The natural world continues to create beauty, even if only within my mind on cold wintry days with snow flurries slowing the garden’s awakening. This nation will awaken. The ranks of the woke will increase. Blue-bliss will overcome blood-red. Our nation will flourish again with diverse gardens to delight every sense, and remind us of the endless possibilities of a free people, One Nation out of Many. Let this painting give you hope and bring you a measure of peace today.
Some losses are too great to be borne.
Some losses are so huge they force us to mourn.
Some losses sift sinew and bone,
ideals and beliefs, tattered and worn.
Some losses pull hearts apart
smiling tears of grief, we feel all alone.
We pretend such loss is not our own
when watched on screens, viewed from afar.
But, connection is more than geography.
Some losses cross borders we cannot see.
Drought, floods and storms floor us all equally.
Bombs rain down on other cities
and beat us all bloody, in hidden anatomy.
Threads bind us together in an ethernet.
One stitch connecting us here and there,
of which we are determinedly unaware.
Instead we pretend, through word and prayer,
when what we really must do is give a care.
Some losses are too great to be borne.
Some losses are too great to ignore.
For, when we do, they lead to war.
Like children we make up games
and pretend life is merely a game to play.
Business and politics play out games’ themes.
Media reports but no one referees.
The games of politics and war become a melee.
But, life is much more than a game to play.
Some losses are too great to be borne.
Some losses are too great to ignore.
Our votes are not tokens to be tossed in a loss.
Our votes are connections which must not be lost.
Some losses are too great to be borne.
Some losses are too great to ignore.
Please, stop playing long enough
to go vote on behalf of ALL of us.
Best to keep parched lips closed in the midst of drought.
When the rain comes, as it surely must, lips open wide,
with head tilted back, in a tumultuous shout.
Filling up with rain, one wet swallow can seem enough.
Memory quickly returns of a mouth full of dry dust,
reminding one a single swallow is not enough.
After thirsting so long words have grown tough
to swallow, feel bitter, feel wounded, feel flushed
where they would be drowned
if only rain would fall down.
Still, the short rain is enough to stir us to our feet,
on the forward march to greener pastures,
cool beneath our bare feet,
taking their fill of all the rains
that have gone before to make this place
one where one may stay to laugh and play.
We will not go back.
Tears of joy rain down now.
We swallow them whole,
filled with power so bold
we believe we control
the weather.
We don’t, we know.
But, we can vote.
And our vote grows in volume
as word drops form streams
and create new rivers of dreams
that flow within oceans so strong
their freedom carries us along
to new and better shores
where right overcomes wrongs.
Words fall like rain, again and again.
Dance in the rain and play
on the way to election day.
We sit together in the tea room,
four friends sharing stories of our lives
as we have done since first grade.
Now, older ladies at age seventy-five
the stories remain the same in the telling
if not in the content, with little to no surprise.
Our stories are those told by women over time
while their aged hands hold cups of calming tea
Heart-hands are held within the circle of our lives.
We studiously avoid this day
what brings us to our knees to pray.
We know our country and our world’s democracy
is sadly attacked, torn, bleeding and frayed
by hypocrites who lie and find distorted ways
to describe the problems we all face.
We agree the Republican Party is a disgrace.
Its leaders praise and offer support
to Putin, Orban and the sort of autocrat
who rules with iron hands and deadly fists,
claiming they are too MAGA strong to resist.
Laughingly, as if they are proud
supporters rally round Trump, shouting loud
with triumphant cheers, they form a crowd
of sycophants and fools who hide their fear
within the lies of those they cheer.
They no longer need to wear white sheets.
They are legally and openly armed to the teeth
to create a white supremacist militia.
They act with impunity in every community,
even in D.C. on the 6th. of January.
Hate crimes increase, threats roam the streets,
and gather openly in social media accounts
where they can hide their hate with open pride.
We old ladies have no fear. We have seen this before.
We have lived long enough to recall all
those who “drank the tea” and raised the cup
to the “Tea Party” who plotted it all,
willing to watch America fall
so long as Republican supporters with great stealth
could retain their hold on power, and keep their wealth.
This is nothing new. We watched it happen as too few
paid any attention to how it happened and came to be
that we face the loss of our very treasured democracy.
They attack our very humanity, and make love a sin.
Their victimhood becomes a sign of religious grace.
Too many “find Jesus” as His words are replaced
with a false idol determined to win the race
to the White House and the presidency.
So, we sit together and drink our tea.
We may find it hard to stand on our feet.
But we shall not allow our democracy’s defeat.
We will vote for the only political party
we would be willing to invite to join us at tea.
Democrats all, we still can stand tall.
We may be a bit slower, but we go where we need to be,
to the polls to vote for those who still uphold the law.
We still speak what needs to be said
as facts remain alive, and truth is not yet dead.
We are still alive, as you can see. No one is too old
to uphold democracy and jail those whose crimes
are so many and so bold. We ladies recognize
that lies are still lies, no matter who enjoys their telling.
The con is not new, though the conmen may be.
Heat the kettle. Bring the water to a boil.
Brew the tea. Fill your cup.
Drink the real tea and wake up.
Filed under Uncategorized
The election year carnival has set up on the town square.
Hawkers shout from every tent, “come try our wares.”
Games of chance do not come free.
Choices are forced by our monetary needs.
Every player needs tickets to play.
Too few funds shortens the stay.
The House of Mirrors is on full display.
But the images inside are shattered in the fray
of fast-moving events and fast-talking cons.
Bombarded by fractured light we simply go on.
We get lost amid broken images
with pattern-less scrimmages
as we move through mirrored rooms.
Our hearts pound out a sense of doom.
Anxiety reigns.This feels like no game
that anyone can win, nor simply gain fame.
This House of Mirrors creates fear
and makes each step too dear
to waste on those seeking our vote.
We respond to the loudest note,
no soft word can compete
as we close our eyes and complete
the winding route to the outside.
Suddenly, we just want to hide.
It is all too much to pay attention.
We are as fractured as the mirrors we faced,
mirrors which displaced reality’s space.
Down is up and up is down.
We search for a safe space with none to be found.
We are surrounded by the false laughter of clowns.
All we once knew to be true is turned around.
We yearn for past days when we stood on solid ground.
Words can cut too close to the bone.
Words’ outside meaning fires the skin.
Words’ inside meaning, hidden from view
fires up hateful spew, just as true.
Words can cut too close to the bone.
splitting back the skin of what we have known.
Words open gaps to see within
what we have long hidden beneath our thin skins.
Words can make the blood flow strong,
too hard and too fast for too long.
Words flow beneath the marrow
to the depths of what we think we know.
Words pulse with their own beat
dancing through bodies to the soles of our feet.
Words leave bloody footprints to follow
until all blood is lost and our souls become hollow.
This is how words kill.
From outside in then out again
opening wounds we did not know
had crusted over wounds from long ago.
Words tear scars opening wounds anew
while ripping apart the peace we had found
to cure and to heal hate with love.
Words tell us love can never be true.
Words tell us love is not real;
if real, then, love is too weak to abide.
Words help us bury love so deep it subsides
and only hate can hold court inside.
Words boost false pride
that I am better than you.
I die inside as I try to kill the few
who speak the truth you once knew.
Filed under POETRY
Cliches are used to describe
beliefs held by members of the tribe.
Fellow Travelers need never think.
They simply repeat without a blink.
They readily follow the scripted lines
which leaders lay down clean and fine
on minds at ease and entertained
by political games played again and again.
Fellow Travelers are nothing new.
Names have changed as hatred grew.
Stalin or Putin, Hitler or Ali Khamenei,
Leni Riefenstahl or Kelly Anne Conway,
Mitchell or Flynn, Himmler or Halloway,
Chamberlin or Trump, Goring or Meadows,
“Both sides are good people” and happy fellows.
No Fellow Traveler deserves a pass.
Two Party systems have paved the way
to allow us to defeat hate each voting day.
Until now, when an entire party has become
the Fellow Traveler of world leaders of hate
whose acts of oppression and crimes of war
remind us humanity has not come so far
as we imagined and hoped and prayed.
We must vote them out next election day.
Elections have never mattered more.
No Fellow Traveler can be allowed
to cross the threshold of Congress’ door.
No Fellow Traveler can take up residency
in The White House of our nation’s presidency.
No nation can remain free
whose voters cannot think independently.
Filed under POETRY
I still remember the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis as if they were yesterday.
I still recall the look on Sister’s face as she read the memo she soon shared and displayed.
Duck and cover had no place among the wizened nuns opposed to fools at play.
Instead, we gathered in the church. Before the altar we knelt and prayed.
Then, we were sent home to be with our families, expecting missiles to fly our way.
I hurried and ran all the way home, tripping over myself, that frightening day.
Those were the days of bomb shelters dug in backyards where kids played.
Not in our yard, Dad explained. Even if we survived nuclear radiation in the bombs first hits
we would remain below for years until it was safe to come above ground, only to see
destruction all around, no food nor water safe, no crops nor animals, just empty space.
What good would such survival be? Better to die, he said,… immediately.
And so we children knew the new reality that life was under constant threat each day.
Then, Kennedy forced the Russians away from our back door until another day.
Russia has not stayed away from solemn threats to have its say and make us pay
for its failed experiment in communism as democracy gained greater sway.
China, North Korea and Iran eager to join in the latest fray.
This is nothing new, nothing unseen before. There has always been war.
Always a need to defend our doors. But, impossible to shutter doors to nuclear war.
Greed for power and wealth overcomes sanity in communism or democracy.
This war has two fronts, as all wars do: a home-front, and one off-shore.
October has returned with threats that November elections might correct.
But, once again, I am unsure if we have the guts to face down the clowns,
who play us like their fake pianos; and to shove them out of the ring, and out the door.
No duck and cover for me. I love my democracy. I will stand in the open forevermore.
I will never give in to bullies and fear. I shall stand firm and pray. Then, I shall vote.
With you by my side, we shall endure. Of this, fellow citizens, I am sure.
Filed under POETRY
GAMING AMERICA:CASINO POLITICS, By Louise Annarino,September 26,2012
The economic hardships Americans are experiencing have been a long time coming. There have been numerous signs along the path to our economic bust;most of them ushered through our consciousness by snake oil salesmen with booming voices,explaining away our intuitive discomforts as a housing market boom, and investment boom, an hedge fund boom, a stock-market boom, and a commodities boom. BOOM, BOOM,BOOM! Such charlatans blew up our manufacturing base, our banks, our mortgage companies, our insurance industry, and our personal economic lives.
“Put your money down,folks!” You, too, can make millions. These salesmen, for that is what they are, started small scale selling pyramid schemes. Americans who got into the game late moved on from home-based sales of baskets, bowls and toilet-bowl cleaners to become dealers themselves,selling others the right to sell and keeping real profits at the top of the pyramid. There was something wrong with this picture but it changed so rapidly, and the booming voices were so distracting that many simply moved from one scheme to the next.
Pyramid sales schemes attracted lower income wage earners who could see no way ahead to break out of their economic class to reach all that America seemed to promise. They watched the investment class drive the cars they could not afford to buy, build McMansions they could not afford to heat and looked for a way out.
Those born into the investment class who lived on the returns from investment portfolios their parents had created for them were satisfied for awhile.They, too, looked for a way to become wealthier. They would make that wealth work for them. They became skilled in moving around investments like pieces on a chess board, increasing wealth as they won the games they joined. They bet their winnings on bigger games for larger stakes.
But, rich or poor, enough is never enough for most of us. Like children, we always want more and don’t always know what is good for us. We don’t mind hedging our bets. Low earners hedged their bets on pyramid schemes; high earners hedged their bets on hedge funds, created by the snake oil salesmen of Wall Street.
Those playing chess with American corporations as pawns saw another avenue for wealth creation. Instead of merely playing the game, they bought the board and all the pieces on it,after talking other investors into buying a potential share of the profits from the game. “Put your money down,friends!” The only risk was losing the game, but this could be ameliorated by selling off the poor-performing pieces;and, sometimes the better-performing pieces, to keep the game competitive. THe trick was to keep the game going until enough investors paid back the new owners’ costs, plus massive profits. The game itself, and the pieces on the board, had become meaningless.
Those running the game soon realized that the pieces on the chess board did not always cooperate. These game pieces had formed unions in order to make sure the game was played by the rules. But playing by the rules was getting in the way of profits for those betting on the game. No longer did the chess pieces have value other than a means of greater profit.Safety,reasonable hours,equitable pay,moderate health care coverage, and secure retirement benefits interrupted the unbridled movement of the chess pieces. “What if,” the private equity company who bought the board asked, “we could get rid of unions?” “What if we simply move the game” to a different city, county, state, and eventually country where such rules don’t apply? And take our profits offshore as well to avoid taxes?” “What if we sell off the tables,chairs,benches,game board and pieces;then,declare bankruptcy because we can no longer play the game without a board and equipment,avoid any debts we owe and pay off the investors whose money we used to make our own profits?”
We know what happened. How did we allow it? How do we find ourselves with one of the best snake oil salesman as a presidential candidate? How do we stop this from happening again?
It was when a friend with no finance or business training or experience tried to sell me an investment portfolio after becoming a part-time employee of an insurance company that I first realized how far we were into the game. As mortgages changed hands several times a year, from bank to bank, and between investment groups it occurred to me that not only had I no idea who held my mortgage;but, the company holding my mortgage had no idea of its worth. The walls raised by Glass-Steagall had been removed. Security and Exchange Commission/SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission/CFTC oversight had been limited by staff cuts meant to down-size “Big Government” and de-regulation. Snake Oil salesmen moved between both worlds, as traders and as regulators. The rules were gone, the walls were gone; and, the fox was guarding the henhouse.
President Obama did bring change to Washington. He also brought change to the snake oil salesmen who are furious that their “game is now up”. They attack Obama for the failures wrought by their own failed gamesmanship. They insist he hates capitalism and doesn’t understand how the game is played. Oh, he understands alright! He simply insists that we regulate the game; protect the game board, pieces and assets; and, assure a fair game. America is ours to protect. The game belongs to all Americans. Only Obama has America’s best interest at heart; not the snake oil salesman who wants to get back to his rigged game.
Is it mere coincidence that states are turning to casinos to generate wealth? Isn’t it all of a piece? Isn’t the game the same as that being played by the Republican party? Isn’t that what “Citizens United” is all about? Isn’t that what voter I.D. laws are all about? We won’t be fooled this election. The “Booms” we heard crash did not fall on deaf ears. We know a rigged game when we see it. We want no part of it. Vote for President Obama. Vote for those Democrats who refused to become snake oil salesmen running rigged games.
ABUSERS AND ENABLERS CAMPAIGN TOGETHER
Louise Annarino
May 10, 2012
I received the following e-mail tonight: “Louise: Thank you for all the e-mails with information on the campaign you have sent us and others over the past 4 years. You kept us well informed. Unfortunately, Pres. Obama publicly admitted today his preference for same-sex marriages, (emphasis mine) which prevents us now to vote for him. So, please take us from your distribution list.” I must not have understood President Obama. I did not hear him say he preferred same-sex marriage. I am certain Mrs. Obama would have been surprised to learn of her husband’s preference, from these former Obama supporters. http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/09/politics/obama-same-sex-marriage/index.html
The President, like many others, has struggled with his own perceptions, misconceptions, and stereotypes of those who are gay,lesbian,bi-sexual or transgender (LGBT), His past reluctance is even more poignant given his racial heritage. There are those who say he should have known better, having experienced prejudice himself. Others are grateful he was willing to openly engage in the struggle to face down his own prejudices. His journey is one we can all learn from.
It is 2:34 a.m. I could not sleep and decided to write. I found the above note as I first sat down at my computer. I had not intended to write about the president’s announcement. I had been thinking I would write about the similarities between the way we treat President Barack Obama and how an abuser treats his victim. The above e-mail fits right in to the puzzle that is abuse.
Few of us are strangers to abuse and bullying. If we have not personally been abused, we are close to someone who has been. It is never easy to be the victim, nor to be close to a victim. An abused person seeks to escape the abuse in many ways: denial, deflection, perfection-seeking, appeasement, depression, hostility, violence against self and against others, even suicide. To get close to a victim and stay close is a struggle indeed. It is hard to watch someone be slapped mentally, physically, emotionally – often all three. It is harder to the one slapped.
So many have told me over the past few months that they can no longer watch television news programs, nor read the newspaper, nor read on-line missives which contain one demeaning slap against President Obama after another. Even liberal commentators on MSNBC spend much of their programming discussing the attacks. There is no escaping the hateful distortions of his record, personal beliefs, character and leadership. There is no escaping the outright lies meant to undermine the country’s confidence in him. The bullies cannot even credit him with the death of Osama Bin Laden, the resurrection of the auto industry, the steady creation of jobs, the lower cost of health care, the investment in green energy, the increased production and glut of oil and gas since he took office. These abusers credit him with nothing, not even his humanity. They hide their racism behind their abuse. No wonder it is hard to watch. No wonder we cringe in distaste.
Obama supporters know the attacks are meant to not only act as cover for those who oppose the president, and seek to destroy his presidency and his historical record; but, are also meant to turn his supporters away from him, to make any close contact with him so unbearably hard to stomach that even his supporters cannot approach him or his campaign. This is classic abuser behavior: Separate then attack,repeat,repeat,repeat. We see it. We know it. We hate it. We avoid it; and, in so doing doing we fail our president, our country and our selves.
An abuser is charming. He disarms any potential supporters of his victim with a story-line upon which he acknowledges a commonality with the victim’s friends and family. His remarks appear innocent; hidden behind his smile and slight chuckles is a comment assuming shared agreement with the victim’s poor behavior. He assures friends and family he does not blame them for the victim’s shortcomings. At the beginning of the abusive relationship, both the victim and supporters strive to please the abuser, catering to his whims, reaching “across the aisles” to make everyone feel better about what is fast becoming a “situation”, a falsity created by the abuser to separate the victim from his support group. By the time the supporters get suspicious, and uncomfortable enough to express their doubts about the abuser’s veracity, supporters have already ostracized the victim. Media personalities awoke too late to the abuse game being played out in public view.
African-Americans, Native-Americans, and others are not so easily duped. After all, they have been victimized by abusers for over 200 years. They understand the methodology of abuse and oppression. When I voice my outrage to white supporters they too often express a desire to avoid the election entirely. When I express my outrage to African-Americans they often tell me “shoot, this is nothing new; if my people got this upset every time, they would have committed mass suicide! You got to be tough.” They offer this wisdom, “Only white people can afford to get upset; we got to survive!” Those who think African-American voters will avoid voting for President Obama because of today’s announcement, do not understand the strength and wisdom of African-Americans to face down abusers. White supporters need to “get tough” and face them down, too.
We are right to feel uncomfortable. We are correct when we acknowledge the abusive behavior. We are justified in saying, “I can’t stand anymore of this!” but, we are wrong to abandon the victim so we can feel comfortable again. None of us should feel comfortable so long as any of us is being abused. That is why President Obama changed his position regarding same-sex marriage. Knowing members of the LGBT community continue to be abused made him more uncomfortable than his own discomfort with same-sex marriages, and his concern of potential political fall-out. He put aside his discomfort and chose to take the courageous path. It is time we all do so.
It is time we all acknowledge the abuse of others sanctioned by law, the ongoing victimization occurring daily in our local communities, and the abuse being heaped upon a president who continues to “do the right thing” while abusers attempt to undermine and destroy his every effort on our behalf, his personal integrity, even his personal safety. If you have ever suffered abuse or bullying you can see it as clearly as I can. It can keep us up at night, but it cannot stop us from supporting the LGBT community and President Obama.
Filed under POLITICS
annarino writes 