Alito’s words stilled my own.
A falling body has no time
to waste on words when breath
is so precious and undermined
by space displaced by diving
thoughts toward a very dark place.
It is not just Roe which falls with me;
but, likely Obergefell, Griswold
and Loving, too. So old,
I recall them all. The sacred tome
which gives the rights owed humanity
is our constitution which gives privacy a home
of safety, freedom and security.
Alito steals them all from me.
The greater fear is that he would say
mob rule would bind our hands again
with state’s rights to up-end a nation’s democracy.
The word privacy does not exist, so he says.
Nor does the word slavery, nor contraception,
nor sexuality, nor women’s and persons of color’s
right to vote and have a say in lives they own;
because they don’t in the words originally
written for white land-owning gentlemen alone.
But that is the point, one no longer hidden.
White male supremacy, and protecting the wealthy
is Republicans’ true north. Which is why
even women support letting democracy die.
Why even kind men still vote for extremist
candidates they know can save their wealth
by telling the most outrageous lies.
Stolen election is not the first lie.
The first was that women and Africans are less
than any white man of wealth could allow
to be free, for fear their fields of wealth
once shared, would lie fallow.
I thought I could no longer write poetry
while my love for country makes me cry
knowing my beloved Law is often denied.
The law is sacrosanct, you see.
Alito’s words mean the courts are no longer free.
And that will be the death of the rights
of you and me, and perhaps the world
whom my country once led toward democracy.
The world is falling along with me.
I am not alone if you join me and vote
for those who would protect us as we fall,
and right the wrong words which stand so tall
we can no longer recognize truth at all.
annarino writes 
FIGHTING WORDS
Poetry has fled.
Art hides in plain sight
behind clouds of flame,
beyond winds of change,
before plutocrats take the stage,
no longer waiting behind the scenes
which hide their rage.
Words have lost all meaning
when facts go unchecked
flung too fast to sustain truth
and belief in its power to right wrongs
for the weak and the poor,
tossed aside by courts which cower
fearing loss of wealth and power.
Which words are safe when lies procure
the party in power’s silent vote to score
total control of each life, each thought,
each breath threatened by dirty schemes
to pollute the earth, water and air?
Words cannot be spoken, claimed by death
of the rule of law.
No words exist to describe the depravity
some of us saw
as our words lay dying
first inside
then outside
where meaning can be lost.
Words remain frozen in heavy frost,
weighed down by cold hearts
and dead souls
seeking total control.
Freedom resides in words
which too often remain unsaid.
Words too softly spoken to wake
those asleep, escaping, all hopes dead.
Too few words of truth must compete
with an onslaught of unchecked lies.
I listen and watch, lost in thought.
I write and I plead against what we have wrought.
Poetry, I fear, carries too-little weight.
Poetry, perhaps, has waited too late
to escape the threat when so many lies
have buried the truth for power and greed.
Money has always been the creed
clothed in religion and faith
which grants God’s grace
to those who deserve to see His face
on dollar bills and hung on towers.
False gods seek our praise as they devour
a country whose best citizens
refuse to use their power to remain free,
and would rather lose their democracy.
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