Trust is a difficult thing
to those without wings
asked to fly.
Hope fades heart strings
Of those pulled awry
by questions unanswered.
We try
to keep faith with leaders
who cannot say why
they stand aside.
We plead for speed
To save lives.
Answers lie within
not outside;
but words must be
Shouted out to be heard
so there is no doubt
what we expect
To protect
Ukrainian lives.
The rain was mild,
The road travelable
Until a monster
storm unleashed its rage,
The river overflowed
It’s bank with undertows
Dragging the SUV down,
as it began to float.
First responders arrived.
It took awhile.
The driver yelled for help
To save his wife and children.
Onlookers stood safe onshore,
threw ropes across the heaving waters
Until the father begged for more.
He threw a child through
the narrow window opening.
“Please help my child. Now,
please now, before he sinks.”
A raft was thrown
Which none could reach.
More calls for help,
As blankets were stacked ashore,
and life-rings propelled.
People gathered and shouted,
“How brave you are being!
How well you are doing!
We thought you would have sunk
long before.”
He called for help, more desperate now.
Asking the responders to come
into the water to save
His sons and daughters.
But, they refused with worried frowns
That they could not enter the river.
It was not allowed.
What reasoning is this?
What conscience allows
A nation to drown as we watch
Shouting the words “ How brave!”
How wondrous you stayed afloat so long.”
Stood there saluting on the bank
as the car sank.
Hoping the river’s flow
Would slow,
before all hope was lost
For those in the car
and those on the shore.
Filed under POETRY
Harder it is to sleep at night.
Reverberations of artillery
blow across the world.
Shockwaves course around the globe
proving butterfly wing’s theory
and causing injury
to those seeking peace
or at least a good night’s sleep.
The sun is already high in the sky
before the body feels more calm.
A body tossed about all night
by silent waves from blasts of bombs.
What matters such disturbance ?
They awaken more than bodies.
They awaken conscience.
How far into the universe
radiate these disturbances ?
Where are the universe’s guardians?
Where are earth’s guardians?
Where are those who guard
babies and pregnant women
in maternity hospitals
against the Russian missiles?
In dreams I seek answers.
I cannot hold my peace.
I shall say my piece
or we shall never have peace.
I am tired of waiting for answers
when action is required.
Ukraine is so very tired.
Filed under POETRY
This is the question heard like a shot
around the world in heavy hearts.
Who we are matters not
when empathy takes apart
the calm acceptance of fate.
We accept our human frailty in part,
yet aspire to be gods who can create
a world of safety.
From Sun-Kings who were gods
to Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Khamenei
is a short road of ignominy.
Each day of war brings the prayer
“If I were God” I would stop
this unholy massacre.
The helplessness becomes
too much to bear
for such as me.
How much harder must it be
for leaders of democracy
who see more of war than we can know
with secret insights passed between
those on front lines where evil grows?
Is this their prayer, too?
Are they strong enough to ignore its pull?
For autocrats are not.
Autocrats create the fiction they are gods
and pretend a courage they lack
to remain human; becoming monsters instead.
Leaders of democracies show greater humanity
because they have the courage to admit
they are not God, no matter how much
they wish it were so.
Democratic leaders have the strength
to carry the heavy burden
not only of their own human frailty;
but, of ours as well.
Filed under POETRY
Another morning when tears overcome words,
and grief buries deeper with each breath.
Each breath a bonus for those of us
not being shelled, shot or bombed to death.
Bullies have breached the constraints
put in place for decades as a restraint
on their worst evils which now cross borders
bringing fear, chaos and disorder.
I weep in the face of Ukrainian faces distorted
by anxiety, terror, confusion and disbelief;
suffering while begging for help, contorted
in pleading and nobility of spirit,
brave faces on a brave people insisting
we join with equal courage their effort to persist
in the face of evil based on lies
which twist the story
of a war threatening Russia’s former glory.
And we who hear these pleas seem too fearful to reply,
to breathe deep enough
to reach high enough
to push hard enough
to save Ukraine
and ourselves.
What we are told to justify holding our breath
must be far worse than we can imagine,
bad enough to keep planes and pilots grounded
as those on the ground in Ukraine are pounded;
as we watch with breath catching and hitching
in tearful wonder at Ukrainian bravery.
I want to fly, not cry.
I want to spread angels wings
across the sky.
I want to stop Ukraine’s suffering.
I want a no cry zone for Ukraine.
Filed under POETRY
Good morning, Earth.
You are still here
harboring fragile lives
and all they hold dear.
We have forgotten our friendship,
stayed silent for too many years.
Silent while your virgin forests
were raped and cleared.
Silent while your fields became poison
farmed in chemical warfare.
Silent when your fields’ waters ran off
to your rivers where your fish died.
Silent as viruses you had hidden from view
escaped your now weakened ties
that once bound them unable to harm us,
your dear friends, causing alarms
which trounced us awake to our loss.
Silent as oil and gas heated your breath
bringing fire, floods and storms,
illness, war and death.
Silent no more as Putin threatens
your nuclear destruction.
Silent no more as Earth,our best friend,
faces total obliteration
after decades of our willful alienation
from you, Earth, our best friend.
The war we watch on our screens
began inside us sight unseen.
We were not looking within
when we should have been.
Silent no longer, but is the song we now sing
our death song, after staying silent too long?
Dear Earth, can we make amends
and make you, once again
our best friend?
I pray you say “yes”.
Filed under POETRY
Love with every fiber of your being.
Love gives life and death meaning.
Love keeps vision clear.
Love is stronger than fear.
Love embraces positivity.
Love destroys negativity.
Love crosses every border.
Love creates world order.
Love brings unity.
Love creates community.
I believe in love, that is true.
I believe in you.
No more war, no more, no more.
This is what the world hopes for.
But bullies of war always go farther,
always want more.
My dad was at sea
off the shores of Waikiki
on a December Sunday morn
when bullies of war against China
went farther wanting more.
While Japanese diplomats wrangled in DC
for changes to US policy
which barred trade with nations at war,
Japanese planes far from home
dropped bombs on US shores.
Destroying the Navy which had escorted
Lend Lease weapons of war sent
across the Atlantic on ships
guarded by sailors including my Dad,
dodging German U-boats and destroyers
was their goal, delivering aid to Europe
with weapons of war.
Bullies always go farther,
always want more.
Japan attacked China in 1931.
using a false flag attack
on Japanese soldiers to justify war.
Japan pushed farther into China,
and Raped Nanking.
Burma and S.E. Asia were near.
And bullies always go farther,
always want more.
British soldiers and theUS Navy
stood in the way.
Much was destroyed at Pearl Harbor.
But ships at sea like my Dad’s
were out of the harbor that day.
The Day of Infamy was December 7.
Dad was on his way to the Pacific on December 8.
From island group to island group,
To the Philippines and beyond,
The war went father and longer
until stopped by a nuclear bomb.
Dad came home. Too many did not.
As Ukrainians now shelter below,
like the Brits and Chinese long ago
And nations hesitate, negotiate
and Russia threatens nuclear war
we Lend Aid as before,
dreading once more
a new Day of Infamy.
Bullies always go farther,
always want more.
Has history taught us
nothing at all?
It started with the words, “…Mama, I am afraid.
Words any soldier facing an enemy would say.
The phrase that cause my tears to bank
before overflowing down my face were these,
“They throw their bodies under the wheels,”
under armored vehicles and tanks
meant to protect or attack,
depending upon one’s side.
“They told us we would be welcomed.”
With open arms, “They hate us.”
Was he dismayed before he died;
before those tanks and vehicles
carried death to those unarmed?
Soldiers die, their innocence intact;
their innocence dead, if they survive.
And all I can do from afar
is cry, and cry, and cry.
For soldiers on both sides
of Putin’s lies.
Not all of us are good at sums.
Math seems an unknown language
But, Here’s a rule of thumb
we all can glean,
“Evil adds up”
ignored if not unseen
by passersby who briefly notice
the drunk huddled with his rum
in the doorway,
below the underpass
as they scurry by.
Integers of one
are not the same one as I,
we tell ourselves.
That one is different
than the one who is I.
Integers add up
in natural disasters.
Tornados, hurricanes
fires and floods
multiply the integers
until the numbers draw the light
of media to their plight,
for awhile.
The numbers are reduced
by such attention.
When media lights go off
we passersby forget the
need to finish the subtraction.
Not a single drunk,
but entire blocks of numbers
are left in evil’s hold,
seeking shelter and warm beds,
a drink of water, a loaf of bread.
Crime lords and government
corruption and economic destruction
multiply exponentially the evil done
to entire communities
forced to flee to safety as refugees.
Evil adds up until its mass
is beyond measure
as we passersby seek our pleasure.
A father and daughter on a park bench
in Merry Old England after touching
the handle as they closed their door,
poisoned by secret police abroad,
sent from Putin and his minions
whose minions are legion,
fallen angels from The Cold War,
who explore every nation
with a single message,
“You cannot hide from evil.”
There is no place to run
as evil has been left to grow,
to multiply beyond every border
of the New World Order.
The people of Ukraine know this well,
after years of dividing their nation
from the hell they struggle to quell.
They are not mere passersby
to the evil driving tanks in their streets,
sending missiles into buildings
where children dwell.
Each piece of war equipment tallied
and accounted for.
Numbers measured on both sides
of the equation of war.
The only story that adds up
is that evil has multiplied
to drive the suffering
to basements and train stations below
the streets of an entire nation.
Ukrainians do not clutch a bottle of rum.
They clutch one another,
measuring the possibility
of survival upon evil’s arrival
on their own doorsteps.
They seek a drink, a loaf of bread,
the warming comfort of sleep
in their own bed.
Lesson learned that evil adds up.
Passersby add to that equation.
Passersby who drop coins in a cup
and tell themselves they do good.
annarino writes 