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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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MOURNING PRAYER

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Wake up.

Sit at the table.

Open the MacBook.

Click on the key.

Open Pages.

Take a deep breath.

What new horror?

Unlock the jaw.

Try to forget.

Relax the fingers.

Swallow the sigh.

Move the cursor.

Try not to cry.

Who was stolen overnight?

Who was charged?

What new non-crime planted?

What court noted what lies?

With what order do they not comply?

What illegal moves have they made?

When will law once again rule the day?

Discover anger and fear drops away.

There is beauty outside.

There is love everywhere.

Take a deep breath.

Breathe slow and deep.

Beg the silent watchers to wake.

Do not despair.

This has become my mourning prayer.

As a lawyer, I am in deep mourning over the DOJ and SCOTUS breech with Constitutional law, precedent and ethics. The law is king in the United States. No man is above it. Apparently, leaders of this current republican-controlled administration believe they are our now our “supreme leaders”. Speaker Johnson keeps the House of Representatives on vacation for another week, and refuses to swear in an elected official to protect the release of files naming powerful pedophiles and rapists. A private army in masks, with no names, kidnap citizens and non-citizens and disappear them. This is evil done in our name. Seven million speak out. But, most do not. They go about their day, perhaps complaining about high prices. As if that is what the true issue is. When hate and destruction attempt to rule over all of us. The White House is being deconstructed both physically and morally. Pray with me, even if you lack the will to fight with me.

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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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MY MOTHERS TAKE TO THE STREETS

Angela Abbruzzi (Abbruzzese) Annarino, age 16, at her high school graduation from Curtis High School, Staten Island, NY, 1940.

“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.

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WITHIN

AI Generated image

I thought I could not write because of my pain.

Not, so.

I hesitate to write because of my disdain.

You know.

I think you have may felt it before.

It rises not from my within.

It rises from your within. It is your most-feared sin.

It sleeps in the place your secrets are kept

of all the times you felt inept.

While I simply raced along your side,

trying to match all the runners with pride.

But, you did not want me there.

That is your eternal prayer.

You thought I should stay in my place.

You feared I could actually win the race.

You deep-down know how weak that feels.

You deep-down know how foul the appeal

to those who would embrace

every runner in the race.

So, you create fake news and tell stories

that cause the runners and watchers to worry

that the race is fixed, corrupt and costly.

You can only lose if there is nothing left to gain.

You prefer full destruction than your personal pain.

You care not the cost.

You cannot handle a loss.

It is you I disdain.

You, I hear explain in rambling detail the goodness,

rightness, advancement of hate.

You who shuts doors and padlocks the gates.

You, I watch burn books and erase history.

You, who imagines a world draped in mystery

where no scientific fact

can remain intact.

My words cannot be allowed to create

more fear, more sense of loss, more hate.

My words could darken the stars.

My words could start wars.

That I cannot allow and must abate.

I cannot add one ounce to your tons of hate.

If you think these words apply to one man,

you sadly misunderstand.

They apply to all of us, to me and to you.

We created the world we try to eschew.

In our deep spaces are we mere bagatelle?

Are we a nation without a story to tell?

We need not seek nor accept our ruination.

We have a Constitution, amended to perfect our nation.

We race not to win a trophy nor prize.

The race does not rely on crowd size.

We run to show how races can be won

when runners align and voters cheer on

every runner who flies by.

By my definition

the greatest competition lies within.

Racism is our Original Sin.

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THE FIGHT WITHIN

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The Cold War taught school kids to “duck-and-cover”

to save their lives, not from bullets fired by fellow Americans;

But from Russian bombs put in place

to put America in its place

in every available space

where bombs could reach our shores.

President Kennedy intervened to stop the ships

carrying missiles to fill silos built in Cuba.

School kids stopped to pray that day

before being sent home to “be with their families.”

I recall that day when annihilation of my nation

became too real to hide away.

Khruschev shouted “We will bury you” as he beat his shoe

where he sat at a desk in the UN.

He foretold our future there and then.

He said we will “destroy you from within.”

That is when the great pirates began to grow rich

in their race shore to shore running

arms, and drugs, and sex slaves galore;

depositing money passed hand-to-hand

into banks off-shore until it washed up and over 

the World Bank, its monolith waves too big to ignore.

The dish on American tables ran away with the spoon

feeding the greed of a growing American oligarchy.

It has taken my lifetime to measure

the true loss of America’s treasure

amassed in stealth by pirates dressed as lobbyists,

and PACS funded by dark money

who claim the false goal to live free in our fragile democracy, 

our greatest wealth.

The pirates stole into control of our country 

with entertainment instead of news.

Encouraging citizens to sleep and not be woke to the tragedy

of pirates placed within a government grown too thin

by tax cuts for the pirates like Trump, Vance, Bannon, Musk, Ramaswamy,

Hegseth, Gabbard, Alito and so many others.

Leaders now promise to deregulate all guards against their pirate theft.

And a sleeping nation nods “yes,” ignoring the pleas of true patriots, left bereft.

The pirates have  opened the gates and our Ship of State is un-moored.

They smile and smirk with strong-men and must not be ignored.

We cannot simply give up and give in

watching our country destroyed from within,

while Putin and America’s pirates count coins and grin.

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IF ONLY

If only I were a bird

Fluffing feathers to increase my girth

And insulate my true worth

Staying warm this way instead,

Despite the bitter cold and dread.

But I am no bird. I am but a girl

Old enough to know better

On such bitterly cold days,

Watching my freedoms iced over,

Under Nazi salutes

And executive dis-orders.

Instead of fluffing feathers

I reach for carbs to increase warmth

And fill a need birds too feel

When cold grips the air we breathe

And hot words blow smokily

To cover the lies and foolery

Meant to limit our ability to fly.

We have a lot in common, the birds and I.

We are both on endangered species lists,

Fearing our days of flying free are numbered.

We both try to increase in size

That we may create warmth and strength inside,

And fool bullies not so wise,

Who would block our way

On freedom’s journey to better days.

If I were a bird, could I simply fly away?

Instead, I wait and fuel my body.

I wait in trust for better days.

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