A collective grief
has settled over the land.
Only time can heal.
We may never know
nor fully understand why
our freedom must go.
We must be the heart
of miracles yet to be.
And bring freedom back.
It is ours to seize
from its darkest journey and
bring it back to light.
Courage is our friend.
Struggles are not the end, but
A new beginning.
And just like that, friends,
the weight of grief rises up.
Grief comes to an end.
I yearn to see you
happily and truly free,
breathing liberty.
Yesterday I fell
by the wayside
where hopelessness dwells.
The journey upward felt
like a forced retreat,
no longer a climb
on confident feet
to reach the summit
where love presides,
where ego lives above false pride.
Instead, the slope had become slippery
and I,
and I,
and I
fell to my knees
my hopes subsided.
There is no time for this
I have decided.
I may slip again
and all my hopes fail
but, I will stay on freedom’s trail.
The climb ahead
becomes more rugged.
And I become stronger
the longer
I climb.
And I,
And I,
and I
will always go up
where skies are blue,
to reach others
willing to climb
up
from the other side.
This I promise myself
and I promise you.
Ugly Christmas sweater season has begun.
Americans seem to think it is fun
to dress themselves not in the season’s finest,
but in the ugliest sweater they can find
to celebrate together a sacred date
forgetting the solemnity of Advent’s long wait
to share with us a love divine.
Trees go up lit by flames to give us warning
that climate change may soon end
the faithful earth upon which life depends.
A cabinet full of ugly sweaters fills,
worn by those who think they are better
than faithful civil servants whose only goal
is to keep America safe and whole.
Executives dodging background checks
don the ugliest sweaters they can find
hoping to make a buck or two
off the game pitting us against each other,
me and you,
against all hope that we can survive
a very dangerous political ride.
The party which once celebrated
freedom and patriots’ pride
donned ugly sweaters when it realized
white control was on a slip and slide
with the rising hopes of women
and people of color’s growing pride.
The uglier the better the saying goes,
for Christmas sweaters worn by those
who forget the reason for a season,
forget the principles of a constitution,
forget the laws and regulations
which hold together a flawed nation
and allow democracy to thrive.
The time of ugly sweaters has arrived.
Art seldom follows
where there is nothing new to see.
Art creates new eyes
new ears, new hearts to set us free.
Art imagines what minds can’t comprehend
forging new beginnings as old ways end.
Politics is an art form
tossing power to and fro
showing us what we really think
and where we might go.
Art is everywhere we look
showing us what we need to know.
Art has no end date;
its timeliness simply portends.
Vote! it is still not too late.
Art is our dearest friend.
I dream of Nazis…
men in blue jeans and camouflage
jackets with pockets
to hold weapons,
wearing red MAGA hats;
and bleached-hair women
in comfortable clothes
and comfortable shoes,
smiling at cameras
while they praise
a nobody who makes them feel
like somebody.
Like tools they line up
on his bleachers to be used
to disparage and demean
the others they call fiends.
These are not dreams.
These are nightmares come alive
and rending the seams of a nation’s fabric
with fascist schemes.
I can no longer sleep
in the silence
of so many who stay quiet.
Too ashamed to shout with that lout.
But willing to vote him in
to the place where our destruction begins.
I dream of Nazis,
the shouters
the doubters
the scoffers
the weak
the divided
the insiders
who refuse to give up
position and power,
while hour after hour
the fascist beast devours
airwaves and pews.
Let there not be too few
to block his way
on election day.
VOTE!
All I want
is to avoid
my own thoughts
lately clothed in fear
so pronounced
they bring me to tears.
It finally must be said
anger fades to grief
when death brazenly nears.
Watching a beloved die,
clutching the hand,
wiping the brow,
for perhaps the last time
applies to nations.
I watch my beloved country
whose solemn vow
has always been protect and defend
all those living within
the boundaries of an idea in place
to open freedom’s gates
to all equally, within its small space.
I hold my nation’s heart and soul
with trembling hands
and shortened breath.
In painful realization
that so many countrymen
in this amazing nation
fear not, nor mourn with me
the loss of our democracy.
Friends and family alike
smirk and snarl in true delight
the unleashed dogs of fear and fright
which rip apart all we have built
without a trace of grief nor guilt.
They break my heart
as they tear our world apart.
If not too early, perhaps too late
rain falls through parched skies,
in drizzles and drips only;
clouds’ moist linings absorbed
by dried out cells
of the hydrogen and oxygen
we need to survive.
The train’s whistle blows
in drowned out gasps.
Wet skies hold back
the usual click and clack
of dry wheels over steel track.
Iron wheels now slip and slide,
a smoother if more uneven ride.
Wet nights lead to wet mornings
drowning our the train whistle’s warning
of all that is to arrive
during this election drive.
Tom-toms beat quieter drums
to speed up hearts
and slow down minds
as the train approaches
the nations’s destination.
AI interrupts nature’s offer
to set things straight
without a factual bother,
as facts fall beneath
the slippery wheels,
and we are easily thrown off-track
unsure now what is fiction or fact.
We will all soon be mad as hatters.
Too soon, we wonder if anything matters.
After drought, roots unfold soundlessly
and it is hard to hear the truth’s refrain.
Our senses our dulled by falling rain.
Our restless sleep disrupts our days.
We are lulled by quieter chants,
but nothing has changed.
Courage now, lads and lasses.
The polls await the arriving train.
We must vote, in sunshine or rain.
Open sad and tired eyes.
Listen with too-numbed ears.
The sounds may be different,
but not the refrain.
Time to vote the danger away.
Time to learn to dance in the rain.
Vote!
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.
On the lintel stone
of my grade school
above the entrance
children passed through
every day,
after we left church
where we gathered to pray,
were the words to guide us through
childhood to adulthood as the
the good sisters would say:
“Ye shall know the truth
and the truth shall set you free.”
Those words I reviewed
each night before I slept,
an examination of conscience
of my personal truth;
what I had done that day,
who I had shown myself to be,
to myself and others
I had met along the way.
Uneasy truths rose in my mind
of tasks left undone
so I could play;
unmet needs of others
who got in my way;
truths I wished would go away
so I could pretend to be
someone so much better
than you, and better than me.
It is not others we fear.
We only fear who we are,
deep inside
where our truth resides.
So, we hide away from ourselves
and fear discovery
that we are truly
not enough:
not good enough,
not strong enough,
not smart enough,
not wise enough,
not wealthy enough,
not educated enough,
not employed enough,
not courageous enough
to examine our conscience;
to own our thoughts and deeds,
to own our responsibility,
to own our need for love,
for passion,
for resilience,
for endurance,
for persistence.
Better to take time
to watch the game,
to drink at the bar,
to take the drug,
to avoid all blame
for what we refuse
to give away.
And the only way
this fraud can continue
is to become a con
like so many others.
Great con men become
our saving heroes
and allow us to blame
all The Others
in their name.
Filed under POETRY
annarino writes 