Tag Archives: freedom

WE THE PEOPLE

The people’s house is no more.

Oh, the structure still stands,

It’s East Wing destroyed.

It rose garden paved over.

Its grounds defaced.

It is no longer democracy’s safe space.

No woman, nor child yet protected.

Hidden files of pedophilia and rape

Keep Republican representatives

Of the people away.

No chance to obstruct

as we fearfully watch all we love destruct.

Money directed from its appropriated place

Into the pockets of the man in disgrace,

Who crowns himself king,

And demands all kiss his ring.

Our right to rule ourselves now firmly displaced

By cruelty and hate,

absent a single moment of grace.

There are no longer two sides.

None of us are left with any pride.

We the people now have no place.

Unless we stand together to fight

The destruction of freedoms that are our constitutional right.

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

DECONSTRUCTION

Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025

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.

Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025

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.

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Filed under COMMENTARY, POETRY, POLITICS

IN THEIR STEPS

We walk with heroes

On paths of love for freedom.

Let us walk in peace.

Henry David Thoreau Poems > My poetic side

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

NO KINGS DAY

Acrylic on canvass by Louise Annarino

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.

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DEMORALIZED

Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com

Newscasters used to tell it like it is.

Now, they are opinionated forecasters.

They still tell us who.

They tell us who said why.

They no longer tell us 

what, when or how.

That would expose the lie.

No wonder we are demoralized

within both its meanings, 

no surprise.

First losses began long ago:

No more manners as a guide.

No more conscience to lower pride.

No respect for others.

No authority recognized.

Second losses are less discreet:

No longer safe in thoughts nor words.

No longer safe on our own streets.

No more hopeful for the best

when every known fact is put to the test.

No more law and order.

Due process now out the door.

Demoralized beyond repair?

The people rise, at last, at last?

Not in anger and outrage.

Peacefully assembling on marching feet.

Nuns, priests, ministers, imams and rabbis

offer a morality well-intentioned if incomplete.

But this is how our story goes.

We are not perfect, heaven knows.

Our moral code is soft and flexible.

Our democratic republic makes it workable.

It offers a way to respect ourselves and one another;

to recognize all as sister or brother.

Immorality is what we see, and vote for?

Approve of, and laugh about too obviously?

See where  we have led ourselves and our country,

fueled by wantoness and greed.

Demoralized we may be.

Still a people willing to fight to remain free.”

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

“NOLITE TE BASTARDES CARBORUNDORUM.” – Handmaid’s Tale

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NO!

Photo by Snapwire on Pexels.com

The strongest word in any language is “NO”.

It is every child’s first word for a reason.

To a toddler’s parent it is treason.

It carries more weight than cuddles or cudgels

used to reprimand, remand and reform.

Its power can overturn threats and intimidation.

Its shout can garner attention and create  doubt.

Its momentum can move mountains about.

Its clarity quickens response to its shame.

It calls attention to errors or cheats in any game.

It works where no other method succeeds

to enforce self-interest’s vitality and need.

Its surprise increases the ability to annoy.

“NO!” can be weakened if too late employed

Authoritarian rule is under attack

every time the word “NO!” is shouted back.

“No!” used in concert create symphonic dissent,

until the whole world rises to up-end

intimidation by armed and masked men

who invade our streets and use force to bend

our knees and our minds and our very lives.

When will such madness end ?

When more “NO” is heard than “yes”.

On such “NO!” does one’s freedom depend.

Every child knows this to be true.

Speak your “NO!” now before freedom is lost

to me, to all of us, even to you.

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MONARCHS

Photo by Cindy Gustafson on Pexels.com

The monarchs are back

after an arduous journey

from, of all places, Mexico.

Monarchs will leave, eventually.

We now have a monarch in D.C.

who also road in over Mexico.

Unlike the butterfly

which sips nectar and gathers pollen

to leave the garden better and intact,

the D.C. monarch calls flowers weeds

in his obstinate refusal to face facts

and cuts every bloom in the garden back.

He leaves the soil once rich and black

lie fallow so the garden cannot grow back.

This monarch guards his new wasteland

that those who come to take his place

can plant their own seeds

of power and greed.

The monarch will leave as all men must

beneath the weight of soil, and those who lust

for power will take his place in the dead of winter,

and amidst the death of democracy inter

our constitutional republic.

Gardens need much more than monarchs to thrive.

It takes great effort to keep freedom alive.

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4TH.OF JULY, 2025

Photo by Brendon Spring on Pexels.com. Read the full text of THE NEW COLOSSUS, (partially quoted below)by Emma Lazarus and inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

Today is my funeral.

I have always been myself.

everyone else was taken.

I had become a fossil.

So many layers of sediment

have built up over time

that I

am hard as rock.

Too soon

It has become 

too hard

to remain human.

Especially, when monsters

roam the earth with heavy feet

in lockstep with one another.

They stand atop 

the crumbling rock and pray.

They say

that they

are God’s representative

on this dying earth

to show all the way

to greater days.

We were already pretty great,I say.

I thought we were stronger than they.

I thought they could not

make me, me, me ! their prey.

Yet, on this day we celebrate my birth,

I die during parades

of those who march behind 

school bands playing my songs.

A Statue of Liberty drone-scape

dots the night-time sky

above Red-White-and Boom

crowds cheering while immigrants die.

De-naturalized, de-refugeed

de-citizenized.

No irony there? 

How can the crowds

not realize I am dead.

They are cheering at my funeral.

After all is said,

I am done.

Too few mourners attend.

They have been forced to hide.

Even the Fourth Estate

has crumbled before my eyes,

its voices silenced, 

without enough pride nor ratings

to turn the tide of my demise.

Perhaps it is a Celebration of Life

which once was, but is no more.

Can you bring me back from the dead?

Can you resurrect what I stood for?

“Send these, the homeless,

tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp

beside the golden door.”

You can still speak these words.

you can still act on my behalf,

on behalf of liberty itself.

This. This. This! I sincerely implore.

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FREE THE STRAWBERRIES

Louise’s strawberry garden fenced to keep out chipmunks, squirrels,racoons,deer,rabbits,skunks and a variety of birds; allowing in rain, helpful pollinators, and insect enemies of other harmful insects. Rest assured the gate will be turned right side up and our American garden will once again flourish and produce sweet fruit. Patience and effort, constant weeding out those harming the garden. It takes time and is well worth the effort.

The fence is placed all around

The strawberries are in the ground.

The gate is upside down.

The harvest will be delayed

Dismantling what we made

hour by our, day by day.

Chaos alway brings change.

Gardens too rigorously defended

make fences necessarily upended

to reach fruit not intended

for anyone but a few

who fence out themselves, too. 

What is the gardener to do?

A gate is meant to let us through

to the crop we worked for,

and many of us died for,

a free country we yearn for.

We thought we planted within our reach.

We thought we had enough freedom to teach.

We never thought we would beseech

tearing down everything we had built

to avoid admitting our guilt.

The gate MAGA made is all atilt.

The fence is too high, clearly.

We are just so frustrated and weary.

We may never eat another strawberry.

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AWAKENED

Photo by Louis on Pexels.com

This is no way to wake up.

Perhaps, it has become the only way.

We may have stayed asleep too long.

we may have missed the call

of our immigrant ancestors.
We may have been too deep in our own dreams.

We may not have heard the alarm

in the voices of those awake,

and made to suffer

while we dreamt on.

We may have found dreams

easier to focus beyond

the painful reality

that comes with the dawn.

Becoming awake means

it is not too late

to set aside hate

which weakens all bonds,

and love our country enough

to make it strong enough

to end the nightmares.

We can and we must 

awaken to a new dawn.

I am awake and I quake

in the light made by evil heat

that feels punishing and wrong. 

Today, I uneasily awake

determined to push on

past those who tell us

some of us

do not belong.

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