The words, the words-- They rattle in my head, louder than the tail of a snake, louder than the breaking of stacked billiard balls, louder than the concussing jack hammer on a city street-- too much noise to hear distinctly what must be written, what must be said, screamed into the foul fiery smoke-filled air
One word, one. Just one, larger than the others, louder— settles against my skin, a lash of fiery noise, burning, burning deep-- betrayal-- burning away tiny scars of other betrayals a lifetime ago
This wildfire of betrayal burns away soul held beliefs of common good.
Nonsense things of twisted rhetoric
hang around the neck of a nation.
Words braided into twisted doctrines
of red and black and white.
Hatred fought so long ago
blended into now
with a new pandemic
in the wake
of aberrant dreams.
Here where truth once
swayed and danced,
offering humanity
a grand romance
of belief in a thing
the world had never seen--
Golden rules made real.
We knew our daughters and sons
would serve as the sacrificial lambs
to keep our rules golden
for all generations to be free.
Though freedom be washed
in the blood of our lambs,
we still believed
in the grand romance--
And oh, how we did dance
For over two hundred years.
Then the roped nonsense came,
tarnished the shine of our romance,
interrupted the rhythm of our dance.
The twisted rhetoric strangled us
as a new sickness spread.
No ease given; no treatment sought.
Pockets lined with gold
more important than golden lives.
Hatred and apathy listened
to the new prophet,
who said they were right--
Everything wrong was
the fault of others:
The poor in spirit are just lazy.
Those who mourn make excuses.
The meek are just weak.
Those wanting righteousness want it all free.
The pure in heart want to give your gold away.
The peacemakers don’t want us to be strong.
Then the new prophet claimed he was the persecuted one,
promising vengeance for his own sake.
His apostles believed his sermons,
proclaiming him their chosen one.
Order is all,
He said.
Law is all,
He said.
He would teach them
by putting all people
in their rightful place.
Justice lay raped,
bloody, raw,
beaten and gassed,
in the streets
as his disciples cheered
while the petty false prophet smirked,
holding a Holy book.
Re-forge the chain of Liberty’s shackle,
he ordered.
Then Truth
stopped swaying,
stopped dancing,
offered us nothing,
flames of romance dying.
Hermann Otto Hoyer, In the Beginning Was the Word, 1937. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of US Army Center of Military History.
After listening to the rhetoric of various politicians, I believe times have grown ever more dangerous to democracy no matter how much those same politicians claim to be defending it. I’ve revised and retitled this piece which I first wrote and posted the night before the 2017 inaugural and titled If They Come. However, I owe a huge debt to Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) who wrote “First they came for…” Often this quote is mistakenly referred to as a poem. Niemöller often spoke of his own complicity with the Nazi regime in its early years by his inaction and not speaking out, especially when it came to the persecution of leftist political party members with whom he did not agree. However, after too many disagreements with Hilter’s policies, Niemöller was imprisoned on July 1st, 1937, and was not freed from the concentration camp until 1945. There are various versions of his famous quote as Niemöller changed the list of victims depending upon the audience to whom he spoke, but his message is clear: Silence and inaction equals complicity. If we are silent, we too are guilty. We must not be silent.
Source information courtesy of Holocaust Encyclopedia
They’ve come before.
Remember history.
Remember the millions,
the thousands, the hundreds--
totaling seventeen million.
And yet,
always,
they come.
Different times, different places.
Always leaving behind traces
of their strange bitter fruit.
They are poised,
preparing, ready to come.
Some of us remember,
state the parallels,
recite the historical,
are laughed at as the hysterical.
The majority, sigh and say–
They come not in his name
for they wear not the robes of the arcane,
burning crosses straight,
painting crosses twisted.
Some forget,
leaving voices unraised.
Some simply care not,
since they come not for them.
Yet, we must remember--
Since, in the end,
they are coming for us all.
Darkness imprisoned for years
revels and romps now freed from sanctions,
freed from society’s guilty tears.
They are coming
for the immigrant ones
to part them from jobs no one else will do,
leaving a river filled with razor wire
and shouting, “Build a wall. Build a wall.”
I will raise my voice, “Build it around me as well.
For I, too, believed the words inscribed upon Liberty.”
They are coming
for all the women
who do not walk 72 steps behind,
chaining them to males who must approve.
I will raise my voice, “I will not walk into yesterday.
I will not let you make any daughter a handmaid.”
They are coming
for the Jewish ones,
pinning yellow stars,
creating gas chambers,
I will raise my voice, “Take me with them too.
For I too, am a Jew.”
They are coming
for the Muslim ones,
planning to kill the Geneva Refugee,
with their unproven facts, shouting, “Terrorist. Jihadist.”
I will raise my voice, “Take me with them too.
For I also pray to the God of Abraham.”
They are coming
for the darker ones,
with ropes and whips and epithets from the past,
shouting, “White Power, White Power.”
I will raise my voice, “Bring enough to kill me too.
For I have the same red blood as my siblings you seek to kill.”
They are coming
for the transgender and queer ones,
with fists and broken bottles and shouts of “Freak.”
I will raise my voice, “Beat me as well.
For I am sure to upset you by the bathroom I plan to use.”
They are coming
for those who love differently
with researched plans of electric shock to convert,
all therapeutic to change, of course,
or with hands dripping violence and shouts
of every demeaning word we ever heard.
I will raise my voice, “Beat me. Take my rights
so recently given, though long denied.
Never will I lose my dignity again in silence.
For I hid among shadows much too long.
Now, I, too, live in the sun,
Proud of who I love, and I will not go away.
I remember we are neighbors,
each of us, brothers and sisters
in God’s eyes.”
When you come for one,
you came for us all.
All you deem different,
dangerous to your thinking,
we make you uncomfortable,
but we give you something--
Someone, something to blame.
But after you have come for us all,
bound and bloodied us as best you can,
taught your school children the different are to blame,
worthy of nothing but your hate,
allow our resistance,
without striking, without killing,
no sling shot will we need
to shatter the crystal facade
of patriotism you fashioned
to cleverly hide away
your destruction of democracy
and all your injustices.
Then the world will see
the monster of fear and greed
you are and your destruction
of democracy.
On the day of God’s light,
perhaps you will look
beyond skin,
beyond abilities and disabilities,
beyond roads to God and ways of worship,
beyond gender and orientations,
beyond your own fears and needs,
and then see
the human heart is born
with weakness in hate and greed
with strength in justice and love
all in equal portions.
What will matter most,
when each heart lies dissected,
splayed open, bare,
before its maker,
is which portion we allowed to atrophy and die,
and which we sought to exercise,
strengthen and increase in size.
Women, we are tortured by our hair.
It is never what we want.
It never obeys our desires.
A mischievous heathen,
it laughs at our attempts
to bend it to our will.
We grow it, cut it, dye it,
curl it, straighten it,
treat it with carcinogenic chemicals
to beat the mischief making
blasphemer into submission.
All the while, it laughs at us
as our enemies, humidity and wind,
destroy in seconds the cooperation
we thought we’d earned
with our torturous machinations.
Hair:
Too thin,
Too thick,
Too curly,
Too unruly,
Too straight,
Too limp,
Too frizzy,
And the color—
Too…too…too…too-too little
and too-too much of everything—
Never exactly as it should be.
It will not follow our will.
Pull it into a ponytail.
Shove it under a baseball cap or a sun hat.
Why don’t we just shave our heads
And let it be done?
This woman’s crowning glory,
a temptation enough to make angels fall
from the heights of heaven at the sight it,
necessitates head coverings and wigs for women,
according to some.
After all, who wants it to rain angels
into the streets of the world?
That’s a sight I wouldn’t mind seeing
since I’ve got questions for those angels.
For one, why do women have to help angels
control such lusty impulses?
But I digress as I begin my morning battle
with my own head of hair.
6th and Jefferson in Louisville. This is a line of white people forming a barrier between Black protestors and the police. This is love. This is what you do with your privilege. #NoJusticeNoPeace#SayHerName#BreonnaTaylor Photo credit: Tim Druck
Although I am not white, I admit I enjoy white privilege because most people perceive me as white. My mother was Melungeon, a mix raced people of Appalachia, and my real father was of Hispanic heritage. Most people look at me and see white features and assume a Greek or Italian heritage. Yes, some ignorant people have said stupid, racist things to me because of their assumption of my whiteness. In light of recent events, the privilege given to me by my features and skin color demands that I stand up to help.
America, we never were a great nation.
Not with the genocide of native peoples, slave auctions
And slavery, Jim Crow, The Trail of Tears,
Japanese Internments, and the KKK.
No, we were never great.
We are always a nation of becoming.
A nation of ideals.
A nation great in flickering moments
Like old news reel footage:
When Harriet led her railroad,
When the suffragettes marched for the vote,
When Rosa would not be moved,
When Martin believed in the one day
Every child would have,
When Edie and Thea showed
Marriage should be defined by love,
Not biological gender.
We are a people of hope, of dreams,
Of knowing life would be better
When we made each other great.
Now, hate ripples from one sea
To another, and neither shines any longer
With Liberty because her torch
Grows dim with this reign of hate.
And there are many who want to forge once again
The chains to her ankles, shackling her in place,
Because they want to keep her,
But just for looks sake. Her mate, Justice, remains
On life support, having been beaten to a bloody pulp
By those who see color, who see gender,
Who see all the women who need
To be put in their place,
Who see a society where Justice serves only
The white Christian right, or rather, where Justice is made
Their slave. No, this is not a great nation.
This is not a great nation
When a leader can bully and spew hate
While the First Lady urges kids
“Be Best” in a limp campaign to not do the same
And few mention the irony.
This is not a great nation.
This is not a great nation
When a leader can urge violence
Against the media, immigrants, those who disagree
And so few carry an outcry.
This not a great nation
Where 18 trans women, 17 of them of color,
Can be murdered within less than a year
Yet our highest court must hear how
Laws do not apply to LGBTQ.
No, this is not a great nation
When so many must blame, exclude, and hate,
When so many must abase another to uplift themselves,
All the while professing Christianity.
Our founders gave us rules of law to make us better than this.
We are not a great nation
Until we realize the American Dream
Doesn’t see color or gender,
Doesn’t see race or religion,
Doesn’t see sexual identity,
Until none of us need to stand on the backs
Of others to feel better about ourselves—
Until we realize the American Dream is freedom and equality
And there is enough for all to go around,
We can not be a great nation.
But the greatness in our nation is this:
That we can be
If we recognize our humanity.
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Hearing The Mermaids Sing 