Tag Archives: protest

RISE UP

Photo by James Collington on Pexels.com

Early morning risers are a breed apart.

They insist upon rising in the dark.

Their tattered dreams soon forgotten

they move to uncover windows;

not to simply let in the coming light

but, to first, acknowledge the night.

Darkness holds little mystery

to those who accept the misery

of what they watched unfold the day before,

and to believe the new day’s light will restore

balance, fairness, wisdom, hope and more.

Surely, the sun will shine on goodness

and love will once more rise with sun’s rays?

Such hopes can only be born in the dark.

Once sun rises and bathes us in her light

we forget the need for change we felt,

we hungered for, we fought for through the night.

Like babes in dark wombs we struggle to alight.

We yearn to be free of darkness and held tight.

Such memories of those first moments

are waiting to be born now in this morn’s sunlight.

Those who wake and walk in darkness know, 

once more of us awake, all can soon be set aright.

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Filed under POETRY, 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

WE THE PEOPLE

The people’s house is no more.

Oh, the structure still stands,

It’s East Wing destroyed.

It rose garden paved over.

Its grounds defaced.

It is no longer democracy’s safe space.

No woman, nor child yet protected.

Hidden files of pedophilia and rape

Keep Republican representatives

Of the people away.

No chance to obstruct

as we fearfully watch all we love destruct.

Money directed from its appropriated place

Into the pockets of the man in disgrace,

Who crowns himself king,

And demands all kiss his ring.

Our right to rule ourselves now firmly displaced

By cruelty and hate,

absent a single moment of grace.

There are no longer two sides.

None of us are left with any pride.

We the people now have no place.

Unless we stand together to fight

The destruction of freedoms that are our constitutional right.

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Filed under POETRY, 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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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

THREE MONKEYS

Photo by George Becker on Pexels.com

It seems all you do is wait.

I know what for.

As do you.

But is your imagination

bright enough to see,

loud enough to hear,

courageous enough to speak?

Do you believe you can cope?

Have you lost all hope?

Does fear hold you captive,

dim your sight,

close your ears,

silence your tongue?

Do you most hide 

from lost pride,

knowing what you most fear

is already here?

Open your eyes.

un-stop your ears.

Loosen your tongue.

Resistance, too, 

has already begun.

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

YOUNG AND OLD

Photo by Alena Darmel on Pexels.com

The young ones seem to know

that our world is threatened

is ways we not fully know

but fear all the same.

With each sunrise

another un-nerving surprise

until we are afraid to awaken,

afraid to open our eyes.

Not so, the young 

for whom time moves slow

and each change is noted

and each move forward

is celebrated, not feared.

But, we, the old 

whose breath is slowed

while time speeds away

know life becomes shorter

day by day;

even if the earth 

should pass away.

It will not be without us long.

We are growing weaker

as the young grow strong.

So, we must listen

to their protest and shouts.

They understand better

what each bully tactic is about.

We pretend it is only intimidation.

In reality, it is annihilation;

the end of freedoms seldom known

in ages past. As time has flown

we old ones forgot to pay attention.

Now, the young, whom we also ignored

beg for our attention.

We are never too old to mother the young.

We are never too old to stop what has begun.

We may not be able to march so far as they.

But we can shout from each of our front doors.

We can organize, assist and earnestly pray.

We can honk as we pass the marchers on parade.

We can give courage to those who are afraid.

We can write and call those in charge of our fate.

Time passes quickly for us, but it is not too late.

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

WHAT WE’VE GOT

Photo by Edmond Dantu00e8s on Pexels.com

Kent State taught us that white deaths matter more

than Black students shot at Jackson State the week before.

Will protests-to-come under attack by armed and masked militia

teach us that Brown and Black people under attack is indicia,

within the borders of a nation dedicated to the proposition

that all men are created equal to the oppression,

of rich men of ill will in hiding from congressional oversight

and protected by the US Supreme Court’s judicial might?

I see the writing on the wall, not graffiti, after all,

but executive orders illegal and ill-tended to destroy

the hoped-for dreams of every American girl and boy

not born into wealth, in no need of human labor

to offer enough cash to create a way to savor

all that life could offer a middle-class caste

now turned in serfdom, as in decades long past.

We are not in a culture war.

We are in a class war.

We are in war we thought civil war had ended.

Yet, we continue to watch the republic untended

by leaders who did not see the need to fight

and believed compromise with bullies was right.

Workers sold out over and over again.

Blocked in every effort to build strong unions.

Students sold out over and over again.

Blocked in every effort to get a sound education.

Children sold out over and over again.

Blocked in every effort to find safe protection.

None of us now treated with human affection.

None of us now safe in our streets or our beds.

None of able to take a breath without dread.

Whether you voted for this, or not.

This is what you wrought.

Now, this is what we’ve got.

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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS

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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Filed under POETRY, POLITICS