Something in the blood calls my name.
The call brings neither glory nor shame.
We are connected but not the same.
Blood calls across all boundaries
from oceans crossed; and, all centuries
lost before I came to be by name.
Family traits, fair and foul, remain.
There is a knowing-ness difficult to explain.
Friendships are just as dear but not the same.
Something in the blood calls my name.
Filed under POETRY
Seasons change. Pandemics, too.
The same can be said for me and you.
We move about under a sunny sky
pretending all around us others do not die.
The deck carpet is covered in grime
from the years of corporate and political crime
committed by a party trapped in hate
wrapped in false flags that falsely state
women are are meant to be slaves
just as Black people, and all lesser knaves,
to their betters who wear red hats marked by lies,
under white robes hidden by suits and ties.
We try to clean the deck but the carpet is too worn
to survive another summer of overheated scorn.
The carpet has been removed to reveal
The rot beneath efforts to steal
not just an election but a nation.
Seeing the bare deck reveals the aberration
of rotten boards, installed by fraud and deceit
like judges and executives placed in lead seats.
Boards of all varieties falsely secured or not at all,
and easily shredded like their theories which call
for insurrection and destruction instead of restoration
of democracy and legal protections and right actions.
The deck is so undermined I fear it will fall.
No more summers in the sun with family and friends
until the rotted deck is replaced and Republicans make amends.
There is nothing to negotiate.
There is no need for compromise.
Either Americans deserve safety.
Or their lives are an easy forfeit
for gun manufacturers to “make a killing”
and pay off with campaign funds
those who use delay to deny
the basic right to Life, Liberty
and the Pursuit of Happiness.
No one is free if unrestrained guns
deny safety. No happiness ensues
from mass killings, suicides
or neighborhoods riddled with bullets
on the nightly news.
Life itself is not something
to be debated nor negotiated.
Pass the laws needed to save lives.
A living death from fear of guns
kills more than us.
It kills any chance for democracy
itself to survive.
It kills our hope and faith in one another.
More guns. More killing.
Who can deny such basic logic
and expect us not to say “idiots”?
There is no compromise with idiots.
The only thing more idiotic
is to vote for those idiots.
Filed under POETRY
Are words without heart more marketing than art?
Is there any assurety my words sit on your lips
with the same joy they sit on mine?
I count on words to keep us all alive.
Or is it false security to believe in such vanity?
I sit quietly, in meek wonder at the power of words
to turn a cheek against a blow,
or use a laugh to turn aside sorrow.
As I await inspiration words flow.
I wonder how this can be so.
What is life but waiting to know?
What is hope but a quickening of spirit?
What is faith but a breath in and breath out?
What is love but accepting whatever comes about?
Has life any purpose or is it merely aspiration?
Is life simply our imagination?
Without imagination can we survive?
Can any nation?
I wait.
I breathe.
I accept.
I imagine.
I survive.
Filed under POETRY
Another morn to mourn,
turned celebration.
Will we one day celebrate
School Shooting Day ?
Or maybe NRA Day?
How can we play
on such a solemn day?
Shared memory is great
but a hot dog on a paper plate
should not take precedence
over remembrance
of what this day is for.
A day to study war no more
thanks to soldiers who gave
their all to their graves,
to save us from more days like this.
Today’s war goes unannounced
by fearful citizens who hate
the way they feel,
intimidated by the success
of those they thought to best.
So they don a Kevlar vest
and in camouflage dress
tote weapons of war
inside the door
of churches, synagogues, mosques,
schools, businesses, and grocery stores.
Name-calling as in any war
has become de riguer.
So-called Libtard Nazis who see no threat
in people of color, women and gender choice
are the latest gooks and towel heads.
War leaves a nasty taste in place
of citizenry and mutual respect.
So-called patriots ignorant of our history
ignore the blood of our honored dead
buried in poppied fields or unknown tombs.
They fight for white supremacy instead
of a country dedicated to the proposition
all men are created equal
as its starting position.
They seek to stop the race
to a more perfect union
by destroying the communion
of patriots future and past.
How long will such travesty last?
Filed under POETRY
PATTERNS
Patterns tell stories
usually hidden from view.
Each morning I rise
and pick up my pen,
put it to paper
to see what thoughts
descend.
Today, a series of thoughts
seem attuned to one another.
Four poems gathered
but refused to do more
than make me yearn
for words to return
and tell a story
to help me learn
something.
Anything.
Perhaps putting them in a row
will eventually show
what they are trying to tell me.
so, here, I go.
SAVED BY THE GARDEN
Saved again by the Garden.
Its views extend my own.
Who knows what will become
of the seeds I have sown.
Better to focus on new life
than to reflect on the old.
RUNAWAY
Hurry to the table.
Pick up the pen.
Let thoughts descend
before I pick up a comb,
wash my face,
or even get dressed.
The words run off
too fast for any of that.
I struggle to catch the words
before they are lost
in mundane tasks.
Today, I was too slow.
DISAPPEARING ACT
Where do words go
when they run from me?
To another poet?
To another essayist?
Are they too uncomfortable to tell
the truths I know so well?
Is the runner the words,
or is it I who run
away from words ?
LOST DREAM
A blast of cold air
swept over the sheets
and awakened me too soon
before the dawn
grew bright enough
to see within the darkened room.
I could not see the words today.
I only felt the cold and felt bereft
that the dream had gone.
Filed under POETRY
I just did not know.
Not everyone
thinks at the same rate,
sees as deeply or wide,
looks for each new thing,
embraces the unknowable.
Seeking the unknown
quickly, deeply, widely, freely
without knowing
this is so
means exploring life
alone.
I
just
did
not
know.
Filed under POETRY
Carrying away the day in buckets of lost dreams
is a waste of good time and makes
the compost pile scream.
Waiting in the wings are characters
preparing the next act with useless tact.
Who knows what adventures lie ahead for those
willing to drop the text and pretext of prose
to bring the old play to a close?
For those starting the next chapter
with brave and honest laughter
in a new script meant to convey
a future of happy possibilities,
despite life’s fragilities, all is good.
Right now. This time.This day.
Stand and bow to applause
just as you should.
Now, get off the stage and live.
Filed under POETRY
The garden is awash in earths tears,
unleashed by climate change fears,
carried on gusts of wind beating down
on an already soaked ground
where drenched petals now lie spent.
The sky cried for days, nothing really new.
But now she cries for others, too;
not only herself as her rhythms are torn loose.
She cries for miles of wounded souls
across America’s fields of woe
as Americans try to cope with the pain
of children ignored, wounded and slain.
Guns locked and loaded against all
who are not white men with moneyed eyes
which blind their view of progressive skies
opened to all that is bright and new;
like children who seek to grow up wise,
appreciating every new experience
as an exploration of greater happiness.
Even childlike innocence is not enough
to save the lives of little ones
when war is waged by hopeless men
preyed upon by sellers of guns
who magnify phony fears for profit
and ratings and votes.
Earth and I have come undone,
hopes dampened by clouds of tears
hiding the sun. Each child a flower
mown down, unable to run to safety.
Not one.
Not a single one.
Filed under POETRY
When was the hour
the garden gained power
to teach life’s lesson of love
that one could recover its loss?
1993 was the year.
Each moment held dear.
The Waterford Tower
ended homelessness
when friendship shared
a dwelling of peace and safety
after illness took my career.
Who knew the fraud of success is real
where friendships are concerned?
Positional power has no hold
on false friendships born daily anew.
Personal power takes energy to maintain,
more than CFIDS allowed.
The oldest friends remained.
Love untarnished, contained
year after year through our play.
Like perennial flowers they sustained me.
Their roots planted wide, firm and deep.
Annuals come and go with the sun.
Flashier and more colorful, perhaps;
but unable to fulfill winter’s need
to dig down deep beneath winter’s chill
until sunny days of Spring restore
all that one once hoped for.
Old friends flower in my garden.
Old friends remain on cold days of change.
Old friends stay the course until the end.
1993 was only the beginning
of planting my feet in old soil,
among old friends.
Filed under POETRY
annarino writes 