Tag Archives: politics

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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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

IT IS ALWAYS IN THE NUMBERS

Reports indicate attendance at NO KINGS events is somewhere between 5.2-8.2 billion persons. It is possibly much larger than any assumed count. For example. If one counts those registered with organizations who counted attendees, one simply gets a flat number of those who bothered to join through the organization. I registered and reported my attendance. By the time I attended three more persons joined me. They remain uncounted officially. I am sure this is true for families and friends of most attendees.

In the past, for individual rallies, law enforcement using drones mapped the crowd and made estimates using “so many persons per square inch” of their photos to create crowd attendance figures. While major big cities may have done so, mine did not. Local news did not. nor did Law enforcement in my locality. I am certain this happened in much of small town America. So when these numbers are posted, assume they are sorely undercounted. 

Nevertheless, no matter the total count, the wide extent of events across the country in red and blue states and cities, in small hamlets, on rural roadway intersections, outside nursing homes and senior care facilities is significant. And, such small groups are likely not part of the count. Yet, the fact they showed such resilience and disgust for what is happening and took to the streets gives us cause to hope we can face down fascism and remove those traitors to our core American beliefs and to our Constitution from office; from School Board, Board of Health, City and County commissioners, mayors and city council, to Congress and the White House. 

Local politics is sometime hard to unravel, especially for races where platitudes replace true positions and no party affiliation is required. We have tools those who came before us did not have, the internet and email addresses. Ask candidates for specific position statements. If they do not answer or provide gibberish, there is your answer. Be an informed voter. Help register new voters. Help motivate and take voters to the polls. We must now march to the polls as we marched through the streets. As Winston Churchill said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Now, the hard work begins. Please remember the joy you felt on No Kings Day and let it propel you to even greater efforts. We now know for certain, what we believed. We are not alone.

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Filed under COMMENTARY, POLITICS

DECONSTRUCTION

Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025

The streets were lined for blocks on end.

Signs reminded all who rejoiced to attend

Why they walked and talked and smiled and waved

At passing cars who braved delays

While drivers honked horns and shouted out

“Vote him out and make it a rout!”

Costumed critters danced to our delight

Knowing their freedom would give him a fright.

Deconstruct the lies we have been told.

Deconstruct the narrative being sold.

Deconstruct the bullie’s hold.

Deconstruct institutional mold.

Gather in peace the young and the old.

Stronger are you, more wise, more bold.

Deconstruct so we can rebuild

What he has destroyed with his minions’ lack of skill.

We know how to do this, and more.

We have done it many times before.

Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025
Columbus, Ohio 10-18-2025

My thanks to my friends in Clintonville area of Columbus who helped me attend this moment of patriots’ challenge to the con men robbing the USA of its power, wealth, ideals and humanity. The lack of media coverage was appalling. The misrepresentation of attendance numbers cannot be challenged when media fails to provide images of the gatherings. A local station covered it AFTER it was over and crowds had dispersed. Another stated hundreds attended when it was actually thousands. We are here. We are resisting. We are going nowhere until the despotism and kidnapping of people and the Supreme Court, universities, news organizations, social media outlets, medical and public health Institutions… even our very language and the meaning of words and phrases has been brought to an end and freedom restored.

We shall not be silenced.

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Filed under COMMENTARY, POETRY, POLITICS

IN THEIR STEPS

We walk with heroes

On paths of love for freedom.

Let us walk in peace.

Henry David Thoreau Poems > My poetic side

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

NO KINGS DAY

Acrylic on canvass by Louise Annarino

The day begins with signs

Of all that any patriot finds

In need of expression

To resist oppression.

We line the streets

Feet deep

Only to meet

Aggression

From those who seek

Our suppression.

Gerrymandered districts

Are incomplete,

Unable to meet

Fair representation,

Denying the nation

one person one vote,

Intimidation afloat

In every state.

We pray it is not too late.

We pray our efforts matter.

We pray our mad-as-hatter

Administration

Stops destroying our beloved nation.

We sing. We dance. We shout.

This is what democracy is about.

No kings today.

No kings in any way.

No kings over courts’ justice.

No kings over any of us.

Every king eventually falls.

We do not want a king at all.

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AMERICA DANCING TO MAGA-TIME

Photo by Ivan Samkov on Pexels.com

The ballerina pirouettes.

Round and round she goes.

Her satin slippers turn endlessly

as she balances on her toes.

Dizzying it would certainly be

to spin so unnecessarily.

But, she uses a trick she very well knows.

She picks a single point in sight

and holds her focus on that point, so tight.

She keeps her balance and dances on,

steady as the graceful dancer we all know.

And when the music ends

as every song must

she takes her bow and we all cheer.

America is well and still on her feet,

avoiding the fall we all feared.

America shall dance again

as soon as the new song begins.

Voters shall pick a tune they enjoy,

one that cares for every girl and boy,

for every color, race and creed,

for laborers and workers, rather than greed.

The Land of the free.The home of the brave.

The audience of those who refused to cave.

Ballerinas keep their eyes on the prize.

Focus and keep dancing: a word to the wise.

Keep dancing to your own true beat.

Stay focused and stay on your feet.

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KEEP BREATHING

Acrylic on canvass painted by Louise Annarino
upon hearing results of 2016 election in USA.

Chains of cool air 

strung like loose beads on thread

rattle unsteadily 

within lungs too tight

to move out the breath

aching to leave

a heavy chest,

weighted down 

by tears of regret.

In the first stage of grief

I am angry,

so angry,

my country is dead.

Who will grieve with me?

Those watching reality TV?

Those betting on games?

Those still seeking fame?

Those paralyzed by fear?

Those who only hold dear

their latest triumph over others?

Worn-out working single mothers?

Frustrated youth, anxiously hopeless?

Fired civil servants abandoned, feeling useless?

There are tears enough for us all.

But, too few who will cry out loud.

The screams must be released, you see,

that we may again breathe free.

Breathe out, damn lungs, despite the pain

Only then can we breathe freedom in again.

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

SMALL SPACES SMALL MINDS

AI GENERATED image of Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg

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.

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CICADAS

Photo by Talha Resitoglu on Pexels.com

Cicadas are singing an age-old announcement.

In six weeks the first frost will replace,

at least for some small time and space,

humid-heavy heated air 

and gasps for breath

with a cool-crisp 

galloping pronouncement

that Summer passes over to Autumn

all responsibility 

to foster human civility.

It has been a tough time this summer.

Climate change disordered earth’s coasts

with rising oceans and in-land flows,

a drenched earth policy

to point out the fallacy

of carbon overload.

Fire’s rages grow stronger.

We cannot ignore any longer

the impact of humanity

which seems to clasp insanity

as an entitled mother-load

to wealth and power.

Greed has become

the man of the hour.

while most of us simply strive

to find someway to survive.

The earth belongs to all, not some.

With stately haste Winter comes.

We have little faith Winter will grace

the earth with a surcease of worry.

Worry mounts with each snow flurry.

Earth shall eventually find balance.

Hopefully, we shall earn similar allowance.

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

STORMY NIGHT

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com

STORMY NIGHT

Scattered rain was predicted.

The evening news meteorologist

calmly warned of light rain.

Instead, a wild storm came

filling the night with thunder

and meaningless blunder

as lightening broke asunder

a peaceful, if not restful, sleep.

Too wild a storm to venture out in.

A storm to set us back and shut blinds

to keep from seeing or fearing ruin.

This storm rapidly blew in 

while most of us slept.

At sunrise, when I rose, I looked outside,

finally, and see the truth.

It is not what I was told, nor surmised.

The yard is battered.

its inhabitants scattered in burrows;

the garden littered and furrowed

by limbs  dragged and cuffed.

The flag hangs upside down

until it touches the ground

in sacrilege and shame.

The flag holder has been pulled loose,

its screws unscrewed, its anchor

pulled apart and left hanging in dark space

through a night of constant turmoil,

leaving my flag drenched and soiled.

In morning light I could finally see

the upending of  democracy,

right on my front porch

where everyone could if they would

easily see. No neighbor reported

nor interceded to fix a flag so distorted.

But, false solar lights alone

across the yard ways shone,

too low-light to assess 

a flag under duress.

In morning light, in my nightgown I alight

to pull my flag up and close.

I place it upright to stand tall,

allowing the tears soaking it to fall,

that it may slowly dry out with the sky;

held by a newly installed holder,

one stronger and bolder.

I promise you this: the flag, my flag,

will soon again fly safe and free.

As will all of our beloved country.

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS