commentary

And What Shall Ye Say?

lillian24 Comments

Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
Words from Bob Dylan’s iconic song, Blowin’ in the Wind

The airways reverberate
vitriolic hatred, spewed humiliation
despicable, visceral crudity.
Not crudité as in aperitif.
Main entré of spoils.

The wildfire is aflame
catching drafts of ignorance.
No longer can we pretend.
These are not embers
quietly waning in desert sand.

We must be the douser,
each by declaring no.
It must not be this way.
It cannot be this way.
It is not this way.

The answer is not blowin’ in the wind.
The answer is us.

Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets, where Bjorn is hosting and celebrating announcement of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan. Whether you agree with the selection or not, there is no denying the power his words had for so many during difficult times in America’s history. It seems to me, we are in the midst of trying, frightening times again. This poem is dedicated to Bob Dylan’s genius talent, and to Michelle Obama for having the courage yesterday, to stand up and speak out. 

The Tear Drop

lillian40 Comments

i.
If you insist, turn a deaf ear.
Tear thread by thread
cherished maxims from the cloak of civility.
Ye shall find a skeleton of pock marked bones
bereft of tear drops, wallowing in dust.

ii.
Some denigrate her promise,
hurl angry words upon that ancient crown.
All who first sailed round her base, forgotten,
as the brazen would douse her torch of hope.
She stands sentinel ‘neath a sliver moon,
solitary tear drop rung from stone
frozen on sculpted cheek.

iii.
Violence rips across city streets
sirens scream and echo through news.
Voices raise, fists raise,
and mothers fall on knees.
Not one tear drop falls,
it is a deluge that turns spilled blood
into rivers of salted red.

iv.
A tear drop
is the same color,
no matter the skin.

statue-of-liberty-in-tears2-0
Bjorn is hosting dVerse today and uniquely is adapting the cubist movement in art to the art ofpoetry. He asks to to select a simple object, or common concept, and write several poems looking at it from different perpectives. Ultimately, we are to place the poems in an order to create contrasts and, when read together, form one poem.  Individual parts – also to be read as a whole.
I’ve chosen to write about the tear drop.

I am the Sins of Those Before Me

lillian45 Comments

They arrived in droves, valuable cargo.
Used for the well being of others
to plant and sow, shod our horses,
tend our fields and homes.

In their visibility they were anonymous.
They were bid upon and owned.
Free will shackled in irons,
inhumanity by humanity.

This is our history. Not sepia toned
nor romantically blurred by antiquity.
Not smudged as charcoal blends,
disappears into fine threads of vellum.

This is our history,
and I am ashamed.

Posted to dVerse where Bjorn is hosting OLN; opens at 3 PM Boston time.
No photo posted with this poem. Racism still lives and appears on nightly news. I crave the dream of Martin Luther King and pray for all our children, for a better, kinder, more just world.

 

September 9, 2009

lillian2 Comments

And there they sat,
some agreed and some did not.
All taught as youth,
the tenants of democracy.
Respect the office
if not the man.

One voice spoke to all
until the word was harshly flung.
Liar! then gasps within the pause.
Heads turned to find the voice
whose tongue had struck,
lashed civility at its whipping post.

That word’s echo
replays throughout the land.
The fabric of decorum
a scrim forever rent,
as thread by shred
our dignity is torn.

U.S. President Barack Obama Visits Connecticut Town Where Massacre Still Fresh

Written in respons to a MOOC University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop assignment.
Explanation:  On September 9, 2009, President Obama was addressing Congress when South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson interrupted him by shouting “Liar!” There were audible gasps and stares. It was unprecedented for a president addressing Congress to be heckled. Representative Wilson later apologized and was formally rebuked by Congress. Some critics believe this was a watershed moment in the behavior of politicians. Somehow, I’ve always connected this event to the refrain in the song American Pie, “…the day the music died.”  In my mind, this was the day decorum died. 

i am…a frog?

lillian9 Comments

like a pollywog
but continual
constant metamorphosis
life’s playpen journey
never habitual
every step negates that

sister, wife, mother,
teacher, painter, dancer,
sometime-poet

daughter
daughter is missing
from the list

pollywog always
pollyanna mostly
metamorphopolly
named wrong
should be polly
could be…

because
i am…
we are…
you are…
a becomer

frog-shadow-1360285

photo credit: Hyunhee Park

Difference Defined

lillian50 Comments

bambambambambambambambambambambam
swing it round, this way, now that
bambambambambambambambambambambam

walk quietly in forest glen
seek movement in grasses tall
watch, scope, carefully

bambambambambambambambambambambam
blood spills, rounds and rounds
one load’s cacophony of death

deer and pheasant, field to table
smiling faces, club to grave

love-856202_1920

Quadrille using word “spill” written for today’s dVerse. Also written in response to the Pulse Club Massacre. Fact: same type of semi-automatic weapon used in the Sandy Hook shooting. There are reasonable steps that can be taken that do not dismantle the 2nd amendment.