Some days the words refuse to let me go.
On other days words pretend I am someone they do not know.
The cut-direct should not hurt so.
Tag Archives: writers
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?
NO!
The strongest word in any language is “NO”.
It is every child’s first word for a reason.
To a toddler’s parent it is treason.
It carries more weight than cuddles or cudgels
used to reprimand, remand and reform.
Its power can overturn threats and intimidation.
Its shout can garner attention and create doubt.
Its momentum can move mountains about.
Its clarity quickens response to its shame.
It calls attention to errors or cheats in any game.
It works where no other method succeeds
to enforce self-interest’s vitality and need.
Its surprise increases the ability to annoy.
“NO!” can be weakened if too late employed
Authoritarian rule is under attack
every time the word “NO!” is shouted back.
“No!” used in concert create symphonic dissent,
until the whole world rises to up-end
intimidation by armed and masked men
who invade our streets and use force to bend
our knees and our minds and our very lives.
When will such madness end ?
When more “NO” is heard than “yes”.
On such “NO!” does one’s freedom depend.
Every child knows this to be true.
Speak your “NO!” now before freedom is lost
to me, to all of us, even to you.
WRITING
“Start writing” the app says.
So easy is it to reveal
The secret places in the heart,
The solemn vaults in the mind,
The wounded spaces in the body?
Think that is not a really big deal?
Hiding from self seems the norm.
For a very good reason
From the day we are born.
First we must grow into one we know
Can protect and defend
The one we hide deep below.
What risk writers take to open wide
A self hidden and safeguarded inside.
Risk is too small a word for the task
Of showing self vulnerable, anxious, naked at last;
seeking connection inside you, with words that will last.
Filed under POETRY
THE POET
I wake with words upon the tongue,
fingers ready to write down thoughts among
the fractured dreams of worlds long gone,
whose stories linger eon after eon.
No breakfast nor shower first for those like me
who live and breathe a universe of poetry.
Filed under POETRY
LETTER TO MY MUSE
Too many hours have passed
in useless wondering
and thoughtless meandering
among ideas amassed
in wasted floundering.
Alas!
Why bother to address
this failed endeavor to write,
or paint, or garden, or feint
to the left or right to avoid the sight
of another grey day.
The sun has hidden away all motivation,
replacing joy with aggravation.
Too easily am I deprived of hope.
Too ready am I to sit and mope.
Self-disgust is never allowed;
not in this life, not in this house.
So here is the poem for today.
Now, leave me alone.
Just go away!
POETS
A spirit guards this space
placing a soft touch on the hand
which holds the pen
disclosing its presence
where ink marks the page
in a language known
if not understood
except by poets.
The poet is the reader of
Spirit’s words, not the writer.
Filed under POETRY
WORDS AT PLAY
I don’t understand poems,
or words, or chatter.
How do they form like loose clay
around the mold of earthly matter?
Words cast up their account
of what lies in the gut
and rise to the mouth
to utter and strut.
Do we have no power
over what we say ?
Are we merely overpowered
by a shower of words at play?
Somedays, words are so strong
they insist and persist, bursting the cork.
Other days, words are so weak
pulling them out is too much work.
The worst thing is not silence.
The worst thing is a paragraph
dragged out with violence.
Today, all words can do is laugh.
Filed under Uncategorized
An Ode to writers’ Critics,By Louise Annarino,3-9-2013
An Ode to Writers’ Critics,By Louise Annarino,March 9,2013
Too often
words castigate
instead of illuminate
the disrobing of the soul
by a writer whose purpose
is merely to reveal
an unseen truth.
Not enough that we dare
to show skin bared
and broken open
with tortured minds
sharpened to a fine point
by unholy facts of broken glass
we walk upon with bare feet.
Unafraid of dirty linen
stained by the blood
of virgins always open
to new truths,writers welcome
with open arms
those who would do harm as easily
as those who do good.
Be gentle with writers
in your complaints and admonitions.
So, it is not your position?
Nor your place
to disgrace their efforts,
to scatter their page
with shards of broken thoughts.
Filed under POETRY
annarino writes 