Genesis 2:7 “Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
winds carried the dust
of freedom across the land
burying women
in the breeding graves
dug out by their slave masters
who thought to teach them
of their homespun place
lacking all memory’s whispers
of knowing freedom
or knowing a child
must leave the body, take breath
before God believes
it contains all elements
of life and humanity.
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.
An early morning, dogs walked,
Time to sit. Read the news.
Enjoy a cup of coffee and listen to the birds sing.
A twenty-two year old woman falls into a coma,
dying later at the hospital.
The police say she suffered a heart attack,
claiming their goal was educational only—
to teach her the proper way to wear hijab.
Now in Iran, women
bravely cut their hair and burn their hijabs
in protest of Mahsa Amini’s death.
I listen to the songs of cardinals
as they come to peck at the seeds from feeders
swinging from tall shepard hooks in my neighbor’s yard.
My hands shake as I lift my coffee cup to my lips.
No power. My hands hold no power. My body holds no power.
No power to help the women of Iran. No power to protect them
from the brutality of the “Morality Police.”
I can not help but think of my own daughter of twenty three,
only a year older, just a year.
A moment of gratitude for her life,
For a moment, a sense of relief
that here in the U.S we have no “Morality Police”
Or “sharia” law— for my daughter’s sake….
But the moment of relief drifts away
on the song the cardinals sing—
We live in the state of Texas,
Which now holds dominion over her body.
My hands shake
Powerless at the moment
Only at the moment.
Power rises as does anger.
The state, the nation, the world counted on fear to make us powerless.
Yet now, injustices kindle the flame of power within us
And nothing can stand against us once we unite.
Anger paralyzes,
I search for words—
Pour what I feel
Into them—
But my anger
Melts them,
Turns them molten metal,
Defiant to the forms,
The constraints,
The molds I attempt
To use to shape
This gob of white hot liquid metal
Into meaning
For feelings
Overwhelming me.
Paralysis crushing,
Submission—
It is what they want—
Make us heavy once again
With chains and shackles,
Place and close the Master’s padlock,
A designation of second class,
Something much less than they,
Round our necks once more,
Making of us an example,
So others live in fear
Of what they come for next
And so acquiesce—
Staying silent, eyes lowered,
Hoping to escape notice
By allowing them to feel smug and safe.
My anger burns bright white stripes,
Others will not die bleeding the red.
Remember the stars provide the light
Of what we know is right.
We will not live on our knees
Or on our backs, being beggars
For shredded scraps
Of what is the promise of our nation.
Poetry by Trisha Leigh
Because Sound Bytes Are Stupid
My Beautiful Chaotic Life
A Journey of Spiritual Significance
Traveling the great passage of life - Art in nature and writing
~ Communicator, WordSmith, Artist, Guide, Mentor, Muse ~
Where writers gather
Atmospheric Mind Flow
Driveling twaddle by an old flapdoodle.
stories, poems and more
May the Words Flow
Poets lie all the time but there are some truths only poetry can tell.
Now we see through a glass, darkly
The Writer
Just a small town girl who writes about Christian stuff.
Musings on life, love, and healing past trauma
Sharing Poetry and Hugs
Poems, Ramblings and Photography
KL CALEY
Inspiration and Spirituality **Award Free**
Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
A dose of fetish. Good friends. An incomparable muse.
These are my inner thoughts, passions and inspirations.
An insight to a heart mind and soul.
An onion has many layers. So have I!
To participate in the Ragtag Daily Prompt, create a Pingback to your post, or copy and paste the link to your post into the comments. And while you’re there, why not check out some of the other posts too!
Alternative haven for the Daily Post's mourners!
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature. Over 20,000 daily subscribers, 7,000 archived posts, 73 million hits and 5 million visitors.
Echoes of Life, Love and Laughter
Poetry
Showcasing the best of short films and screenplays from the LGBTQ+ community. Screenplay Winner every single month performed by professional actors. Film Festival occurs 21 times a year!
A Discovery of Enlightening Insights, Information, Humor, Writings and Musings
Artist by choice, photographer by default, poet by accident.
Premium Poetry Page Peskily Pondered Profoundly
Doing the best I can to keep it on the bright side
An Old Plumber, An Ex-Carer, An Amateur Poet, Words From The Heart
A storyteller with a poetic heart
...poetry, stories & rants.
Stephen Fuller *** Poetry, Essays
Poetry by Devon Brock
by Lize Bard
Experiments in Creative Writing, and more ....
Author Aspiring
Hearing The Mermaids Sing 