politics

Haunting Portrait

lillian29 Comments

She sits tall, neck craned,
blue and yellow flag out of view.
Husband and sons gone.
Neighborhoods reduced to rubble.

Paint me on this dismal morning
in my black mourning.
Paint my sorrow,
my horror, my disbelief.

Joyful colors obliterated.
No emerald greens,
brilliant purples
or rich chestnut browns.

Abandoned by you, your government.
Ceded for whatever reason
to that Russian tyrant.
I am the widow of Ukraine.

My visage shall haunt you
until the day you die.


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe where I’m hosting October 22nd’s Open Link Night. Folks are free to post one poem of their choosing OR they may write a poem that includes mention of at least three colors.

I’ve combined my optional prompt with Melissa’s prompt from Tuesday Poetics: write a poem inspired by one of three “haunting” paintings she provided.

The real haunting and haunted story behind Svetlana Telets, Rain Woman (1996).
Telets is a Ukrainan artist. Telets claimed that for months leading up to her painting, she felt an invisible presence watching her constantly. She claims to have felt an invisible force guide her hand llike a puppeteer while creating it. Telets’ painting was displayed in a local gallery in Ukraine, where it was purchased and returned multiple times by buyers who reported the painting caused them to experience insomnia, nightmares, and an eery sensation of being watched. Some even claimed that a shadowy figure followed them through their homes.

The Cadralar: Poetic Form for the Times

lillian19 Comments

1.
Red yarn raucously stretched,
tangled up and down stairs.
Cat spent
chin rests on ball’s remainder,
tail and right paw ensnared.

2.
Snow melts under warming sun.
Water rushes over boulders
carves trail in mountainside.
Carries, tosses rocks and branches
gurgles loudly in rapids below.

3.
Tuk tuks, bicycles, tarp covered trucks, cars.
All jockey in and out as drivers gesticulate.
Heat blazes, smog suffocates.
Traffic lights. Detour signs. No matter.
Throng pushes ever on.

4.
Hurdles placed, runners crouched
starter gun sounds.
Numbered bibs blurr.
Some clear barriers, never look back.
Others fall, lay defeated. Eating dry dust.

5.
Blue tsunami gathering steam.
November third in sight.
Maneuvering through noise
through blustering lies
the race to empathy, truth, democracy.

Written for Meet The Bar at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Laura asks us to write a CADRALAR, a unique poetic form explained below.

Cadralar:
Poem of five numbered stanzas.
Each stanza an imagist poem that can stand alone: a photograph if you will, but seemingly unrelated to the other stanzas, until you read the 5th and final stanza.
Stanzas’ lines should be similar in length.
Final 5th stanza, reveals the thread between the first four stanzas and answers the question, “What do you yearn for?”

Hint: I often find it helpful to go back and read the first four stanzas, after reading the final one!

FYI for those readers not from the US: November 3rd is election day in the US. It is not a presidential election year – that doesn’t come until 2028. But, we do vote for a large number of US congress folks (House of Representatives and the Senate), as well as important state offices including governors and members of state legislatures. If we “flip” Senate and House seats to the Democratic party, it will strip Donald Trump of much of his power and there could even be another impeachment, albeit a successful one in terms of removing him from office. All of these are possibilities. Many in the US, like across the globe, are tired and furious with what the Trump administration has done to the US and its ripple effect on the globe as well. Stay tuned for results on November 3rd.

*Red is the color of the Republican party: the group of sycophants following President Trump’s MAGA agenda.

*Blue is the color of the Democratic party.

A Short Political Ditty for the Times

lillian17 Comments

Hum-diddly-dee
hum-diddly-dum.
Sing out with glee,
beat that drum!

Add words to your tune,
“sycophants be gone”!
Revile the buffoon,
use your brassiest song.

Come November third
rise up, Land of the Brave.
Drown this theater of the absurd
in a tsunami blue wave!



Written for dVerse, the online pub for poets around the globe. Today, De asks us to write a quadrille including the word “hum” or a form of the word.

Quadrille: a poem of exactly 44 words, sans title, that includes a particular word provided in the prompt.

Icarus Revisited

lillian19 Comments

He feigns strength,
gilds his world golden.
His name. His visage. His way.
Trumpian mythology
built lie by lie, threat by threat.
Its depth unimaginable,
bottomless pit of greed, racism.
So self-consumed is he,
blind to his wax wings melting.
Truth’s flame is invincible


Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De asks us to include the word “myth” or a form of the word in a poem of exactly 44 words sans title.

Reference is made to mythology’s Icarus whose wings were made of wax…which led to his demise when he flew too close to the sun.

Living in a Run-On Sentenced World

lillian8 Comments

how did we get to this place
where journalists are called piggy and stupid
and the one before is called sleepy joe while the one now
who was also before the one before
nods off in televised meetings but wakes up
demanding cabinet members sling odes of praise
while hiding their genuflecting knees below the conference table
refusing to speak against indulgences given to insurrectionists
as others under his spell fund masked men
not Zorro types
accosting individuals who by the way are not eating your pets
rather paying taxes to raise their children who are US citizens
being good neighbors attending church
working jobs that need bodies who show up and care

we need Martin and Jesse
John Lewis and Barbara Jordon
to be here again
we need their spirited tenacity to rile up cowardly sycophants
to grow backbones and finally say enough is enough

meanwhile he’s playing feral tom cat lifting his leg all over DC
leaving his mark so future felines and species of any kind
will know he was here in his gilded age of narcissism
adding his name atop JFKs and on towers and arch de trumps
even as he paints the Reflecting Pond blue
in the image of Mar-a-Lago’s swimming pool
which as he explained with posters as visual aids
is taller than any of the tallest buildings in the world
never mind it’s a pool of water lying prone on the ground
not a building actually standing tall reaching to the sky

he’s become an AI Master in the wee hours
evidenced by his creations
something no other president has or ever will be
see Donald the pilot dropping shit bombs everywhere
while JD warns Leo to be careful talking about theology
his boss created himself in the image of Christ
and it goes on and on and on like a run-on sentence
with no stops no resets no commas
just implicitly felt exclamation marks slung everywhere
until we the people add our own exclamation mark
and say NO in November

let the reckoning come


Written for Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Melissa asks us to write a poem with no punctuation.
Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay

Need Your Advice

lillian14 Comments

We have an Uncle Fester, almost eighty,
his behaviors are causing concern.
Sends out weird pictures of himself.
One day he’s a fighter pilot
dropping feces bombs,
the next day he’s Jesus Christ.

Someone made a whopper mistake,
gifted Uncle Fester a label-maker.
He slapped his name everywhere.
We’re talking street corner signs,
the neighborhood center,
and the cemetery too.

Shocked my aunt by gilding his den
then bull-dozers suddenly appeared,
tore down their living room!
Shocked beyond words she asked him why.
“We need a ballroom” he said.
“For what?” she screamed,
“You don’t even dance!”

Sits up all hours of the night
posting, posting, posting.
Posted eleven times in forty-two minutes,
then fell asleep at inopportune times.
Brings up a contest he lost six years ago.
Claims he won though facts say he lost.
Brings it up over and over and over again.

Hoists f-bombs at neighbors and friends.
Can’t stay on topic when he talks,
wanders off with grandiose lies.
According to him, he’s the absolute best
at everything there ever was.
We hear it over and over and over again.
So what do you think?  
Is there cause for concern?

Hmmmmm……do you think Uncle Fester sounds like Donald Trump? My apologies to the “real” Uncle Fester! He’s a character in the fictional Addams Family. Image is of Jackie Coogan playing the role. Image is in public domain.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Sanaa is hosting Open Link Night AND will host a LIVE session with audio and video on Satuday, May 9th from 10 to 11 AM EST. All are welcome to join. A link is provided on Thursday’s OLN page here.

Garden’s Dilemma

lillianLeave a comment

In his dodder of thyme,
the current head DC gardener
continues to uproot and rip out
Justicia, Honesty, and roses of all kind.
As if they were the weeds.
In their place he sows and propagates
Crown Imperial, Wormswood, Snakesfoot,
King-cups and Creeping Cereus.

This prickly pear of a man
is in no way a humble plant.
More like a mouse-eared-chickweed
forever noshing on Fool’s Parsley,
basking under the shade
of his pruned Judas Trees.

Outside his sphere, weeping willows
flail in dire need of gentle balm.
They must find a new sage, soon.
Both Burpee and the
Farmer’s Almanac warn
the upcoming planting season
will be a crucial one.

NAPOWRIMO Day 19. Today’s prompt: Using Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers, write a poem in which you muse on your selections of flowers names and meanings from her extensive list.

*** All of the flowers and plants I’ve used from her book, are italicized in the poem. I’ve kept the capitalization only on those that are actually used in the poem as the plant/flower itself. Reference is paid to the Old Farmer’s Almanac and the Burpee Seed Catalogue.

IMAGE of the Jacqueline Kennedy Rose Garden at the White House, courtesy of the National Park Service website.

In the imperative way . . .

lillian12 Comments

directions to self, and you, if you wish.
Stop imbibing Trumpian news.
Take only one small sip per day.
Think revel instead of wallow.
Revel in sunshine, a best seller book.
Walk outside breathing in fresh air,
plan for someone’s birthday surprise.
Arrange day trips away from news.
If you ruminate, Trump wins.
Do your small part pf course.
One political post per day.
Donate to a cause.
But do not allow him to fester in your brain,
to loose fistulas of lies that chafe,
clouding your eyes to the joys nearby.
Take care of your mental health.
That is of prime importance in these days of . . .
well, I don’t know what they are of.
But that’s the point.
It’s our task to define them.
To decide how we change them.
How we live and love in them.
And God knows, we must.


Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe! Today Dora asks us to write a poem using an imperative….a demand of sorts.

Photo from a spring walk last year along the Charles River. A habitual dog walker often takes a rest at this bench….always makes me smile. We need more smiles these days.

Jump Roping Rhymes for the Times

lillian3 Comments

One, two,
what can we do?
Three, four,
can’t bear any more.
Five, six,
need a fix.
Seven, eight,
it’s not too late.
Jump ahead to twenty-five,
that amendment’s power drive.
Then go back to the standard rhyme,
he exits out in rhythmic time.
Nine, ten,
a thankful amen.


NAPOWRIMO Day 7. Prompt for the day: Write a poem that can be a “song: something to clap, snap or jump around to.” I’ve changed the words here to the childhood rhyme, “One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, shut the door. etc”

If you don’t want to read a political statement in explanation of the poem above, stop reading here.

Today, the President of the United States is playing the “proverbial game of chicken” with an unstable and violent regime. “A whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 PM EST. Note: the Strait of Hormuz was open until the US and Israel bombed Iran. Listen to President Trump’s recent public appearances: IE standing beside the giant Easter Bunny at the annual Easter Egg Roll, talking about Iran, how great his military is; telling children they can sell the pictures he colors with them because he’s signing them and his autograph is worth a lot of money. But they couldn’t sell anything from President Biden because he had people follow him around with an autopen. Look at his Truth Social posts in the last few days: laced with expletives. The man is more than unhinged. He is seriously mentally ill. He is not competent or fit to be in the office of the Presidency.

It is time to evoke the 25th amendement and remove him from office. At the very least, his family should stage a serious intervention meeting with him; as should members of Congress. Handle it discreetly and quietly if they wish. If he won’t resign, invoke the 25th amendement. We can not allow this man to continue in this powerful position.