Not Poetry Thursday, on patriotism

 For the Republic
 ~Magdalena Zurawski

The way I’m strapped into myself
I can’t escape. Wake up and be a better person! Clip your toenails,
and by sun-rise make sure
                        you’re sitting at the table reading Arendt.

With a little focus

I could become
everything I ever wished
to be: level-headed and
buoyed,
            a real (wo)man of conviction. But no, at night,
I’m like an old towel on the line, tossing and
turning in the wind of the dear leader’s
words. What does
                                      it matter, if I grind
                         my teeth for the old ladies of
                         Puerto Rico? Or take a knee
                         in the front yard every time I hear
                         the national anthem
                         in my head? The neighbor just thinks
                         I’m weeding and waves.

Copyright © 2018 Magdalena Zurawski. Used with permission of the author.

On War and Lives Lost for Veterans Day, Not Poetry Thursday

On Receiving the First News of the War
 ~Isaac Rosenberg

Snow is a strange white word;
No ice or frost
Has asked of bud or bird
For Winter’s cost.

Yet ice and frost and snow
From earth to sky
This Summer land doth know;
No man knows why.

In all men’s hearts it is:
Some spirit old
Hath turned with malign kiss
Our lives to mould.

Red fangs have torn His face,
God’s blood is shed:
He mourns from His lone place
His children dead.

O ancient crimson curse!
Corrode, consume;
Give back this universe
Its pristine bloom.
 
This poem is in the public domain.

Poetry Thursday, Asian American History Month

Personal History
 ~Adrienne Su

The world’s largest Confederate monument
was too big to perceive on my earliest trips to the park.
Unlike my parents, I was not an immigrant

but learned, in speech and writing, to represent.
Picnicking at the foot and sometimes peak
of the world’s largest Confederate monument,

we raised our Cokes to the first Georgian president.
His daughter was nine like me, but Jimmy Carter,
unlike my father, was not an immigrant.

Teachers and tour guides stressed the achievement
of turning three vertical granite acres into art.
Since no one called it a Confederate monument,

it remained invisible, like outdated wallpaper meant
long ago to be stripped. Nothing at Stone Mountain Park
echoed my ancestry, but it’s normal for immigrants

not to see themselves in landmarks. On summer nights,
fireworks and laser shows obscured, with sparks,
the world’s largest Confederate monument.
Our story began when my parents arrived as immigrants.

Copyright © 2019 by Adrienne Su. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 4, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.

Poetry Thursday, thinking about governing, sort of

Letting the Emptiness Become My Government
 ~Marcus Jackson

Within me, the sipped, iced bourbon enacts
the sense of a slow, April rain
blurring and nurturing a landscape.
Decades I’ve been pipe-dreaming of finding
a life as concise as a wartime telegram.
Ultimately, I’ve ended up compiling
an archive of miscommunication
and the faded receipts of secondary disgraces.
In third grade, a friend’s uncle stole the two dollars
from my pocket as I slept on their couch,
and later he must’ve hurried into the night
toward a flat in the nearby building
where a newly minted narcotic promised
to evict the misgivings from all riled souls.
I told no one of the theft, letting the emptiness
become my government, my friend’s
mother counting her food stamps while we walked
the late-morning blocks to a bustling grocery,
within which she eventually smacked
the hopeful face of my friend as he reached
again for too costly a thing.

Poetry Thursday

Citizenship
~Javier Zamora

it was clear they were hungry
with their carts empty the clothes inside their empty hands

they were hungry because their hands
were empty their hands in trashcans

the trashcans on the street
the asphalt street on the red dirt the dirt taxpayers pay for

up to that invisible line visible thick white paint
visible booths visible with the fence starting from the booths

booth road booth road booth road office building then the fence
fence fence fence

it started from a corner with an iron pole
always an iron pole at the beginning

those men those women could walk between booths
say hi to white or brown officers no problem

the problem I think were carts belts jackets
we didn’t have any

or maybe not the problem
our skin sunburned all of us spoke Spanish

we didn’t know how they had ended up that way
on that side

we didn’t know how we had ended up here
we didn’t know but we understood why they walk

the opposite direction to buy food on this side
this side we all know is hunger

Poetry Thursday

Facing US
 ~Amanda Johnston
            after Yusef Komunyakaa

My black face fades,
hiding inside black smoke.
I knew they'd use it,
dammit: tear gas.
I'm grown. I'm fresh.
Their clouded assumption eyes me
like a runaway, guilty as night,
chasing morning. I run
this way—the street lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the back of a police van
again, depending on my attitude
to be the difference.
I run down the signs
half-expecting to find
my name protesting in ink.
I touch the name Freddie Gray;
I see the beat cop's worn eyes.
Names stretch across the people’s banner
but when they walk away
the names fall from our lips.
Paparazzi flash. Call it riot.
The ground. A body on the ground.
A white cop’s image hovers
over us, then his blank gaze
looks through mine. I’m a broken window.
He’s raised his right arm
a gun in his hand. In the black smoke
a drone tracking targets:
No, a crow gasping for air.

Not Really Poetry Thursday, but I owe you two or three

It Was Summer Now and the Colored People Came Out Into the Sunshine
 ~Morgan Parker

They descend from the boat two by two. The gap in Angela Davis’s teeth speaks to the gap in James Baldwin’s teeth. The gap in James Baldwin’s teeth speaks to the gap in Malcolm X’s Teeth. The gap in Malcolm X’s teeth speaks to the gap in Malcolm X’s teeth. The gap in Condoleezza Rice’s teeth doesn’t speak. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard kisses the Band Aid on Nelly’s cheek. Frederick Douglass’s side part kisses Nikki Giovanni’s Thug Life tattoo. The choir is led by Whoopi Goldberg’s eyebrows. The choir is led by Will Smith’s flat top. The choir loses its way. The choir never returns home. The choir sings funeral instead of wedding, sings funeral instead of allegedly, sings funeral instead of help, sings Black instead of grace, sings Black as knucklebone, mercy, junebug, sea air. It is time for war.

Poetry Thursday, trying to get back on track...

How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This
~Hanif Abdurraqib

dear reader, with our heels digging into the good
mud at a swamp’s edge, you might tell me something
about the dandelion & how it is not a flower itself
but a plant made up of several small flowers at its crown
& lord knows I have been called by what I look like
more than I have been called by what I actually am &
I wish to return the favor for the purpose of this
exercise. which, too, is an attempt at fashioning
something pretty out of seeds refusing to make anything
worthwhile of their burial. size me up & skip whatever semantics
arrive to the tongue first. say: that boy he look like a hollowed-out
     grandfather
clock. he look like a million-dollar god with a two-cent
heaven. like all it takes is one kiss & before morning,
you could scatter his whole mind across a field.

I got things to say...

...and do, but it is all still percolating.

I am going to just leave this here for you all:


I finally got around to listening to the whole episode that included this awesome song.

This song on repeat got me through the last thirty miles of my nearly 300 miles drive today.

There was a lot of weeping so I needed this strong song to remind me that we are made of resilience.

Come at me bro...

finding hope

Usually, on a Friday, I try to post some articles... but I just switched that super lean post to next Friday.

Right now it is nearly Thursday (6/16), and I have just finished a marathon day of listening to the Democratic filibuster (why doesn't it have two l's?) while I worked on several projects.

I am a news nerd, well, just nerd in general, so it is not surprising that given the opportunity, I might tune into just this kind of thing.  At various points in the 13 hours I watched/listened, I also listened to other shows.

But, I felt I needed to stay with Chris Murphy and his crew, not only out of solidarity for the cause, but because they were doing it right. I knew that the chamber they were standing in was empty but for those talking or waiting to talk.  I needed to be their witness.

Witnessing is so very important.

And this is a cause that pulls on my heart like many others do not.

I had nightmares, as a teacher, of having gun violence in my work place ... long before Columbine.

I remember the day Columbine happened.  For some reason, I was home from school that day, maybe it was our spring break.  It was the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, and that was bad enough.  But it was a school. And no matter the compassion I have for Dylan and Eric, my heart breaks for the survivors (including the families of the casualties).

Years later, I was colleagues with someone whose mother was the crisis liaison for the schools.  The story of what her mother went through was just as devastating all those years later when we spoke about it.

I marched with the Million Moms in DC.  But we couldn't, for some reason, sustain the effort.
-----
Long before I knew what personal tragedy felt like, I was already mourning deeply the loss of people to this kind of massacre.

Each one of these tragedies tears at my soul in almost as deep a way as the loss of my siblings and my dear Sergio have.  It seems impossible that these people who I do not know, who I will never know, reach me at this level.  But, obviously, it is much bigger than just crazy empathy.

I won't lie... I feel as deeply for those who perpetrate these crimes.  Their need, their pain is more than palpable. But like the child molesters, no pain or injury can justify hurting others.

The bottom line is the pain/grief is almost crippling for me.
----------
This time, I felt that same urge Chris Murphy did ... before the day had ended on Sunday, I reached out to two women I know only through my pseudonym on fb to start something.  We have already planned a strategy meeting for next week ... we have already started a fb page for organizing.

And then, this filibuster.

I think I learned more about hashtags today than I might need to know.  I might be a master hashtagger now... something I thought I would never truly understand.

Indirectly, this will help me with all the other work endeavors I undertake.

Then, one of those women suggested I tune in to CSPAN and Chris Murphy's filibuster.

I didn't get excited, just interested.

I felt the need to stay.

It wasn't until we were rounding the 12th hour together and I was working the hashtags as hard as I could that hope started to creep in.

Let's be clear, it doesn't feel good exactly... it just feels the tiniest bit lighter to have hope... being hopeless is like living at the bottom of the well.  I have pledged not to be there anymore for any length of time, let alone live there.  So, I needed hope. I craved hope.

And in the working of the hashtags and the finding community with people I don't know -- people I may not have very much in common with, I found hope.

And it is sustaining me tonight -- almost euphorically.

I already have a post for tomorrow, it is Poetry Thursday after all.

So, I may have to update this next week after we have the vote... it's ok if the GOP fucks up today (THURSDAY which is actually yesterday by the time this is posted) because if they do, then we will just mobilize to get them voted out.

I am contemplating what it means that this kind of work gives me hope.

I keep dropping the red cape, and it keeps flying back on to my shoulders.

Too tired and too late to really worry about this now... tomorrow is another day.

Remembrance & Reinvention

I try not to let 9/11 go by without remembering.

My thoughts always turn to that little fifth grade boy whose dad didn't come home.  Remarkably, he was the only person I knew personally who lost someone in the towers.

I also remember to be grateful that two friends were late to work that day, and so they were in the subway instead of in the building when the first plane hit.  I thank the universe.

I was at a friend's book talk last night, and she was talking about how it is a novel about reinvention.

[Great book, The Paris Key by Juliet Blackwell, you should read it, by the way.]

It struck me that 9/11 for me is also about reinvention.  I am not sure if I have said this here before or not, and I am not in the mood to trudge back through the posts to see if I have.  So, bear with me.

When people ask me why I get divorced, sometimes I tell them the truth (if I have enough time to explain).  I got divorced because of 9/11. 

9/11 was my turning point -- it reminded me that life is too short to be unhappy.

It struck me last night, and again this morning, as I wondered what to write today, that I am at a similar turning point in my life.

I stand at a crossroads, with many choices for ways forward.  The only thing certain is that I cannot go backwards or stay in the unhappiness.

So, thank you 9/11, for reminding me that today is also about reinvention.

May all those souls continue to rest in peace and offer us every year the reminder that life is short.

Congratulations, SCOTUS...

you got it right!

But mostly, Congratulations!, to all those folks whose marriages are now legally accepted in all states ... and to all those who were holding out until today to get married!

Some days, our colors inspire pride, and today is one of them!

Unfortunately, we continue to mourn and grapple with lingering, deep-seated racism.  This is also happening today...

Martin

Forty seven years ago, Martin went home and left a void in our world.

Today, to honor that loss, I finally went to see Selma. 

I had heard how good a movie it was from many people.  But I knew it was going to be difficult to watch. 

It is not that anything would be portrayed in that movie that I didn't already know about.  But it is qualitatively different to read about it than to witness a reenactment.  Perhaps I have even already seen footage.  But, I still knew that the brutality would be unbearable.

But, I like depressing movies you might say.  The last film I saw was Still Alice -- heartbreaking, but beautiful and in its own way uplifting. 

This was different.   

All the while I was watching it, all I could do was think of all the people who have given so much of themselves so that we don't have to fight this battle anymore -- and of all the young men and women of color who have died at the hands of the police, lately and historically.

Watching those batons come down on the protesters felt like bearing witness to the continued deaths of so many people.

Tears streamed down my face for much of the movie.  I could not help but look away when the most brutal attacks were on the screen.

It is a great film.  Very well done, very well acted and directed.  But it is brutal... more for the echoes of what we continue to live despite the many blood sacrifices already given.

All of our veterans...[long rant]

There are times when I would like to avert my eyes and pretend that horrible things aren't going on around me ... too many times lately.  But, holding in my feelings isn't helping me.  And I believe in standing up for what we believe in.

So, I am going to poke some holes in the hypocrisy of the moment.  [And you know what I mean because those who profit from hypocrisy move to the next *most important example* of whatever they pretend to care about at the drop of a hat.]

Bowe Bergdahl is coming home after five years in captivity.  The circumstances of how he got captured are largely irrelevant to me.  He was in Afghanistan as a member of our military -- if he were not in the military, he would not have been there.  He did not go to Afghanistan, as other American young men have done, to become a terrorist.

I am not for war -- in fact, I am emphatically against it.  It is not a secret.

However, I believe that those folks who volunteer to serve in our military deserve to be treated with respect and cared for both while on active duty and afterwards.  I believe their families should be acknowledged for the sacrifices that they make.  Though I wish that they were not asked to kill others in my name, I still believe that all citizens should support the military.

We can hate the action and still respect the actor.

In fact, my belief system allows for that to be true for all people, not just the military.

Therefore it will not be surprising that I am thankful that an accord made it possible for Bergdahl to return to his family and the long road of recovery that awaits him.

I think it is unconscionable for media outlets to speculate on the circumstances of his capture or release.  Where was this outrage when a year ago they were publishing information that was released by what the government calls a treacherous act? Interviewing people who *think* Bergdahl deserted without interviewing anyone who might actually be able to call this a desertion is irresponsible and stilted.  These are two media outlets that I regularly use to stay connected to the world -- I would say trusted media outlets, but I am not sure that we have any of those anymore -- or if we ever did.

What we know, so far, is that Bergdahl joined the military because he wanted to help the people in Afghanistan and that he had become disillusioned with the actions of the military.  We know this from private communications with his family -- snapshots of his thoughts, not necessarily explanations of actions.  We do not yet know exactly what happened on the day he was captured, or even in the days preceding that capture.

A kid in war was afraid, ambivalent about the war, worried about his part ... where is the compassion for that?  Are the journalists speculating veterans?  Can they speak to what it feels like to be in a war zone?  I cannot, therefore, I cannot presume to judge.  I can only imagine having compassion for all those in that situation.  And, again, to wish they were not there in my name.  I welcome him home and wish him the best in his recovery.

Let us remember that we have forgiven, acquitted and excused our military killing innocents in the name of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan (lately) and many other places in the past.  We recognize how trauma from their service has caused many veterans and some active duty service people to commit crimes, inflict pain and death on others and to take their own lives.  We *know* the psychological toll that their service is taking on our military and their families.  It is not a secret or an unproven hypothesis.

So, I call those who will point the finger hypocrites.  If, as a public, we are to keep in mind the horrors of war and how they prey on the men and women in the military, then surely there is some compassion for Bergdahl.  Surely we can, at least, give him the benefit of the doubt until the investigation is complete.  I seem to recall the so-called American Taliban receiving more compassionate sentiment and treatment upon his return to the United States -- we could perhaps start that conversation with the fact that he was not sent to Guantanamo for his sentence.

Note that I am not even addressing the most egregious media outlets in the business of hypocrisy.  I cannot even stand to listen to what they are saying.  These are the folks who routinely call for our military to be sent into harm's way.   It makes my blood boil...

There is another hypocrisy that needs to be addressed that this issue calls into our consciousness: those that are now in Guantamo, for the most part, are the detainees we cannot either release or try.  We choose not to release them because we fear they are dangerous.  We cannot try them because they are more than likely victims of torture at our military's hand.  It is possible that we created the danger by torturing them as our prisoners.  If we could trade them for one of our own, why not?  It is small recompense for torture and indefinite confinement.

I reserve a considerable amount of my scorn for the *president* of Afghanistan who refuses to deal with the dangerous situations in his country because he does not want to deal with the Taliban.  I look forward to the time when none of our troops are in Afghanistan.  I look forward to a time when Mr. Karzai cannot simply point his finger at us and pretend that he has no complicity in the terrible situation he and his country find themselves in.  I don't abdicate our role, I simply refuse to give him a pass as well.

Ugh...

I remain thankful for Bergdahl's release and his return to his family.  May they all find peace.