Tag Archives: GAZA

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

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Money counts for nothing.

It has no intrinsic worth,

these tiny bits of metal

dug, then foundered from the earth.

Money adds no value to our lives.

Its value lies outside its cost to self.

Its only value is what it tells us.

Money talks after all.

It tells us what we truly value,

whom we raise up, and whom we let fall.

We bet our future on its use,

or bury it in secure vaults.

We use it to boast about greatness

while it hides our basest faults.

It buys the things around us.

It buys the myth of our safety.

It serves to remind us

we are nothing at all;

but, tiny specks in a universe

among many millions just like us,

trying to rise while gravity pulls us

around and down giant black holes. 

Money fools us, a tool that uses us,

while we think we rule over others

just like us.

So, we gather it as best we can

to show we are better than 

our fellow woman or man.

We cannot rely upon our own souls

to bring wisdom, love and life,

to end the useless strife.

We buy bullets instead of bread.

We drop bombs instead of supplies.

We destroy earth instead of fear.

We believe our own and others’ lies.

Money becomes our grand prize.

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WE SHALL OVERCOME

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Grind the beans.

Heat the kettle.

Start the day with verve.

Do not start the day with anything less

than love and hope and nerve.

Love is wiser than all the lies.

Love is bolder than fear.

Love is stronger than greed.

Love is all we need.

Love mends broken hearts and nations.

Love is how we succeed.

Love welcomes each dawn’s transformation,

chaotic though it may appear to be.

The path of love, poets tell us,

ne’er does run smooth.

But with many hearts joined as one,

the chaos can, and shall, be overcome.

So, we raise our cup to smiling lips

and sing a victor’s song.

We shall overcome, my loves.

We shall overcome.

Sing it all day long.

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IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

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In the middle of the night 

when darkness curries favor

with sleeplessness and fright,

I wander room-to-room

in hopelessness that dawn

will come bearing anything 

more than false light.

Too many days of bold lies

called forth from the darkest 

spaces of twisted minds

force us all to walk in darkness,

and into exhausted days unable

to perform the simplest tasks,

weary beyond all telling,

silenced senses yelling,

deadened and unfeeling.

To feel would be to die,

or die trying

to make sense of such evil.

The cost of others’ greed is too high

for men and women of conscience,

of even Mother Earth herself,

to survive.

There is no answer

to the question, “why?”.

And so, I continue to roam 

dark spaces, seeking answers.

I am woke. I stay awake

to face dark days

and dark nights.

I roam looking for ways

to pull us all to safe spaces

where restful sleep may come.

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DECLARATION 2026

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It is time to open words stored in safe spaces.

Behind the clock where time passes unaware.

Behind the freezer where thoughts hunger for truth.

Behind the bed where slumber overtakes rage.

November cannot come soon enough for words.

Words cannot wait to learn their fate.

Voices may be denied, decried, deceased.

But, words?

Words persist long after we are gone,

long after we overcome, or we are overcome.

Speak now, beyond the pain and indifference to them.

Speak now while breathing still moves you to act.

Speak now into a future which never looks back.

Speak your words, joined with mine;

words recorded for all time.

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ACTIVISTS

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To catch the sunrise

it is necessary to open the blinds

while still in the dark;

in that fearful time and space

our earliest ancestors faced,

before fire made a place

where even in darkness

we feel safe.

Even now, we close our eyes,

awaiting a new sunrise;

one where bombs and hate

stop falling from the skies

in our streets and across our screens

until we quake and scream.

We cannot simply sit in the dark.

Its prospects are too stark;

all blunt, clean-edged lies 

that shadow every truth

which fear denies, 

finally laid bare,

once sunlight fills the air.

We must open the blinds

while skies and lies are yet dark.

We cannot miss the moment.

We must not be caught by surprise.

Be ready for the sunrise.

I wait in the dark and open the blinds.

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MORE ON WAR

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My father fought the War

to End all Wars.

My Godfather fought the War

that has no end.

My brother fought the War

that was a police action.

My nephew fought the War

undeclared for Kuwait’s liberation

and Hussein’s annihilation.

My great-nephew fights the War

To save an autocrat’s administration.

We all fight the War

opposing cruel opposition to immigration.

Once more, people of peace

protest a war taking place abroad

and its counterpart taking place in our streets.

All to save a man from accusation

of pedophilia, rape and sheer brutality 

who will be asked for an explanation

during his interrogation

which could lead to his incarceration.

Have I got that right?

It is not his sons nor daughter who will fight.

But, yours and mine.

Have I got that right?

It all comes from The Right

so I must be Right

or face the consequences.

Have I got that right?

We make such war at our cost

until all is lost.

Have I got that right?

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LEVEL 2 EMERGENCY

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Snow fell.

Quiet reigned

aboriginal and free

amid snow’s mystery.

Only the rabbits

left their tracks

to let us know

life still goes on

despite levels of emergency

tossed to and fro

by weather-casters

who took over the news

while Ukrainian children were bombed,

while fishermen’s boats were blown apart,

while military heroes were called traitors,

while brown and black people were secreted away

to secret places behind fencing and weapons,

while scientists were silenced by conspiracy,

while money poured in to false fronts

put in place by false leaders spouting false claims,

while real drug-runners, insurrectionists, rapists and worse

were pardoned and promoted to prod us to succumb

to the darkness weighing down our days as well as our nights.

And still,

the snow fell.

Pure and white,

it covered up every dirty secret.

It hid all sin from our sight.

it made us believe again.

In what? 

What happens when it melts again,

as it surely will,

as it has since the Wampanoag

and every tribe lost its place,

as it has on every plantation

where enslaved persons 

plotted to run away,

as it does now with every bonus paid to an ICE agent

subduing a person of color and hiding them away.

It snowed last night.

It is freezing and cold today.

Snow did not create an emergency.

We did.

And, we keep trying to cover it up.

It snowed last night.

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MY FELLOW AMERICANS

MY FELLOW AMERICANS

I hold my tongue.

It takes strength I do not have.

Whimpers escape

On shattered breaths,

In silent screams.

The fight worries my soul,

Battle weary and choking,

On words held tight inside.

Once the scream begins

I doubt I could stop.

I wait for your speech.

I yearn for your promise

To stop the authoritarian

Who has taken over our house,

Emptied its vaults,

Stolen its wealth,

Sold its power

To the highest bidders.

So, I write. That I can do

While I wait for you.

To me, this nothing new.

Do you believe me now?

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THE DAWN OF DISCONTENT

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Darkness has not yet lifted

from the night of a waning moon.

This is the time of discontent

when one feels most alone, but soon,

the sun shall rise.

Others choose to sleep through darkness.

I cannot. Like a lone wolf,

I choose to stay awake, woke to wonder

hidden in all I yet may discover

in people and places I have never known.

I plant seeds of yearning in my soul

that love may take root and grow

beyond my own cultural limits,

beyond the bounds of all I know.

I try to stay awake, though weary,

to watch the new day dawn.

As it surely will.

As it surely will.

As it surely will.

Turn three times and make a wish.

I wish to fearlessly face the heat of these days

with cool calm and laughter so strong

it awakens the entire world.

Will the new dawn reveal 

that which was destroyed

while an entire nation slept?

This question is what makes some people

sleep the whole day long.

Their eyes appear open, but they sleepwalk;

perhaps hoping they are dreaming

and the day is a mere nightmare

from which they will soon awake.

I cannot pretend. Not I.

Even in the dark my eyes open wide.

I must see what darkness has wrought.

I tend to the garden I have created,

to the life of growth I have sought,

as the sun rises over roots sorely stressed.

I cannot allow the plants, nor my self, to die

even though they can no longer thrive.

I am awake in the dark, but not alone.

So long as I see clearly, if not cheerily,

the life of other living things all around me

resisting the threat in the day ahead and hanging on.

Sensing our togetherness is what makes us strong.

I watch the discontented dawn.

The sun continues to rise.

As will you. As shall I.

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DEMORALIZED

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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.”

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

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