Where you go in your dreams
Is best walked barefoot.
Feel the surface you trod,hard or soft,
Rough or smooth,
Hot or cold.
Learn the truth, grounded and sure
So lies cannot find you unaware,
Unready, unable to discern
The truth you need to know
To find your way on ground that is real
And leads to the place you need to go.
A place you neither want nor expect
But need to be. The temple of honesty.
Barefoot. Grounded. Free.
Filed under POETRY
Each morning I draw blood
pressing a needle beneath my skin.
It no longer hurts nerves
deadened by repetition.
I watch blood drawn in the streets,
the blood of others
I shall never meet.
I have learned to bear my own pain.
The pain of others is a heavier rain
upon a parched soul
in need of hope.
My greatest fear is that one day,
as in all things,
that greater pain will fade away.
I will become numb to others’ pain.
That is the day I shall be dead
even as my heart still beats
and I still bleed.
Blood will flow in streets I no longer see.
But, I shall no longer feel a thing.
Government has become
too sickeningly sweet.
The only cure is to stop feeding off
brutality, lies and corruption,
hoping for gain that is never enough.
A nation feeding off its own
cannot survive.
No longer can we ignore life
which imitates art
while art imitates life.
Each part imitates the whole
while the whole
is the sum of its parts.
When the parts break
the whole breaks apart.
The dark drain bears the burden
of too many broken peaces
and pushes back against gravity;
releases the depravity
and frees the broken whole.
Cleaning crews appear to
remove the waste, fraud and abuse
of leadership run amok among the muck;
Now, so clearly broken, and out of luck.
Hot air blows around every media space
to dry the tears of such disgrace.
Sanitize all you will.
Pack the dirty remnants into opaque bags,
redacted files hidden under seal,
and hide the crimes away.
The sewer can only handle so much
of the dirty secrets we are afraid to touch.
Truth always come to light
when the drain is filled too tight.
Ignoring the dirt contaminates us all,
as we watch the walls of a nation fall.
Drifting on winds of change is a lost art,
In gaelstorm winds upending calm;
Until we are lost amid unknown storms
No longer just our own.
Filed under Uncategorized
How much is too much?
Resilience and self-reliance
are cherished and elevated
with religious fervor in defiance
of what we humans know to be true.
You must rely on me; and I, on you.
We now discover on a daily basis
how out of touch we all are
as we see the suffering faces.
Out of touch with self.
Out of touch with one another.
Afraid to ask for help for ourselves;
we avoid those in need of our help, too.
Admitting any weakness
would never do.
We prefer to believe we are the better
for never needing one another;
unlike the homeless, impoverished
we wish were not our sister nor brother.
How much is too much in this day and age?
Not enough.
Not enough.
Never enough.
Time to engage.
The skiers stride and slide,
sometimes 80 feet high
they fly.
Skaters swirl and twirl,
sometimes 15 feet high
they fly.
Then, down to earth they come
welcomed by cheers and cries,
among us once again.
And while they flew
we soared, too.
Able to breathe once more.
Let us see what they scored.
In 1965 my best girlfriends and I (each of us avid readers) took a speed-reading course at the local YMCA. By the end of that course I could read page in seconds, not minutes. And we could not increase speed to a higher level, unless we reached 100% accuracy. This was perhaps the finest educational tool I ever used. Throughout life I have been able to ingest information rapidly and accurately. All because of those weeks of study outside a classroom.
In today’s fast-moving communication era, that skill keeps me informed. Otherwise, it might be overwhelming to even try to stay informed. I might be tempted to turn off the flow of information and just “go about my business.” It can be necessary to emotional health to live in denial. But, it does little good for those in need of our attention, our support, our love. It undermines the concept which is the basis of any democratic republic – the common good. Checking back in is necessary to the common good.
Thus, I suggest, temporary, not permanent inattention. Most of you have discovered this tactic on your own. I guess I am writing this today in response to numerous comments I often hear: She cannot read all this stuff. She cannot find all this information. She must make this stuff up. She could not possibly have read all this. etc. etc. Well, I do read all this stuff! I just speed-read it.
I do not know if such courses are currently being offered. Perhaps it is no longer necessary to those who use A.I. But, as for me, I choose to read directly from the source; or to check the source directly after A.I. tries to tell me what it knows. A.I. is a great speed-reader. But, one must be assured it is reading material based upon real facts and not fiction. A.I. is also good at helping us find proper sources of information. It, however, will never excuse us from the need to be factually accurate. We live in a time when disinformation is deliberate. Propaganda is a tool to undermine our votes, our democratic principles. Judges are beginning to point out lies presented by DOJ attorneys in ways heretofore unseen. A.I. will only give us what it has been fed. And it is fed by factual inputters; but also, by bottom-feeders preying on us with lies.
As Sister Robertine, O.P. taught us in my Catholic high school, “ Be careful what you read. Garbage in…garbage out.”
Filed under COMMENTARY
The snow is falling
again.
She feels like an old
friend.
I fall with her at my
ease.
With one request, if you
please.
I beg her to break my
fall,
and allow grace to cover the sins of
all.
Sun strikingly yearns to rise and
heat
the frozen earth beneath my
feet.
My fall, I fear is not easy nor
soft.
Minds cooling their anger keep hope
aloft.
But, I am sinking beneath the
weight
of my own government filled with such
hate.
Will we ever see another summer of
love?
If cold snow keeps falling from
above?
One thing I truly
know.
No one can make me hate the
snow.
My heart melts as the snow soon
will.
I hold fast to love for all,
still.
The blinds have been opened. But, I sit in the dark.
Another morning at the table, set for one.
Alone in thoughtful reverie, with nowhere to run.
Heaving from grief and sorrow, viewed on every screen.
We are all aging fast before the onslaught
of armed men, masked and acting obscene.
This is not some video game we are playing,
detached and watching, divorced from reality.
When did Americans stop believing
what their own eyes could clearly see?
It did not just happen. It is not new.
It happened many years ago.
Americans took flight in fright
from the reality unfolding before their eyes.
How we came to this fraught moment
is actually, not a great surprise.
People of color best know the story.
Wages stagnated and prices rose.
Profits soared for those “in the know”.
Americans ignored responsibility
and entertained themselves endlessly.
While women and girls became commodities;
and discounted people, un-housed and un-fed
roamed the streets living in dread.
Soldiers returning home from un-named wars
and too many tours, stopped being cared for.
Now fake soldiers, cowardly cruel, take their cue
from technocrats and bureaucrats
seeking wealth and power.
There is no man of the hour calling the shots.
This is not what all this evil is about.
We did not get here led by a single man;
nor by a single party, nor political stance.
We got here as the great pirates planned,
as we entertained ourselves with games of chance.
We could have noticed where we were headed
with a single, wake-full, glance.
But we were led on a merry dance.
And the dance no longer matters, as we die
at the feet of civil disorder.
We rise up and listen to new voices.
We now have limited choices.
But, still we can open our eyes
and seize the prize, once earned
by those who have gone before us.
Lift voices of hope and power
into a freedom-seekers’ chorus.
annarino writes 
SOCIAL MEDIA HAIKU
Hate lassoed his cords
around the necks of children,
strangulating all.
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Filed under COMMENTARY, POETRY
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