Losers unite fast.
Winners make moments last.
Spectators lose all.
Tag Archives: MAGA
DEMORALIZED
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.”
“NOLITE TE BASTARDES CARBORUNDORUM.” – Handmaid’s Tale
SMALL SPACES SMALL MINDS
The smaller the space in the head
or in geography, or in any cartography,
The less room for challenges and new ideas.
Facts have only so much space.
They must cling fast to last.
Those who limit themselves
to live inside bubbles
seldom recognize such troubles.
They are sure of everything
and wrong about nothing.
They have organized their small space
impeccably, intelligently, flawlessly.
So they must be as well.
They have neither time nor space to dwell
upon possible fallacy.
Only those outside the bubble can see
the absolute dangers of such insanity.
It is a new kind of mental illness
born in the stillness of active minds
revolving unchallenged by facts
that would make their theories unwind.
No such persons should be given power
over those who would see freedom flower
with a just and truthful effort, hour upon hour.
Those who live in openly-wide spaces,
who are woke to every possibility,
to every person and new discovery
are shut down and shut out
until autocracy has destroyed democracy.
MONARCHS
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.
NO RETREAT
My country is not being stolen.
It is being sold to the highest bidder.
Wealth and power
are the voices of the hour.
Not unexpected
in a consumerism frenzy
fueled by media and investors.
Capitalism has its own axes to grind.
Now, it seems to grind down me and mine.
Turning to fascism is an easy turn of face
for a people untroubled by greed and hate;
for a nation built on slavery and Jim Crow,
and denial of women’s rights to earn and grow
at the same pace, with the same grace,
all men seem entitled to know.
Religion once again is used to shame
and disgrace anyone unwilling
to bend the knee to fake gods
and destroy all faith
in a democratic republic of equals
with equal rights to remain free
of religious bigotry.
This is an old story, one we left behind
to build a new nation inspired by the divine
rights of all men and women to be free.
Now thugs are granted bounties
to place their heels on our necks.
Military mission which once defended
is now on our own streets, its purpose up-ended.
Wealth and power which once plundered
third world nations for fossil fuel and cash
now plunders our economy and middle class.
Science once built a solid foundation
for a healthy, productive nation.
All our scientists built is now being turned to ash.
Massive turnouts in the streets.
Massive turnout at polls complete
our voices shouting, “ no retreat! ”
“No retreat! No retreat!”
THE RAINS CAME AND CAME AND CAME
We keep thinking
it cannot become any worse
this placid earth
awash in excess or in drought.
Hibiscus big as dinner pates
strung among drenched leaves,
hangs in drooping loops to the ground.
Sun makes its way warily
through clouds weighing the sky down,
new-born leaves water-logged and drowned.
The heavy weight of watered threats
is nearly too much to bear.
Too heavy to breathe, saturated, air
keeps me waiting inside,
Parched lips and dry-aged skin
too thin to accept such weight again,
hangs loose, losing all pride;
jealous of the hibiscus
which still stands tall
strong enough to resist it all.
I anxiously await a break in the clouds,
days of hope and rest in the sun.
Even the earth is in tears these days.
Like a child I hold my sign and sing aloud
“Rain, rain, go away. Come again
another day.” Or not. Never again
should we women and men
so misbehave and reduce our gardens to tears.
BEGGING FOR WORDS
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.
EXAMINATION OF CONSCIENCE
How easily done depends
on the sinner and sin done that day.
No “ I lay me down to sleep”
before this Catholic child closed her eyes.
An examination of conscience,
a deep and complete review
of my sins committed that day, as I prayed
in true contrition for my sins; and a promise
to make restitution to all I had harmed
in my self-centered, humanly-corrupted way.
Only then, could forgiveness be petitioned
and God swayed. Sister told me so in class.
Father told me so in the dark confessional.
I await an examination of conscience by all
who voted for MAGA entranced and enthralled
by promises of heavenly and earthly reward
for allowing hate to invade and invoke
the souls of nation recently made awoke
by African-Americans and women who showed
they were equally great to any American.
Make America Great Again only meant
make America white again.
And my church paved the way.
Her misogyny always ready to deprive
women of any control over
the length of their skirts,
the choice to love or escape
abuse in any man’s embrace,
manage their reproductive health,
choose or excuse another’s hate.
Abortion became the rallying cry
to bring sinners off their knees and to the polls
to vote for the liars who played priests like fools.
There is no place for judgment or blame.
Sinners all, we play the same game.
There is a need for an examination of conscience,
for restitution to a nation’s sacred tenets defamed
by such reckless, sincere but sinful moves.
Now, priests and pastors see the error of their ways
as they accompany immigrants to hearings
to protect them from MAGA misrule?
The MAGA the churches helped elect
is not a surprise. And, it remains a sin to be
examined deeply, and completely reviewed.
I await the results of such a self-examination.
I await the restitution to be completed.
I await the apology for distorting Christian theology.
I await the chance to forgive, wholeheartedly.
I know my church is only human.
If only it could remember that truth.
4TH.OF JULY, 2025
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.
MY MOTHERS TAKE TO THE STREETS
“Her money is just as green as mine,”
my mother told the clerk who passed over
the African-American woman waiting
at the counter before we arrived.
“She was here before us, after all.”
The clerk then moved beyond us
to a white woman who had just arrived.
My mother went to her side
and told her politely,
“You must wait your turn,”
to the woman’s surprise.
All commerce stopped
at that counter
on that day.
And my mother taught me
what I think of today.
Always speak up at injustice.
Always seek fairness for all.
Always let your voice be heard.
Always ask for others to join your cause.
Never leave anyone standing aside.
Never be afraid to act with pride.
Today, hundreds of thousand of women
such as my mother are on our streets
in thousands of protests
for justice
for fairness
for democracy
for our pride
as Americans
whose strength resides
not in military strength
but in the Bill of Rights
threatened openly by a fool
who like all fools
thinks he is king
This fool says
Anyone who protests
his $45 million birthday parade
will face “very heavy force.”
He never met my mother !
He will today.
Filed under FAMILY STORIES, POETRY, POLITICS
annarino writes 