“Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.” – Voltaire
Tag Archives: MAGA
HOLY SATURDAY
Time hangs suspended in the tomb,
rolled back behind a solid stone
chasing thoughts away
of what occurred yesterday.
Shrouded in a mystery
foretold by history
evil reaches across the space
where fearing loss of power
the great losers rage by the hour.
We helped create our own purgatory,
where all we do is worry
rather than embrace the true reality
we not so suddenly face.
We must roll away the stone
and bring truth home;
look at what we have done
and what we have failed to do.
The stillness of this day must renew
a strength we once embraced with pride.
Now we cower and we hide.
Are we so fearful and so weak
we dare not take a peak
into our shaking souls to see
the selves we have come to be?
Only we. Only we. Only we
becomes our litany.
Only we can stop the hate
that acts upon the institutions
we must rely upon
to uphold law and seek justice
to protect all of us
and this country we proclaim to be
the seat of freedom and democracy.
We must open up our eyes
and roll away the lies
that block this holy space
where salvation will arise.
Vote away the hate.
it is not too late.
THE LIGHT WE REFUSE TO SEE
I used to believe Truth lived in the shadows.
If only we could shine enough light,
then Truth would be set free
for all to see.
There are those who prefer we stay in the dark,
it is true. They fear the Light will open our eyes.
It is no longer so easy to darken the streets
upon which we set our feet
hoping to reach a place of greater liberty.
Truth speeds around the world
from one shadowed place to the next.
Through media Truth moves at the speed of light.
Truth seekers use facts to light our way
along the path to a new day,
one where Light holds sway.
The darkness can no longer hide Truth in shadow.
Those who live in the dark side of life
create new truths able to live in false Light.
In their constant retelling of lies
Truth simply dies in plain sight.
The battle between the Light and the Dark,
between Truth and Lies
is now exposed in MAGA prose
stealing the limelight with false praise
for oligarchs, autocrats and murderers
whose only goal is to control
the flow of wealth into their own pockets
while those who work to be whole
starve and struggle at their feet.
Those forced to flee and seek amnesty as refugees
would add their story to our own
brightening the Truth we already know.
The telling would not surprise the homeless
who walk our own streets.
The homeless, like Truth, used to hide in shadow.
We try to keep them there so we cannot see
the borders they have crossed.
Truth and Light and Love are all apiece.
Without Love we are blind and refuse to seeTruth.
There is no Light strong enough to overcome
deliberate blindness cushioned by lies.
We allow them in boardrooms, newsrooms,
hearing rooms and even, courtrooms.
“Speak Truth to Power,” isn’t that what we say?
When Power seizes the Light with falsehood
can we not see that False Light
can never be allowed to hold sway?
True Light is always more powerful than false.
Liars know this and ban books, and oppose
all who stand alight within Truth’s glow.
This is the one thing I still know.
Filed under POETRY
ELECTIONS 2024
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.
UNDERSTATED
There is so little that is understated now.
No more elegant lifting of a single brow.
Excited stammers and caustic frowns
by the faithless Republican clowns
who mimic a man who would wear a crown.
There is no thoughtful, errudite display.
There is only posing false, and evil, play.
Trumped up hearings day-by-day
now hold sway hiding reality away.
He does not lead; but, is just a toy
they use as an effective ploy
to take away power from the many
so they can hold on to every penny
they have gained by writing rules
to benefit themselves and other fools
who overlook their history
and their sworn oaths and holy duty.
What games are played out every day.
While we are left to hope and pray.
And legislation is torn to shreds
that protected us lying in our beds
believing we could face another day,
and see more laws added to hold harm at bay.
They play on fears which they create,
their greed for money and power to satiate.
Vote before it is too late
and democracy is no longer ours to celebrate.
LIES
The universal lie is
that I never lie.
Always untrue.
We all lie.
We all do.
There are but two reasons why.
Knowing that is seeing true.
Knowing that may save you.
The first lie
may save your injury,
comfort your suffering,
grant you your freedom,
shelter and protect,
uplift and encourage,
open you to love.
The first lie is the oil over
troubled waters,
is the hidden key
to new discovery,
is the extra note to more harmony.
The first lie brings peace.
The first lie helps us see
we are part of loving community.
The second lie
causes injury,
increases suffering,
denies our freedom,
makes us feel unsafe.
Discourages our history
Berates new ideas,
closes us to love with hate.
The second lie is not
so noble as the first.
The first lie is for us.
The second lie is for the liar.
The first lie sets boundaries
to expand our sense
of love and creativity.
Its purpose is to protect.
The second lie has no “red lines”
it refuses to cross; but, only seeks
to sate the need of the second liar.
The second lie is for him, not us.
The second lie denies our right
to create connections and see the light
that fills all persons whose lives intersect.
It restricts any chance for us to connect.
The biggest liar of them all
is not the first, nor will be the last.
He is simply the liars’ poster boy.
And poster boys never last.
But the lies they tell persist
no matter how many resist
the pull of hate to the surface.
The greatest lie of all
is the one we tell ourselves
that we are somehow better,
somehow best.
We are liars, all.
If not we would have let him fall.
He would join other liars in jail.
Let up hope that soon
truth will finally prevail.
Filed under POETRY
FELLOW TRAVELERS
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
POETRY’S PATH
Poetry may hide under rocks, too.
Poems litter the path with words
often unattached
to any reality,
and blocking the way
to progress.
But, poetry exposed to the sun,
and shared with everyone,
opens up paths of discovery.
Poems can be used as tools
to bring back home
fearful fools
who climbed too high,
led astray by fraudsters
who use their fear
to build a gate,
and create hate
to block the way
to unity and community.
Our village awaits
the return of those who thus roam.
Let poetry guide you home.
Leave hate behind.
Make easier your climb,
unfettered by false letters
in tweets and squeaks
by cowards, hour upon hour.
Such false facts weigh you down
more than personal adversity.
Community will share the load,
no matter how hard your road.
Love, not hate, always finds its way.
Come home.
Come home.
Come home.
Today.
NATIONAL MORAL DEGRADATION
Politics is not the key.
The question is morality.
Where moral degradation reigns
the reins of democracy are strained.
When power cedes
to an ever-increasing greed,
and truth becomes a mere toy.
Politics becomes the ploy
to undermine a constitution
and bind in chains of dissolution
the foundation of a nation’s greatness,
the threat of loss of the basis
for a nation where freedom praises
each individual’s human right
to find her truth in her own light,
and raises fear
that the end is near.
Retribution and retaliation
are not the signs of a strong nation.
Apology for wrongs committed
create a place where forgiveness is permitted.
When morality takes center stage
we more clearly see the hateful rage
that undermines persons and institutions,
and can better resist their dissolution.
No debate, nor speech, nor hearing can rectify
the hypocritical pack of Republican MAGA lies
made with hands on bibles and said with smiles
as the autocrats seek power all the while.
Vote your conscience, not your fear-based preference.
Vote as if your lives and freedoms depended,
against those who would see democracy upended.
Bring back the supporters of a constitution
that promises stability, and seeks solution
instead of a cult of personality
created to destroy morality;
to place in power the greediest among us
with promises of white supremacist
in control, as they have ever been before,
quite willing to leave democracy behind, evermore.
HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE
Empty shoes piled high and deep
their secrets we cannot keep
lest we forget
the truth of who we are
humans not so far
removed from animals
in a kingdom too low
to acknowledge the fact
that we must control
what lies within ourselves
and not one another.
We must remember we are all
sisters and brothers
created from a single mother
each cell between us a bond
instructing us not to harm
lest we forget and destroy
the best of who we are.
Weep upon the pile of shoes
of those who walked their last mile
into the ovens and gas chambers
Jews and gypsies
homosexuals and disabled
those who wore hate’s label
of yellow stars and edicts
enacted by those in brown shirts
shouting slogans and sound bites
we once more hear on our streets
across our airwaves
at rallies held by MAGA stars
and from their congressional seats.
Lest we forget,
remember the empty shoes.
They could soon be yours.
This is a time to remember
even as those who survived
leave this place and space
and leave us the task of remembering
lest we forget.
Filed under POETRY
