Words of No Might

I

“The pen is mightier than the sword,”
Bulwer-Lytton wrote long ago.

Words, with strength enough
to repel the bullets violently vomited
by rapid fire weapons of wars
not being fought on this soil, in this land,
in these schools,
abandon me.

My words have no power.
I cannot weave a bulletproof shield 
of words to protect my grandchildren
from this earth they will inherit: 
where four-year-old preschoolers 
practice active shooter drills,
beginning their journey of learning
of how to live without innocence:
We created a skin of fear
into which they are born,
and now, we teach them to live
inside that skin of fear
with lockdown drills, metal detectors, and
lessons in barricading classroom doors,
as we wait for the hollowness
of thoughts and prayers
and good guys with guns
to save us all.

With what voices,
with what words
will we speak
in answer--
when our ghost children rise
to ask us why
we did not save them.



Of Belonging


Credit: K. Kunte, Harvard University
The swallowtail paid a visit this morning, 
a flutter of striped wings,
tipped itself in hello 
as we sipped coffee 
and looked up from our morning paper. 

We smiled at the swallowtail then each other. 
You swear it is the transformed caterpillar 
we rescued from certain death 
as it hung from the dog’s lip
and then tenderly placed 
in safety on the gourd vine leaves
growing by the wood pile.

I do not know. It could very well be.
It is beautiful in its flight.
Its morning joyful greeting of belonging,
of having found its place.

These mornings are life here with you.

A Letter to My Daughters As I Send You On

(In the Wake of Project 2025/ Agenda 47)

With respect and homage to Margret Attwood

To all my daughters:

It has begun. They will come for us tonight. Darkness their friend. The cloak of night hides their evil, so they believe. We know they will place us in one of the camps. We are of no use to them. Old dissenters of questionable things, the light which frightens them. We fought long and hard, each in her own way.

Now, it is time for you, all my daughters, to stop. Your survival is the only way we win. Survive. Do not give up. Fight now by surviving. If you do not survive, there is no hope for a future.

I beseech you all to remember:  Use only the last name I paid to have bleached for you. Pretend to forget your heritage now, for if pride lets you not pretend, you will not survive, and your heritage dies with you. Wear the gold cross on the gold chain as proof you believe as they do. Learn and recite their prayers, for God does not care. Cover your skin in the sun, it cannot turn too dark. Pass for them if you at all can. If you cannot, lower your eyes and hide defiance within the coverage of pretend obedience. Bite your tongue silent so you may make your way forward.  Though I cannot travel with you (I will not live long enough to see the return), above all, remember all roads lead to Delaware.

Yet, I will be there with you when you arrive and breathe in freedom.

Cleaning Out the Garage

Hidden behind
two different sized levels,
I saw it.

And the ache of my bones
reared up —
electric,
sharp edged--
I shrank 
in the ugly face
of its brutality.

Yes, I admit—
I shrank down
50 years or so
more or less—
a thirteen-year-old,
helpless, 
swimming in a stuttering stupor,
nose barely above water,
in the wake of this awakened
ache in my bones--
the sight of a metal yardstick
like the one my drunken mother
tried to break over my back 
as she had her wooden one.

And I, 
after all these years,
I still carry that ache, 
hidden, 
in the marrow
of my bones

The Song of The Mountains

img_8986

Image is my own

Sitting here in New Mexico and looking at these mountains, I wonder if my mother ever heard the mountains of Appalachia sing as I do these.

The mountains sing their history--
of when they knew only tranquility
in the land of their ancient salt seas,
when the sun could not touch them,
when they were virgin still--
safe from the rough hands of the wind,
long before the rise of humanity.

Their song holds the rhythms,
the bars, the layers of the time before--
before an angry molten core,
containing not a single drop of mercy,
drove them from their ancient, peaceful home,
forcing them to be refugees in the kingdom
of sun and wind.

Their song holds the rhythms
of all they grieve
in witnessing humanity’s rise,
dripping in eternal inhumanity.

At the feet of the mountains, the lilacs,
nourished by snow melt tears,
bow their heads and dance in the rhythms
of the mountains’ song—
A dance of homage
to such ancient ones.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wITB_k8gX78&list=OLAK5uy_nKHcHbv67IP6facZWpq6ZwAhVrhAxMwQg&index=5

My Last Innocent Year— on hereticsloversmadmen.com

My Last Innocent Year – Annette Kalandros

of sea level and altitude

Photo by Valdemaras D. on Pexels.com
Forgive me, I ramble,
telling you of life at sea level--

where a steady pour of hours stream,
and minutes bead against the windowpanes
as the seconds mist into fog--
decades of earth and rock liquify--
A mottled mix of flowing colors and viscosities
defiant and devoid of any beauty
to ease a slippery sharp-edged flow
carving out an emptiness
within this near ghost of a soul
waiting in unacknowledged darkness,
while asking for a way to the light—

before waking in the softness
of morning at altitude.

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I’m awake and pretty much sober. Yet I do not wish to be sober. I want to swirlmy anger in my mouth, letting its tannins coat my tongue until my …

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My daughter, Mine – Annette Kalandros

My daughter, mine,   though you live   thousands of miles away sleep safe, my daughter mine. Though you live   where a man caresses a weapon of war …

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