Poem: Fool

Fool

This trusting and full-of-faith spirit
With naïve, well meaning devotion
Fool
For those adored and admired will disappoint
So that sorrows become a deluge of regrets

An affirmation for dedication
A sort of fantastical illusion?
Fool
For transitory is the bond given
Too often and with so little weight

Fool to believe
Fool to love
Fool to trust
Fool to take in (Taken in?)
Fool to embrace

Always the fool
And to be again and again

Copyright SGW 2008

Poem: Incongruous

Incongruous

Casket lay before
A mass of quiet grieving
Stillness broken by
Balloons at a funeral

Copyright SGW 2008

The Artist ...

"The artist is the ridiculous fellow who takes on God as his creative rival. Sometimes God smiles at the effort, leans down, and contributes a vital touch here and there, which we call inspiration; and so a new work of art comes to exist."

Herman Wouke in "Youngblood Hawke."

A New, New Frontier

My poem from earlier in the year: Barack.

Yes We Can

I was not alive in 1960, but I imagine my today was quite similar to what people who voted for JFK felt forty-eight years ago on Election Day. I felt strengthened as I drove to my polling station, and proud as I saw a small crowd waiting to participate in democracy.

And so I stood behind the curtain in the voting booth and stared at the screen with my green x mark beside Barack Obama's name. I wanted to meditate over the moment however briefly and bask in the glory of what it meant to me. We have come far as a country, yet have much still to do. An eight year horror is coming to an end, but it left ruin wherever it stepped. Hope, ideas and solutions mean more than lies and cynicism now. The Constitution can be restored to its hallowed place.

And I walked to my car and went to work, but continued to return to what this day was representative of. I shared in the promise of the future with Barack Obama, President - Elect Barack Obama, and I am alive with hope, yes, hope, in what America used to be and now just might become again. A long nightmare is in its death throes, a true leader has come to take us forward and, as many felt when they joined with John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1960 to walk upon the New Frontier, so do I today say "Yes We Can," and I bask in the election of Barack Hussein (yes, let the fearmongers quiver with the use of a middle name) Obama.

Poem: RSVP

My niece is being Bat Mitzvahed in December and the invitation arrived the other day. I am used to the RSVP card having a box to check for whether you are coming or not. This one just had a space to write whatever you wanted. The limerick below resulted. Oh, as the envelope said Scott and Guest, and I am single, I thought Boo would be welcome, but my sister nixed that idea.


RSVP

An invitation by mail did come
And Jessica Fitch it is from
It says bring a guest
Maybe Boo I’d suggest?
He would settle to eat bits and crumb

So yes I shall gladly attend
RSVP by the post I do send
Not a chance I would miss
With a hug and a kiss
I will be there from starting to end

Copyright 2008

7 Minutes and 9 Seconds Says Everything

Colin Powell has served in both Bush Administrations. He is a lifetime military man. This clip might be the most eloquently stated remarks yet in this election cycle.

Poem: Mirror Talk

Mirror Talk

There are no offered answers
In dead end roads of sought nothings.
Voices missed as shrill whiteness,
Speaking hollow words that die.

And death comes in poisons drunk;
Imbibed, thinking it nectar’s sustenance.
Instead, choking and compounding sickness.

The journey mocks in absurdities
Of Holy Grails providing fodder for fantastic stories;
Lore told to misdirect into a deeper maze.

Teach me to sing again once-wise brother.
Laughter, an echo still faintly present.
I wish to spin with arms spread open,
Diving into fields of forever green.

You, you hold all of mystery’s hidden secrets
Laid out in bountiful gifts of love;
To forgive, learn, dream ...
Breathe, rest ...
Bask in warmest providence.

Mirror, mirror on the wall ...

Copyright SGW 2007

Republicanism?

Why does each Republican rally seem like a Medieval event? The hate, fear, fanaticism, and ignorance is mind-boggling.

Poem: An Ode To Sarah Palin

George Bush displays a serious lack of intelligence and curiosity of thought. He has met his match.

An Ode To Sarah Palin

Behold a great emptiness of certain display
It knows very little in fullest array
Taking pride in what’s simple, yet it simply falls short
Slow to all answers or well-thought retort
An agent of change … Ha! A wolf of the same
Preacher of values? More conniving a game
Speaketh in tongues; a fanatical fool
Of intelligent discourse? Avoidance her rule
The true bridge to nowhere is the path we’d be led
A road to more ruin inextricably wed
Of moose and of hockey and of frightening belief
After eight years ‘a moron, more a brain’d be relief
Too close to the trigger … or be named her next son?!
Another dolt near the White House and any hope is undone
With resounding rejection, pray the verdict be weighed
Crawling back to Wasilla where she first should have stayed

Copyright SGW 2008

And in Sarah's own words: "That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the - it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that." *

And to quote Whoopi Goldberg now: "(Mick), speak English!"

* Taken from Newsweek in an article by Fareed Zakaria.

U.S. Citizenship Test

Could you pass the test? I got 10 out of 10. Sarah Palin said she would get back to the questioners later with answers.

Poem: Albatross

Albatross

With weight of dreams dissolved
Time pulls relentlessly
Until nothing remains of the promise
That never truly was anything more
Then possibility gone awry

Copyright SGW 2008

Give me a thinker

"How is it that, in a country founded by intellectuals, it's an insult to call someone an intellectual?"

Connie Schultz, columnist for the Plain Dealer of Cleveland

Thoughts for today

1. Only a person who is disengaged from the people and will do nothing to help them would ever denigrate someone else for being a community activist.
2. For a guy, yogurt is a really difficult TV snack food. With one hand holding the container and the other handling the spoon, how do you work the remote?
3. This might be the best blog post I have ever read.
4. Who knew that when the glass ceiling was shattered it would not lead to a sunny sky, but a horribly, awful shard raining down upon us pretending to be something else.
5. I am voting for a man who is inspiring, agrees with me on most issues and will not act rashly or irrationally in the face of conflict. He happens to be black.
6. When FOX starts a news channel I will check it out.
7. C is STILL for cookie, and that is STILL good enough for me.
8. Do you think even Laura Bush deep down thinks he is a moron?
9. Why would anyone consider sitting up in a tree all day, drinking beer, holding a high powered rifle in some form of subconscious masturbation, waiting for a deer to stroll by before blowing its brains out to be sporting or manly? Cowardly, weak, cruel, and pointless come to mind, though.
10. I would be more open to the opinions of people who are anti-choice if they adopted and/or mentored young children in need. How come a fetus is of more value then the kids outside a woman's womb?

Poem: Cleanse

Cleanse

You move me in your silence
Speak in voices of time
As winds have blown hard
Life goes on forever changing and unchanged

The love of your touch stands as testament
A harmony both firm and giving
Soft and warm, yet hard and cold

You reflect all that we are and never can be
For the enduring memories held, are forgotten

I wash my feet clean
Soothing in the oneness to stand apart
Divorced of pain from hurts and tears
I cry in joyful bliss of a life

Copyright SGW 2008