds of a feather, Qanon singers
prepare for the war-like days ahead,
while the silent Ones simply watch with dread.
Guns and slogans proliferate
while the ONE’s soldiers spew more hate.
Who will rise and say, “NO MORE!”?
Love and truth-telling are the only cure;
but, not enough now. That’s for sure.
Too many decades of greed seized by lies,
allowed by a nation which closed its eyes,
and by religions who sought to gain
power and influence over this game
has brought us so low the climb’s now too high.
The vote may be all we have left, we sigh.
And, that is uncertain as election
workers must flee for protection
and Ones take the place in order to assure
that votes do not count any more.
Never give up and never give in.
That would be the greater sin.
Get out the vote and then help others,
disenfranchised sisters and brothers.
Get out the vote. Stir up hope. Raise a din
of truth and love. Never give up. Never give in.
The vote can stop the war the Ones seek.
Do not remain silent, fearful and meek.
Keep your hands down by your side
ready to hold others’ hands, and help guide
every citizen up the mountain so high,
all equally standing strong, side-by-side
full of life, liberty, happiness and earned pride.
Filed under POETRY
PROGRESS
We sing a swan song with the woman under the only tent left
in the parking lot of North Market once filled with famers’ tents.
Drifting from tent to tent has been over for a long time,
since developers decided condos would be more profitable.
Gone are the Saturday mornings tasting the sweetest melons,
and chewing the most delicate pastries,
and buying produce far fresher than that in any grocery.
Other famers left long ago.
Where, for now, we do not know.
They were promised a nearby lot, still empty,
where progress is sure to follow.
They seem to have fled to more stable sites
where they have set up their tables before it gets light,
and their trucks do not have so far to go
from their fields and farms and hollows.
Trenches are being dug around the perimeter
and still one woman stays on, to our delight.
We sing her swan song with her
over the dead buried beneath this plot long ago.
A cemetery where African-Americans and immigrants
to a new country were buried and forgotten,
even their names left to rot unknown.
Now, developers promise removal will be handled properly,
when nothing seems proper at all to me.
This is progress. I hear it. I feel it. I sing it.
It is the swan song we have all come to know.
Filed under POETRY
RULES OF DISRULE
Rules for lawyers:
Never try a divorce case
on the day the judge
fought with his wife.
Never try a disability case
before an alcoholic judge.
These are the usual rules
when trying to maintain impartiality
to reach a decision consistent with the law
and not flawed by human will
which should be set aside
to follow the dictum of this land
that no man is above the law.
The law is turned on its head
by Judge Cannon and her MAGA crew.
Attorneys of good will and sound ethics
now face bending of these rules:
Never try a criminal case
when the criminal conspires with the judge.
Never try an emergency order
before a judge intent on delay.
No judge forum shopping is allowed.
So find a court where the only choice
is a judge the criminal appointed.
Judicial impartiality is a rule
oft’ influenced, it is true, by experience and inclination,
but not by partiality, blind to the rule of law
instead of impartial justice;
but not by a judge who rules
before the evidence is even given,
but not by a judge who rules
that the man who gave her her job
is above the law she pledged herself to.
How can a judge be allowed to sit
in a court where law is not followed
and where blatant disrule becomes the rule?
Impartial judges sew the threads
holding the law together.
Judges who put down the needle
and rip the fabric of law
can destroy justice for us all.
Tearing apart the fabric of law
will leave us all naked,
vulnerable to autocratic rule.
Filed under POETRY
WOKE WITH A POKE
By the age of two
chocolate was my favorite hue.
One day, I was firmly woke
by my mother’s forceful poke.
We were shopping
in the lower level of the Five and Ten
when I saw the most lovely woman,
elegantly sleek with a stately mien.
I pulled my thumb out of my mouth
and stood in silent awe
at the first person of color I ever saw.
As soon as I spoke I felt the poke
and knew what I had said was wrong.
What had I said that made Mom move
to wake me up, and make me see
some new truth among the many
she tried to teach me?
I said with joy, so gleefully,
“Mommy, look at the chocolate lady!”
Mom’s horrified look
was accompanied by the poke.
“Shush,” Mom said, “we do not comment
on how others look.”
The lady grinned,
then opened her smile to take us in.
She said to my Mother, “Your little girl is fine.
I assume she loves chocolate as much as I.”
The two women laughed and shared a smile
that brought out their beauty, in eyes that shined
with love and joy in the innocence
of a child who thought chocolate ladies
are oh, so deliciously fine.
I asked the lady, “Why are you a different color?”
Then, Mom said, “God made people of many hues,
sizes, and shapes to make the world more fun for you.
We would all be so bored if we were the same.
Like the bigger box of crayons of sixty-four hues
you keep asking me to buy for you,
God made each one of us different
so we could enjoy life so much more.”
Then the two ladies said, “So very nice to meet you.”
That day I came home with a box of sixty-four
crayons and wisdom, and so much more.
I was woke with a poke
and found a new and bigger world to explore.
At seventy-three it still holds true
that I love chocolate, and diversity, too;
in the paints near the easel, the neighbors nearby,
the books on the shelf, and the places I fly.
The world awakens with pokes to keep us awoke
so life’s many wondrous possibilities do not pass us by.
Filed under POETRY
Freedom From Tyranny
The tyranny of the minority never ends well.
Ask the geese who flock together
To better withstand the wind and weather.
Ask the grass whose roots entwine in clay
To better carpet fields upon which children play.
It is always better to find a way to join together
In whatever manner helps the majority weather
The storms and dramas of lives well-lived.
We each can choose to bend and give.
Establishing a majority requires sharing
In a nation dedicated to caring and daring
to promise its people will be blessed
With the right to life, liberty and happiness.
THE BOOK OF LIFE
Live long enough
and enough becomes more
then was once imaginable.
It is not resignation
to the seemingly insoluble
problems making the young
passionate and high strung;
nor to youth’s perception
that old people are stuck
in the past, and even the mud.
No, the old are simply elated
that problems which once made them
passionate and high strung
have been overcome.
The old simply have
more hope for
and less fear of
the future the young will live
with greater energy;
a future which the old may not live to see.
Reluctance to become irate,
wave arms and raise voices of dismay,
may simply be the wisdom to see
no problem is without a solution.
It just my not come for a few more days.
Truly, the old and the young
are writing the same story.
They are merely on different pages
in the book of life.
Filed under POETRY
THE OTHER DAWN
There are two dawns.
The first is the illusion of light
the hovers just out of sight
below the horizon,
then seeps across the windowsill
just below the shades that are drawn
against the fearful dark of night.
This dawn is mere reflection
of a sun not yet arisen.
It fools a few to rise before time
and spend their first awakened breath
on false confusion.
The second dawn comes so fast
as sun above the earth does blast
light so fierce, so bright, so new
a second awakening begins anew.
Finally, the day has come on a run
beyond past horizons from dark despair
to fill our days with the light to see
a new day, a new way, a new clarity
where thoughts can follow truth more easily.
The sun is rising and darkness is gone
as patiently we wait for night to move on
and hide once again below the horizon.
This is the only the beginning of a new day.
We eagerly wait to see what it will bring;
what discoveries await newly opened eyes,
and which new vision will make hearts sing
as night fades from sight.
Then we can dance free from fear
in dawn’s early light
to anthems songbirds only sing
once daylight has suffused
every blade of grass and bead of water,
and we are no longer so confused.
Filed under POETRY
9/11 AND EVERY DAY SINCE
The morning ritual:
awaken, straighten
bed and self.
Turn on television.
Wash and dress.
Newsroom halts
to update news.
So, I stop to attend
feeling threatened
by what no one yet knows.
As newscasters speak
of smoking North Tower one.
They surmise a small plane
has hit the high-rise.
I know that cannot be true
with so much fire so fast.
There must be more fuel
than a small plane can carry.
And then, I see off to the side
a commercial jet in the view
of cameras set on the North Tower, one.
No commercial plane is allowed
on a flight path that veers
as this plane does to South Tower, two.
I watch the hit and feel the fear
wrapped in grief for what
I am about to see and hear.
Communication starts and stalls
among first responders to the call,
using analog instead of the new
radios for the crews.
Heroes rush in to certain death
to save those they can.
I cannot write of what I saw,
horrific images still so raw
they would gut me and cut me in two.
I ran with the people in the street
as I stood before my T.V.
I climbed the stairs with rescue crews
as I stood before my T.V.
I cried with the families searching lists,
posting photos on fences, falling to knees
as I stood before my T.V.
The silence of cleared skies across the country
allowed me to hear the beeps
of equipment buried deep
with those killed and waiting to be found.
I can hear them still.
I still before the sound.
Two towers fell that day
along with the truth
that foreign affairs decisions kill
not just soldiers but civilians, too.
That asbestos kills;
that air quality played its part
to destroy even more lives
of those who worked as civil servants do
to clean up the messes our decisions make.
And to take the fall
along with buildings that once stood tall.
Civil servants still stand tall for me
despite the crass thinking and perfidy
of the greedy few who withhold
what is needed and refuse taxes
fairly placed to create a world
free and safe for every member of humanity.
we rebuilt buildings; memorials, too.
Rebuilding that free and safe world?
Awaken and straighten. Always, stay tuned.
Filed under POETRY
A POET’S VIEW
Paper of every color and hue
unrolls from thousands of inner tubes
that I might write upon a page;
so bright, it dims the sight
and opens the mind to such delight
in cerulean, amaranth, celadon,
garnet, crimson, vermillion
violet, tangerine, ecru and Eton-blue;
colors I can taste and feel
as they unroll reel by reel
so real they dance and sing and swell
until the pen dips in the well.
I wrap each page around each cell
and feel the energy seep through
blood and bone and sinew
into every soft tissue
that pulses with breath
and laughter and tears,
and beats with heart-felt truth
so hard and fast it hardly knows
what words spill out upon the page,
which black marks ink signs
to tell me the way
while you can see and understand
before I can even comprehend
that a poem has unfurled from tubes
not of cardboard but of gold.
Writing is the treasure of stories untold
and waiting to be wrapped
then given as gifts as colors unfold.
annarino writes 