Category Archives: Poems

Truth Dies First

The truth dies first and quietly
and it dies massively,
long before liberty and morality
long before the rise of power
and before laws are averted
and before new laws are issued
by a dictator in a frenzy of fascist
action, offensive to those who have
challenged evil, and fought for liberal
representative democracy,
for free trade and commerce
for treating people with equality and
equanimity.  Justice doesn’t die, it
is just redefined to the injustice of the
powerful, of doctrine before reason,
of power over right.

Truth will only rise again when
all else fails!

 

We Must Decide

We’re here, stuck in an irrational time
dredging history’s frightening rhyme.
Finding ourselves once again on a knife’s
edge, where freedom and our very lives
are risked in a gambit for absolute power
by those at home in a gilded mordor tower.

There is no one to come to the rescue.
There is no grand hero strong and true.
There are only the victims and the complicit.
And soon even these mere words will be illicit.
We need a people’s resistance of firm resolve
in defense of freedom, law and fairness.

For no government may govern without
the consent of the people for long.
And in this way, no dictator can rule,
without complicity of such rule.
And we are not, in our hearts, the cruel tools
of oppression their propaganda would advise.

We must decide!

Sunrise as I write

I’m outside watching the sunrise as I write to you.
It’s a hazy, breezy morning.  the kind where low gray wisps of clouds move rapidly past the sky while the sun still refuses to show more than a glow of its presence.
The birds know.  They are making their journey to their respective feeding grounds, the pond ripples with the prevailing southeast wind which is bringing moisture with it, making the air feel heavier than it might otherwise despite a nice coolness.
In the few moments of telling you of this, the sky is changing color, from gray to a burnt orange as the sun asserts itself and the underglow of the drifting clouds reflect its intensity no matter how they try to resist.
A flock of fast moving small birds whiz by in a formation which changes as it passes, they are moving at high velocity for just the thrill of it I suppose, because of what could they be late?  The day is just beginning.
And now, in just these few moments, the sky is bluing and the clouds are changing to pink, the marsh hens are twittering away a distant woodpecker is pecking and the sun is alighting the trees and the ripples on the pond.
Good morning!

 

The Signal Among the Noise

Maybe the signal is bad?
the deranged Orange King muses,
trying not to show he’s mad.

No, dude, it is the noise
of all the clowns you
call your boys.

It is the privileged kiss-asses
pumping chests, exclaiming
Opsec and their successes.

While they violate laws
and all common sense
and obfuscate their flaws.

In front of oversight
in front of the people
claiming wrong is right.

Demanding suspension of belief
as they stick stubborn to the lie
waiting for next-news-cycle relief.

But the signal is cutting through
beyond the noise of arrests, cuts and
Greenland, and what’s said by fools.

Our friends, are becoming wary
as people are awakening to tariffs
and the pain they’ll be asked to carry.

The Orange King cannot find
the signal with all the noise created
and he clearly has lost his mind.

And the people will rise from sleep
with clarity that his dark-mad plans
are bringing us ever closer to the deep.

The signal must not be lost in the noise
and our freedoms, values and wealth
shall not be sacrificed to an Orange King
and his tech-bros.

Rise-up I say again,  resist… write to
Senators, write to Representatives
tell them we hear the signal despite
all the noise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Masters of Our Fate…

Poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley
put into art of fire of red and black of the shadows by Peter Tunney as found at the Wynwood Art Museum, Miami

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.

 

We are who we are. Tested by fire, by a history of challenges, and we will give in to no one, for we have earned our freedoms and will not give them up.   No matter what we have to do, no matter the obstacles we will have to  overcome.  We will face them without fear of retribution, revenge and unjust punishment… for we are masters of our fate, and captains of our souls.

Rum Raisin

Rum raisin ice-cream is the best… it originated in Sicily in the 1930’s … where raisins were soaked in a local wine and mixed then into gelato.  When it was brought to the United States the local wine was replaced with rum… what a great upgrade from the old to the new.

Rum Raisin

In the back furthest from the door
is the special treat I came here for,
Beyond the chocolate and cookie dough
not the vanilla or strawberry of old
or the mint chocolate or rocky road
lies that special treat, yummy and cold.

Like heavenly angels would dream
sweet raisins and rum with cream,
overflowing with richness and icy cold
it tastes smooth and perfectly bold
from Sicily it came here to our shores
and found its way to our local stores.

At the small ice cream shop on main street
of every small town, you’ll find this cold treat.
Just give it a try, in a cup, or better, a waffle cone.
Others will want to try it and not leave you alone.
But, love is sharing its perfect smoothness and taste,
and returns you’re sure to make, with all do haste.

 

 

 

Rise Up … Bravely For Them

There is a crackling in the air
there something out there
that is reaching across all life
and it’s a cutting sharp knife.

It’s angry, it’s hard and telling.
It’s comes in ugly and yelling,
and it’s as unrelenting as gravity
pulling us down in its depravity.

Power is all that matters now.
Nations and peoples must bow
to devils of the East and West
at the time of their loyalty test.

Else, the four horsemen will rise
as they chase the phantom prize
of power, wealth and adulation
from all of you and every nation.

The end is just beginning
The world is now spinning
in a direction of great turmoil
in a battle for minerals and oil.

Evil must be stopped now
before fields feel the plow
before the seeds are in the ground
before the final trumpets do sound.

It is time to rise up, to resist,
to make arguments and persist
with values and courage unfettered
while reasoned people still matter.

Before the power of evil is too strong
and right is indistinguishable from wrong
in the apocalypse of the four horsemen
and the battles which precurses the end.

Rise up, while we still can
Rise up, and upend their plan
Rise up, with all the power of good
Rise up, let the future know we stood

bravely for them!

 

 

 

Skipping

Around the age of four and a half it is natural for children to skip, despite it being relatively inefficient compared to walking and running.  There’s no evolutionary reason for it… except it is fun.

SKIPPING 

I’m skipping, just to see if I can
it comes as natural as breathing
as my mind travels back to childhood
as my happiness swells through the
exertion.  

A stick-in-the-mud, says you’ll 
wear out your shoes – is this what his
mother told him once long ago to
tamper his fun, or is it just being
old and grumpy? 

If you are happy, let it all out with
a smile and a skipping hop and slide,
and if not happy, you need it
even more, because you can’t skip
without happy! 

Remember hopscotch, or jump
rope, or wheelies on a bicycle, 
such meaningless, un-measured fun
now possibly beyond our reach, 
but for skipping. 

So when the world gets you down
when the press of life is upon you,
then take a moment for skipping 
and unwind and be a kid again, 
happy! 

 

 

Stillness


Great Blue Heron

STILLNESS

Waiting for the world to turn,
slowing heart rate, muscles burn.
Stalking stillness, silent silky moves.
Waiting until the opportunity improves.

There will be one moment or another
when two worlds will come together 
for the strike of singular survival purpose
 changing lives on each side of the surface. 

Thus for a moment captured in time,
the grace of stillness finds a rhyme 
in the heart of a poet on a fine sunny day,
as a lesson in patience for what comes our way. 

 

Sunday Morning

Here it is Sunday morning.  I have no clue what I will write as of yet… I have poetry in my heart, but in my mind I have the worry of democracy fading and the rise of autocracy, and the crazy ambivalence of those who will feel the greatest loss.  There is the romantic me, with feelings at my fingertips and then there is the raging realist with fire at my fingertips, and there is no resolution of heart and mind, there is no reconciliation possible other than to say it to you as clearly as I can, that the rage must be satisfied to make room for the poet.  That the press of real life on so many people cannot be consoled with the wonders of nature, the grandiose of existence in a universe of great possibility when there is the coming oppression of thought, of all things we hold dear, including our Dignity.

We must not be satiated with the joys of life alone for those who will come after us must find that we left the world better than we found it, and not in the hands of those who would plunder the wealth of their futures.

Precious Dignity 

Where have you gone?
Why do we have none?

Were you stolen along with the aid
from all the people who prayed
for help from those with plenty
of everything, except now our dignity?

How can we find you within us?
Are you now with Lady Justice?
For it seems she’s flown away with you, 
both of you denying there was a coup.

We are not who we claimed to be
without Justice and Dignity.
For the sake of power, we lost our affinity 
for both Lady Justice and Precious Dignity. 

Hate is nasty and Cruelty her sister
as they work together to blister 
our senses, as our world is undermined
and Justice and Dignity is redefined

As Imperial Hate and Blatant Cruelty
become the new tools of power!