Tear Down the Curtain 

A battle won,

Time now to rise,

Rise in the streets to remind 

Of a time when 

With a banging shoe

Our damnation tolled 

As shouts and threats

Of our burial 

Brought us to the brink.

We must rise,

Rise, take to the streets,

Stand beneath the feet of great ones

They plan to topple and disgrace,

To show we see the link

Smelted and forged in gold

With the man behind the curtain.

We once caused a wall to fall.

Let our numbers now rip down 

A curtain made of gold.  

History

history image

Spun out from the centrifuge
Twisted in helix meaning
Strands entwined, twisted back
Stretching toward history within heritage
Search through the montage of time
Sift through pounds of truth and lies
For a few ounces of purity
Measured out within the mess
The now was the past
Where to walk
We travel back
On twisted helix roads
To the selves we were
So very long ago
And learn
The future braided
In the past
With the now
And made us whole

Power Rises

The Lady went dark,

feeling the decline.

The dawn trembled,

as the power of the mother raised

a sisterhood united.

 

While the capricious one

and his band of merry fools

turned tiny hands

to the magician’s tools

of distraction and deflection,

whipping their devout disciples

to a rabid, foamy hate,

ready to trample their different siblings.

 

Thus, the mother within the sisterhood

and a faction of the brotherhood

joins them to rise,

persisting in resisting

to protect a nation

for the next generation.

 

Treasonous Restoration

The once silenced sentiment

Finding voice in our modern age

Now screams in rage:

BUILD A WALL

WHITE POWER

MY PRESIDENT SAYS WE CAN KILL YOU NOW

GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY

 

And on it goes

Until an absence of color

Signifies ownership

Of Justice whose scales were sold

And tore off her blindfold,

Of Liberty whose anger more than scorched,

That book of law before that torch

She turned and hurled into the Caspian

To douse the betrayed flame.

 

Robes torn, heads covered in ashes

Justice and Liberty now sit on the ground,

Crying out:

 

With headstones overturned

And threats to Abraham’s schools,

How long before another night

Of broken glass?

 

With two now dead in Crescent City,

How long before the crosses burn

As the noose is placed round

The necks of Nubians

How long before the crosses twist,

And on them, shepherds are tied

And left in the cold to die, crucified?

 

When did the colors of our flag turn:

Red, White, and Black?

Trash at the Curb

Trash by the curb
Cardboard boxes nested
One within the other
Standing upright, resting
Against the edge of the smallest,
An old collage Walmart picture frame,
Matting included,
Old photos still within the frame,
A wedding, a first baby then a second,
Graduations and first cars,
Pictures telling a story of a family,
Colors faded by the sun
Having spent years by a window

After Eruption

Rend the earth again
Tear, rip through miles of rock and soil
Till the swollen, rounded,
core lies exposed
Bubbling, glowing,
Sputtering out
Reaching tendrils of itself.
Note the flow,
Time the pulses of heat,
Beating with undulating life seen and unseen.
Then watch the viscous liquid cool,
Solidifying against the pain
Of each cold breath you expel
Stilling the beat of life.

The transformation to cold, hard stone
Within the earth’s crust
As thus,
A mother’s heart,
Torn open once too often,
Stops.

The Saddle and The Bit

Place the saddle,
Force the bit,
Ride us all
As you wish.
For that’s your dream
To feel such power,
As you surely never felt
Surge between your thighs.

But now the blood flow to the brain
Must be your impediment,
For you to blunder and believe
We could be fooled, trained, broken
To your prideful will
By whipping us with hate
And all the while saying
It is for our own good
To know our place
Till we become beaten slaves,
Smiling, nodding, shuffling on,
Muted and grateful you own us
Since we, at least, survive.
While you, smug and smiling,
Play the benevolent, loving master,
As is the lie of your fantasy.

Cloaked in liberty won
In the blood of our history,
We watch
Your strutting, angry buffoonery
As we stand proud,
Refusing the saddle and the bit,
Fighting against the whip,
We will not smile
We will not nod
We stride and march,
Rejecting everything
You would twist us into
As you claim to make
Our nation great once again
We rise to free our nation
From you, the enemy of democracy,
As is the reality.

The Mother’s Hope

What we know of words upon a page
Read, learned over again until sated
In the richness found
Then turn to the electronic blue haze
Where even words resonate, echoing fade
For the sweetest lies hate mongers craved
Swoon over one hundred forty plastic flowers
Like the words of a lover’s refrain
Written once too often in wooing others
As cheap plated jewelry’s shine
Turns black in the bitterness
On the day the Mother of Exiles cried
For the words beneath her feet crumbled
And the book she holds nearly fell,
Upon its cover, the date when something pure,
Something of meaning and hope was born
No longer revered, respected, held dear
By those with a need to instill hate and fear.

The Mother raised her head,
Found her footing once again,
Held close her book of law
When she saw the children of her nation arise,
Stand strong against the peddlers of fear
And by their numbers shout a resounding, “NO!”

Let The Horseman Ride

The captain of industry forgets his history
As a populous forgets all the tales of prophecy
While writhing in the seduction of lies.

Thus, all the best in humanity is left behind.
Water boarding, black sites, torture now promised.
Yes, the captain says to let the horseman ride.

The angry world forgets
The path of anger makes the “world blind.”
Yes, the captain says to let the horseman ride.

The sun dons a robe of sackcloth, grieving
The ocean’s rasping last breath,
As the moon’s face rained blood tears,
Turning rivers red.

Yes, the captain said to let the horseman ride.

If They Come

They’ve come before
Different times, different places
Always leaving behind traces
Of inhumanity.

Some remember,
State the parallels,
Recite the historical,
Are laughed at as the hysterical.

The majority, who will say–
They come not in his name
For they wear not the robes of the arcane,
Burning crosses straight and twisted.

Some forget,
Leaving voices unraised.
Some simply care not,
Since they come not for them.

Darkness imprisoned for years
Revels and romps now freed from sanctions,
Freed from society’s guilty tears.

If they should come
For the disabled ones
To mock and who knows what more,
To be neutered and spayed
Corralled into stalls

To swallow pills and stare
At mint green cinder block walls?
All to hide such shame
From society’s eyes
The words home and school provide
A little comfort and the lies.
I will raise my voice, “What you do to them do to me too.
For how can I be perfectly abled in your mind?”

If they should come
For the immigrant ones
To part them from jobs no one else will do
With shouts of “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,
Believed this was the place
Of a better life, of dreams made true.”

If they should come
For the Muslim ones,
Planning to throw mud in the face of Geneva,
With their unproven facts and shouts of “Terrorist. Jihadist.”
I will raise my voice, “Take me with them too.
For I also pray to the God of Abraham.”

If they should come again
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.”

If they should come again
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.”

If they should come for the gay ones,
the bisexual, my lesbian sisters and me,
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.

Will you realize when you came 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 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,
Our resistance,
Without striking, without killing,
No sling shot will we need
To make your injustice
Crystalline for all the world to see.

When the day of God’s light
Does come once again
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
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.