05 March 2015

In the Poppies

Toril "Run With Me" 18"x24" at Imaginaray Gardens with Real Toads

California pop-

pies remember us playing

once upon a time.

They told our mother

they would hold and keep us young

and they kept their word.

Today, I went to
the field and listened to them
rustle around us.

Written for Artistic Interpretations with Margaret "-- " Art with Toril at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.

White Blindness

The role of white blindness—different than snow

blindness, more akin to visual glare*--

defended as innocent by-standing

(as in I-wasn’t-standing-by, I-did-

not-know)—is still accessory to crime.

The toll of white blindness is guilt, sure, but

more so a hollowness of spirit that

only open eyes can begin to fill.

Shocking images coming to light act

to penetrate the darkness and begin.

If cure stops at guilt, whites incarcerate

themselves uselessly instead of healing—

and extend our unfortunate penal

code when restoration would prove better.

But OK, wallow awhile in garbage.

The pool of trash accumulated by

hidden racism awaits cleanup crews.

We start now, still white blind but ready

with scrub brush in one hand and open-ness

in the other, feeling our way to sight.

What a muddy mess is needed to hide

the fullness of color! What a sight for

sore eyes and thirsty spirit lies beneath

discarded chances and alternatives.

This is the cure. After we work, we may drink.

visual glare*

04 March 2015

PING PING

Source

Astonishing to learn PING PING shocking

about Slavery by Another Name

and finally get that Great Migrations

have causes, are caused by injustice piled

on oppression that looks like total hate.

But my head’s been under a barrel as

if need-to-know applied and race matters

did not, as if I needed protection

from truthful pain and I am bewildered

PING PING shocked that white could wash such abuse—

Whitewash economic profit based on

imprisoned labor, prison sentences

for walking talking relaxing and then

disappearance into iron mines, road

grading and cotton fields PING PING shocking.

How could states gain such power over black

American lives? How could whites turn blind

and obscure the truth in darkness and in

early graves? Forced labor concentration

camps were Nazi Germany—never ours.

PING PING shocked, enough! enough? enough, now.

If not for The New Jim Crow, if not for

the murder of Michael Brown (rest his soul),

if not for Hands Up! Don’t Shoot! and Black Lives

Matter, would I know these atrocities?

Add ignorance to the long list of white

privilege hanging on the wall—one-half

to give up, one-half to share—and stare down

white supremacy once and for all, PING

PING shocked, try not to hate, try to forgive.

Source

A Milestone Poem for Robert Lee Brewer’s Poetic Asides

Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 300

The Lady of Swarthmoor Hall (1614 – 23 April 1702)

Gratitude, dear God, for taking me out

of the shadow into the Light glowing

from you to me and out. For should

I hide my Light under a bushel's weight?

I am ready to hear your voice in here;

Ready to speak the truth out there.

My house is your house, forever

and no power can remove you

and no power can silence me.

Margaret Fell
Detail from etching by Robert Spence

Margaret Fell, mothering Quakerism—

the Religious Society of Friends—

read in the scriptures that God, Jesus and

angels gave women the word to carry

and so she did, in and out of prison.

Margaret Fell met George Fox’s ministry

with a woman’s equality and strength

and one hundred years before Mary’s Rights

of Women justified women’s speaking

in the Light of the Gospels and Jesus.

Religious descent and persecution

were not her aim, but became her Cross

to bear for freedom of conscience in faith

versus the Church of England, for heavenly

kingdoms on earth devoid of violence.

Margaret Fell mothered nine children without

faltering and when she felt the Light cried

out "We are all thieves; we are all thieves; we

have taken the scriptures in words, and know

nothing of them in ourselves." She learned true

Light—not the word given by priests and books,

but what she spoke as a prophet herself

following Christ from then on, speaking truth

to power, writing from this heart we have,

all of us, deep inside, convinced but still.

Afraid, we are weakened by freedom to

speak without prison and deprivation.

Afraid or unthinking, we live fat and sleek

despite God’s calling and nature’s crying.

Afraid, we turn from Light and deny truth.

But visit the Lady of Swarthmoor Hall

and see that first-hand knowledge trumps

other ways of life, that ecstasy and

Light are worth danger, that friends of Jesus

are equal to the challenge of the cross.

Listen to a beautiful musical setting of Margaret Fell's words

"We Are a People" (Sung by Paulette Meier)

This is a rough start of an epic poem for my prompt

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ A Woman's Day

03 March 2015

Lenten Illusion

We forget sometimes

that accepting the

task and way of faith

may lead to the cross.

Yes, that one, that then

was corporal pun-

ishment and now seems

random but is not.

Would I die for peace?

Yes, I say, but I

haven’t accepted

danger for decades.

And the war rages—

that of lambs and that

of lions, a March

reflection on Mars.

Just when it seems that

Gods have abandoned

us, the message will

come and make us choose.

And it will seem a group

choice, but in the end

we each die alone

faithful and scared too.

But only the next

step, I remind us—

we don’t know the way

until the door opens.

We may be righting

a wrong or writing

a book or walking

along this long road

and the crown of thorns

lights on our un-sus-

pecting brow when we

can no longer choose.

I hope to howl my

forgiveness outloud;

I hope to see God’s

Light in front of me.

AFP for DNA India:"Bangladeshis gathered on Sunday to pay tribute to an American blogger and critic of religious extremism who was hacked to death in Dhaka, in the latest of a series of attacks on writers in the predominantly Muslim nation. Avijit Roy, an engineer of Bangladeshi origin, was killed by machete-wielding assailants on Thursday while returning from a book fair."

In the beginning

was the strangest choice

and shortly after

was 55 words.

That’s all they said be-

fore dropping the bombs—

or was it 50-

5 seconds? In state-

sponsored terror there

is warning, alarm.

Not so for radi-

cals leaving bookstores

foot sore, who only

know breathing is dang-

erous but approach

the knife anyway.

For Abhra's Poetics : Make our voice heard

at dVerse Poets Pub and for Kerry's FLASH 55 PLUS

at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.

Susan's Poetry

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