Tag Archives: UKRAINE

July 23, 2022 · 12:10 pm

UKRAINE REMAINS

Weary we may be

listening to the 

the distant drone of history

replaying war

across the globe.

This is not some horror film.

This is not some play

on words of war

as people pay

with their lives

while we watch.

There are no intermissions

while we raid refrigerators

to get a snack

then hurry back

to see if the show has

returned from a commercial

break.

Ukraine is breaking apart.

Her skies go unprotected

while we neglect her.

She remains unsafe

as rockets strafe

her innocence

and rape her land.

How can we stand

to watch the terror grow

slowly and surely 

like the lobster 

heating in cold water

until it engulfs all the world.

Ukrainians fight for us.

Can we not fight for them?

Like all terrors this never ends.

It simply waits around the bend

to strike again, and again

and again.

Her skies, her eyes, remain open

while we close our eyes

but not her skies.

Are we staying 

simply waiting

for the end?

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July 12, 2022 · 2:32 pm

Restless Night and Day

Good morning yellow-beaked robin redbreast.

I see you quenching your thirst in the bird bath of cobalt blue,

Your brown feathers closed and at rest.

You look toward me wondering why

I am not digging earth to reveal

The worms and insects for your next meal.

Like you, I must first

Have breakfast and quench my thirst.

Some mornings start late after hard nights

Catching the painful dreams in my fists

Anchoring my body to the bed as I twist

The anger and fear as shells fall

On Ukrainian apartment buildings,

Killing the old and the very small.

As a young Black man with a traffic violation

is cut down in volleys of bullets on an Akron street,

Joining other Black men and women throughout the nation.

As nine year old rape victims must flee

to another state to be made well,

and women no longer are free where they dwell,.

As thought police with hateful derision of history

block teachers with facts from teaching truth.

In truth, I cannot rest,

dear robin redbreast.

And you, little bird, may already sense the threat

against you and all creatures of earth

from man’s annihilation.

How can anyone rest with such frustration?

Soon, soon, I will join in the garden,

Weeding and dead-heading, disturbing the earth

and drawing the earthworms nearer to you.

Be kind, dear robin, only take what you need

and never, never, be guided by greed.

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April 23, 2022 · 11:39 am

VOTE WHILE YOU STILL CAN

The things I would like to forget are clear

while the things I would like to remember

slip away like a playlist on a playback feed.

The happy faces of refugees

making it safely to Lviv,

then on to even safer spaces

are not so clear as those in tears

who remain under siege in fear

that they will die of famine or thirst

or gunshots, missiles, or worse.

Too many soldiers lie in wait

at too many city gates

to begin the killing spree

of genocide against those free

of despots and autocrats

across their borders.

I can barely say the names

of those who live here at home

with the same desire to destroy

our hard won democracy.

It is clear whom they admire.

First, themselves for cleverness

and ability to con under the duress

of fear, superiority and loathing. 

They build fear’s  weapons

and amass stockpiles of fear

funded with tax-free incomes

and air it far and wide,

while they hide as Citizens United

in common cause to destroy

people of color, women, and those whose gender

threatens their white male masculinity

and the women who wash their feet

with unshed tears from their own hidden fears.

Cowards are everywhere.

We used to deride them.

Now we elect them.

I wish we could forget them.

But they are hiding in plain sight.

and they will never do what is right.

And so we must reject them 

and win this last fight against them.

Vote! damn it. Vote!

While you still can.

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April 21, 2022 · 12:58 pm

DARK DAYS

Is this enough for you,

these coldly dreary days

when dew frost bites

flowers bold enough

to brave the threats

of a winter not quite through?

Snow waits above 

the sky’s borders high

and falls with icy rain in tow

to warming earth down below.

Climate knows not 

which way to go.

She is confused and changeable,

grief-stricken and unreliable,

searching for freedom

amidst the rubble and dark skies,

bringing tears to those-who-love’s eyes.

This is no Arab Spring

where hope can grow.

This is a tethered Spring

driven along by bullying winds

daring anything to grow

or even survive in Mariupol,

now Finland and Sweden, too.

This is a dark cloud eclipsing the sun

where once democracy could freely run.

Is this enough for you;

or too much to bear a moment longer,

wishing we could be as brave as Ukrainians

and so much stronger ?

Is this enough for you ?

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April 17, 2022 · 2:07 pm

RESURRECTION

Whom shall rise from the dead this day ?

The victims of gunfire in American alleys and streets?

Children caught in the crossfire?

Black men shot in the head for license tag violations?

Ukrainians tortured in basements by Russian troops?

Somalis, Ethiopians, and  Sudanese starving to death?

On this day when Christians celebrate Christ’s Resurrection

I pray for a resurrection of insurrection 

against greed and usurped people’s power

that breeds gunplay and famine,

rape and suppression of women,

redistricting and election misdirection,

racism and gender disaffection

of human rights.

I celebrate resurrection and contemplate

what still needs our attention.

I hope for more in my Easter basket

than bodies dumped in caskets.

I search for more answers to hatred

while children search for more eggs.

Like the children, I hope to find 

what I am looking for;

peace and equity, life and security, 

a sacred response to all in need, 

an Amen.

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April 15, 2022 · 11:35 am

GOOD FRIDAY

The Cross appeals stronger than fear,

as I lay my burdens near,

bathed in remorse

at the nailed feet

of One so dear.

At this place

we place,

and replace,

His suffering

with our own,

hoping to rise

as did He

from the Cross

to eternity.

Still deeply planted

as the strongest tree

in the dark soil

of humanity,

bathed with great sorrow

by sinful rains

which flow so easily.

Prostrate with grief

which must not last

lest I forget my real task

to protect the earth

and all who live 

on a planet where too many

have forgotten how to forgive.

“Father forgive them, 

for they know not what they do.”

could easily apply to me and to you.

thus, I stand on this page

and send love and peace

to those in the midst of war

and to those who plead

make war no more.

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April 14, 2022 · 12:38 pm

STOP SIGNS AND MIRACLES

Miracles happen every day

at each stoplight along the way.

Strangers meet unexpectedly

pausing quite respectably

to show one another every courtesy.

Without the light to make us pause

would we engage in such holy cause

as honoring the rights of others

before our own druthers?

We should not therefore, be surprised

when war is stopped before our eyes.

It can be done, it surely must pay

that we practice such moves every day;

in the simplest of ways, on every byway.

So, I sit at the light and silently pray

for the miracles to come today.

Every stop light and stop sign 

give me hope in the universal design

which I desperately implore.

Make war no more.

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April 14, 2022 · 12:17 pm

HAIKU BASKETBALL

Six personal fouls.

Kick Russia out of the game,

united nations.

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April 6, 2022 · 10:40 am

DON’T MAKE ME COME IN THERE!

“Don’t make me come in there”, Dad shouted

from the kitchen, cozy and warm,

while all hell broke loose in the living room

from mischievous children whose game had turned

dangerous and destructive. 

Their shouts and grunts warned

as tables overturned and the sound of breakage

stridently and crazily alarmed 

Dad and Mom, and the children themselves.

“He started it!”, we inevitably yelled back.

“Then he better stop it right now. 

You have five minutes to restore

anything out of place, no more,

before I come in there and settle the score.”

So we did. So it was. 

Our childish game turned deadly war ended.

Dad was our Security Council.

We were expected to be a United Nation,

a family which agreed to treat one another with civility.

If we could not act with dignity, Dad came to assure

that we did. We did not decide our world order

on our own. We had no power to block Dad’s

insistence we act right and avoid discord.

Is it time for Dad to go into the kids’ room?

Is it time for Dad to go into Ukraine?

No reason to let the war continue on for years

while blood drains from sons and daughters

upon Ukrainian soil; where cities fall desolate

as buildings fall like overturned tables

and the house seems ready to fall apart,

and a family is left , bereft in tears.

Dad knew that children who cannot contain themselves

must be stopped in their destructive ways

before they harm the harmony of a united family

and destroy the entire house and all within, then spill out.

Is it time for Dad to go into the room?

Is it time for Dad to go into Ukraine?

My Dad would say, “Your five minutes are up.

I am coming in there!”

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April 5, 2022 · 11:56 am

HAIKU

Playground turf or nation

must always be defended.

Best always to win.

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