The unleavened bread
Of sincerity and truth
Feeds the heart and soul.
Category Archives: POETRY
RESURRECTION
Whom shall rise from the dead this day ?
The victims of gunfire in American alleys and streets?
Children caught in the crossfire?
Black men shot in the head for license tag violations?
Ukrainians tortured in basements by Russian troops?
Somalis, Ethiopians, and Sudanese starving to death?
On this day when Christians celebrate Christ’s Resurrection
I pray for a resurrection of insurrection
against greed and usurped people’s power
that breeds gunplay and famine,
rape and suppression of women,
redistricting and election misdirection,
racism and gender disaffection
of human rights.
I celebrate resurrection and contemplate
what still needs our attention.
I hope for more in my Easter basket
than bodies dumped in caskets.
I search for more answers to hatred
while children search for more eggs.
Like the children, I hope to find
what I am looking for;
peace and equity, life and security,
a sacred response to all in need,
an Amen.
Filed under POETRY
Philly
24 shootings in 24 hours
In the cradle of liberty
Whose cracked bell rings out
Warning a country
To place a sentry
On the triggers of violence.
What are we truly about?
Gunning down civility
With inhumanity.
Would shouts and fists not suffice
To quell the fear unleashed
In a moment’s rage?
Let’s be clear.
The fingers on these triggers
Are not well-regulated
Militias protected by the Second
Amendment, as stated.
There can be no democracy
Among the trigger-happy.
Like the innocent
Democracy is caught in the crossfire
Of those who wield there ire
Against those they desire
To wound and destroy.
War in American streets
Is a cruel violation
Of a democratic nation’s
Efforts to endure.
Too many guns in too many hands
Enrich those seeking it’s ruination.
Control the guns. Make war no more.
Filed under POETRY
GOOD FRIDAY
The Cross appeals stronger than fear,
as I lay my burdens near,
bathed in remorse
at the nailed feet
of One so dear.
At this place
we place,
and replace,
His suffering
with our own,
hoping to rise
as did He
from the Cross
to eternity.
Still deeply planted
as the strongest tree
in the dark soil
of humanity,
bathed with great sorrow
by sinful rains
which flow so easily.
Prostrate with grief
which must not last
lest I forget my real task
to protect the earth
and all who live
on a planet where too many
have forgotten how to forgive.
“Father forgive them,
for they know not what they do.”
could easily apply to me and to you.
thus, I stand on this page
and send love and peace
to those in the midst of war
and to those who plead
make war no more.
Filed under POETRY
STOP SIGNS AND MIRACLES
Miracles happen every day
at each stoplight along the way.
Strangers meet unexpectedly
pausing quite respectably
to show one another every courtesy.
Without the light to make us pause
would we engage in such holy cause
as honoring the rights of others
before our own druthers?
We should not therefore, be surprised
when war is stopped before our eyes.
It can be done, it surely must pay
that we practice such moves every day;
in the simplest of ways, on every byway.
So, I sit at the light and silently pray
for the miracles to come today.
Every stop light and stop sign
give me hope in the universal design
which I desperately implore.
Make war no more.
Filed under POETRY
HAIKU BASKETBALL
Six personal fouls.
Kick Russia out of the game,
united nations.
Filed under POETRY
I NEVER FELT SO SMALL BEFORE
I never felt so small before
Tiny dot in a universe of stars
viewed on a clear night
as i looked up at the sky.
This, this I know.
But not this smallness
of heart, and mind, and soul
discovered in the face of war.
War I always fought.
War I always sought
to end and make no more.
And not just war over borders
against peoples and nations;
but war against colors of skin,
war against sexual orientation,
war against religion,
war against women’
war against children.
The list goes on and looms large,
larger than I can cope,
destroying all hope.
I never felt so small before.
I struggle to find a way to do more
than put words on a pages
while all around me uncivil war wages.
I never felts small before.
Filed under POETRY
BABY BOOMERS, BOOM!
Don’t forsake the power of Baby Boomers.
Many of us are Late Bloomers.
A few of us marched and demonstrated
for Civil Rights, and anti-war.
Post-war babies, we may be
the fiercest fighters for Democracy.
And yet, too many of us are immature
in understanding the force
needed to correct a nation’s course.
This is not the time to play and pretend,
a babes are wont to do,
that Democray can never end.
No, being a baby will not do.
We need to bellow and we need to boom.
Our strength is waning it is true.
We can no longer do what we could before.
The strength in arms and legs wanes.
The strength in minds and hearts remains.
And, our voices raised together are strong
enough sing freedom’s song.
Baby Boomers, sing out loud, sing out strong.
Our fathers soldiered on across the seas.
We must soldier on at home to defend Democracy.
Filed under POETRY
DON’T MAKE ME COME IN THERE!
“Don’t make me come in there”, Dad shouted
from the kitchen, cozy and warm,
while all hell broke loose in the living room
from mischievous children whose game had turned
dangerous and destructive.
Their shouts and grunts warned
as tables overturned and the sound of breakage
stridently and crazily alarmed
Dad and Mom, and the children themselves.
“He started it!”, we inevitably yelled back.
“Then he better stop it right now.
You have five minutes to restore
anything out of place, no more,
before I come in there and settle the score.”
So we did. So it was.
Our childish game turned deadly war ended.
Dad was our Security Council.
We were expected to be a United Nation,
a family which agreed to treat one another with civility.
If we could not act with dignity, Dad came to assure
that we did. We did not decide our world order
on our own. We had no power to block Dad’s
insistence we act right and avoid discord.
Is it time for Dad to go into the kids’ room?
Is it time for Dad to go into Ukraine?
No reason to let the war continue on for years
while blood drains from sons and daughters
upon Ukrainian soil; where cities fall desolate
as buildings fall like overturned tables
and the house seems ready to fall apart,
and a family is left , bereft in tears.
Dad knew that children who cannot contain themselves
must be stopped in their destructive ways
before they harm the harmony of a united family
and destroy the entire house and all within, then spill out.
Is it time for Dad to go into the room?
Is it time for Dad to go into Ukraine?
My Dad would say, “Your five minutes are up.
I am coming in there!”
Filed under POETRY
