Nights are too short, dear
when you are here.
Nights are too long
when you are gone.
Morning weeps humidity.
Birds sing sad songs.
Bees wander aimlessly.
The sun hides a weary face.
Voices sound too loud.
Emptiness becomes full measure
of the hearts lost treasure.
Garden critters stay hidden.
Fruit on the vines wither,
bitten open, useless, forbidden.
Your leave-taking reminds.
The world can be coldly unkind.
You rose with the dawn.
Showered, and now, are gone.
Filed under POETRY
Night grows stronger
as sun delays no longer
to set beyond cloud covers,
dragging our nights
up to our chins and over our days.
Clouds linger, in comfort, like old friends.
Rain of tears express our reign over joy and sorrow
pouring down on each tomorrow
to ease the heat encompassing us all.
Sky’s waters flood the senses
and tear down trees and homes and fences
which separated us before our fall.
With no direction and little discretion,
increasing speed, we set climate’s pace.
Caught up in the flow we pick up the pace
of this race to our self-destruction.
In our own darkness
the rains came.
Life will never
be
the same.
Filed under POETRY
Borders have their uses.
They tidy-up the scene,
remind us where we are,
and where we have not been.
They assign us each a plot
of able responsibility,
and call us to fulfill our task,
to act responsibly, as we ought.
Like naturalists we name each plot
to recognize ourselves within its place.
We mark paths between each plot,
a no-man’s land of sea and space.
Borders are a mere tool to use.
They can create more civility.
Or, they can abuse all gentility.
We can move across borders easily.
They were not made to stop humanity
from going where it needs to go
to find food and shelter, water and safety.
There is the rub in such a construction.
It can also lead to self-destruction.
For we are all part of the same family
of men and women descended
from a single source evolving merrily.
Until, each one of us is forced to face
the human weakness that lies within
and threatens our dreams of what we could win
if only we were better than we are.
If we were better, we could reach the stars.
Such anger we cannot allow directed at self.
We look for somewhere to place it,
when it should be put on a shelf,
placed where it can do no harm
and give us time to calm our alarm
that we are far from perfect, but still okay.
Our personal borders help us hold our evil at bay.
Instead, we project all the fear and rage
from and toward ourselves to others,
other humans being human, idiot or sage.
We carefully choose a human target
who does not quite look like us;
and not because he is truly different at all.
But in mirrored reflection of our follies
his appearance creates a place we can hide
that we are truly the same person, inside.
It would never do to project our own failings
onto another who looked just like we look.
It would prove the foolishness of railing
against all who look the same-self ailing.
So, we choose to note a difference
to justify our disdain and discrimination.
We close our borders with determination.
We miss the prize right before our eyes.
We miss the chance to accept our need
for the strength that comes with community.
We forget, for as long as we can,
that differences reinforce each man
and help us each overcome our weakness,
our circular thinking, our useless imagination
and build a stronger human-kind nation
within every border, across every border
until we kind humans no longer fear
our very selves, nor one another.
We could act as sister and brother
and settle our squabbles with love
as part of a human family.
We could project amity
and, perhaps, save humanity.
The streets were lined for blocks on end.
Signs reminded all who rejoiced to attend
Why they walked and talked and smiled and waved
At passing cars who braved delays
While drivers honked horns and shouted out
“Vote him out and make it a rout!”
Costumed critters danced to our delight
Knowing their freedom would give him a fright.
Deconstruct the lies we have been told.
Deconstruct the narrative being sold.
Deconstruct the bullie’s hold.
Deconstruct institutional mold.
Gather in peace the young and the old.
Stronger are you, more wise, more bold.
Deconstruct so we can rebuild
What he has destroyed with his minions’ lack of skill.
We know how to do this, and more.
We have done it many times before.
My thanks to my friends in Clintonville area of Columbus who helped me attend this moment of patriots’ challenge to the con men robbing the USA of its power, wealth, ideals and humanity. The lack of media coverage was appalling. The misrepresentation of attendance numbers cannot be challenged when media fails to provide images of the gatherings. A local station covered it AFTER it was over and crowds had dispersed. Another stated hundreds attended when it was actually thousands. We are here. We are resisting. We are going nowhere until the despotism and kidnapping of people and the Supreme Court, universities, news organizations, social media outlets, medical and public health Institutions… even our very language and the meaning of words and phrases has been brought to an end and freedom restored.
We shall not be silenced.
Filed under COMMENTARY, POETRY, POLITICS
The day begins with signs
Of all that any patriot finds
In need of expression
To resist oppression.
We line the streets
Feet deep
Only to meet
Aggression
From those who seek
Our suppression.
Gerrymandered districts
Are incomplete,
Unable to meet
Fair representation,
Denying the nation
one person one vote,
Intimidation afloat
In every state.
We pray it is not too late.
We pray our efforts matter.
We pray our mad-as-hatter
Administration
Stops destroying our beloved nation.
We sing. We dance. We shout.
This is what democracy is about.
No kings today.
No kings in any way.
No kings over courts’ justice.
No kings over any of us.
Every king eventually falls.
We do not want a king at all.
The young ones seem to know
that our world is threatened
is ways we not fully know
but fear all the same.
With each sunrise
another un-nerving surprise
until we are afraid to awaken,
afraid to open our eyes.
Not so, the young
for whom time moves slow
and each change is noted
and each move forward
is celebrated, not feared.
But, we, the old
whose breath is slowed
while time speeds away
know life becomes shorter
day by day;
even if the earth
should pass away.
It will not be without us long.
We are growing weaker
as the young grow strong.
So, we must listen
to their protest and shouts.
They understand better
what each bully tactic is about.
We pretend it is only intimidation.
In reality, it is annihilation;
the end of freedoms seldom known
in ages past. As time has flown
we old ones forgot to pay attention.
Now, the young, whom we also ignored
beg for our attention.
We are never too old to mother the young.
We are never too old to stop what has begun.
We may not be able to march so far as they.
But we can shout from each of our front doors.
We can organize, assist and earnestly pray.
We can honk as we pass the marchers on parade.
We can give courage to those who are afraid.
We can write and call those in charge of our fate.
Time passes quickly for us, but it is not too late.
Cicadas are singing an age-old announcement.
In six weeks the first frost will replace,
at least for some small time and space,
humid-heavy heated air
and gasps for breath
with a cool-crisp
galloping pronouncement
that Summer passes over to Autumn
all responsibility
to foster human civility.
It has been a tough time this summer.
Climate change disordered earth’s coasts
with rising oceans and in-land flows,
a drenched earth policy
to point out the fallacy
of carbon overload.
Fire’s rages grow stronger.
We cannot ignore any longer
the impact of humanity
which seems to clasp insanity
as an entitled mother-load
to wealth and power.
Greed has become
the man of the hour.
while most of us simply strive
to find someway to survive.
The earth belongs to all, not some.
With stately haste Winter comes.
We have little faith Winter will grace
the earth with a surcease of worry.
Worry mounts with each snow flurry.
Earth shall eventually find balance.
Hopefully, we shall earn similar allowance.
How is it
that when silence
seems treason
words resist?
When resistance
seems patriotic
words run away
to a hidden place
even poets
cannot find,
to my disgrace.
I do not fear
my words will
cause me harm.
I fear I shall harm
my words.
I fear I will harm
my very soul.
I fear words so full
of anger, even hate
shall ruthlessly escape.
So, I shut the gate.
Today, I try to climb
above the world enflamed
by bullies with no shame
and view the world
I once knew.
A world sublime
but not perfect,
trying to be better,
trying to do better,
trying to achieve better
for every single soul.
This is the world of old.
Knowing the past
is good as gold.
Lingering in the past
will not help us be bold.
And being bold I am told
is what brings change,
topples bullies and their ilk,
eases harm and soothes
like a glass of warm milk,
after a harrowing hundred days.
I beg words to come out of hiding.
I beg for law and order abiding.
I beg for the wealthy to fund the fight.
I beg for police and soldiers to do what is right.
I beg for teachers to speak truth and empower.
I beg for journalists and media not to cower.
I beg for leaders to seize the moment.
I beg for clergy to calm the torment.
I beg for the silent to speak aloud.
I beg for neighbors to support each other.
I beg for words to shout together.
I beg for words.
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!
STORM STORY
Dark as night the sun took flight
before the winds wild and tight
forced their way with all their might
across the city showing no pity.
Trees split and showered leafy bowers,
or erupted from the ground with nary a sound
their roots so deep now unbound.
The wind became the only sound
creaking and weeping across sky and ground
raining tears in swirling fears that pound
hearts startled as they ran for cover
before a storm like no other.
I love a storm which reminds us all
that we have little say at all.
Climate has a mind of its own and yet
we must never forget and quickly recall
That we cannot tame nature
but we can tame our selves.
Natural disasters may not not be natural
after all.
What more do we need to believe
climate change has come to stay
unless we find a new way
to harness wind and sun and wave.
I welcome the message the storm left behind.
We must not delay altering our minds
and opening our hearts to the divine
which moves through nature’s mysterious ways
to offer us life day after day,
until storms take away sunny days with dark displays
of the death and destruction at play
among those who refuse to change their ways.
The future is ours, like it or not.
It is not too late to do what we ought.
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Filed under COMMENTARY, POETRY
Tagged as climate change, floods, high winds, midwest storms, nature, Ohio weather, RAIN, storms, tornados, twisters, wind gusts