Category: culture

We The Unseen

Edging towards gratitude
praying for salvation
It’s where we all want to be, right?

Why then is discernment
telling me to run –
Me, feeling claustrophobic
in crowds?

The chatter is discordant
seems we’re lowering our standards
mistaking temporary fails
as treachery

I try to stay hopeful
but my essence is parked
in invisibility, the clamour
of commercialism
condemning the likes of me
to back alleyways

Danger is everywhere
the lush slopes of ableism
 renders us shut-ins easy prey
progress whizzing by

I live in descent
drawn to and avoidant
of the lure of merging
always lagging

any vibrancy from my kind
perceived as garbage –
faith skips over the victim
drives us to hide
lesser beings are we

I take my chances,
dream of greener pastures
seeking the blessed promise

Joy, life has taught me,
always comes with a side of menace

(Image my own)

These Times

Who is at the table
negotiating peace?

A trans man
bares his brave chest
Is his flesh not
our flesh?

Indigineous mothers
cry for lost daughters
Is their plight
not our plight?

Shopkeepers moan
how long can we endure
the inequities
of an indifferent eye?

Child of mine
what future awaits
as I watch our progress
slide, painfully in reverse?

I want to be a beacon
of encouragement
believe that harmony
even exists

But the noise
in the streets
is deafening
truths trampled

The false prophets
the politicians
the blinding pull
of greed

There are none at the table
but anarchy’s decoys.


Where Is She In This Dream?

Watching the man wander
between home and industry,
the apron of his trade firmly fixed,
a sparkle of grit in his coiffed beard

The children, too, find joy
in his space, running between
house and workshop,
dog bounding at their feet
proudly on guard.

An outsider
and sink bound
she moves by rote
tea towel slung over shoulder
maintains a distance –
the dream is not hers.

She waits
weights
pretends
denies

Is losing her edges
and the parameters he sets
keep shifting, and
she is falling short

and the children, now hungry
tug on her apron for acknowledgment –
their father having taught them well —
she lives to meet their needs.

What’s for supper? they whine,
already preparing to grouse:
I don’t like that!
You liked it last week, she’ll reply
Weary, she feels herself fading

A meal on the table
and the man drags his feet –
would not award her respect
to appear on time

She’ll abide the disarray
while counting to herself
the minutes till this is over
and the children are in bed
and the man has returned to work
and nothingness is hers…

The numbness of lacking a dream.

(Art my own)

Is There An Exit Strategy?

Following political tides –
mesmerized by neglect
of actual issues – playing
to an audience of moaners
(standard consumerist
plights) – glossing over
exploitation of women,
verbal slaughter of race,
religion and social values

Wondering about media –
who commandeer bias,
swallowing atrocities and
spewing contrived truths,
absent sound voice, or will,
jeopardizing the security
of so many trampled in
the race for what? Surely
not responsibility – what

lapse of conscience has
allowed hateful rhetoric
to bloody progress, no
consequences?  Who will
bear the burden when in
the absence of morality
or respect for humanity,
the margins will increase?

The world quakes at the
failure to acknowledge
this broken path, see only
a devaluation of assets,
perceive a race that did
no more than increase
the monarchy of a king,
grant power to absolve
sins – a sleight-of-hand
trick – nothing to do with
the common habitants –
have so many questions
about how they’ll proceed.

(I wrote this poem in 2016. Same issue, different date. Surreal. Image my own)

Lines

Give me a map
and I will trace the lines
of where I have been

A timeline
will communicate
my raison d’être

Report cards
demonstrate the depth
of my conformity

Lines on my face
a testament
to personal efforts

Good girls colour in the lines
and I am no different
waxing orange and green

Wishing to create contours
differentiate self
from the compliance

Essence is fluid
and lines flimsy
and substance seeks
exposure and celebration

And try as I might
the orange of my soul
bleeds into blank spaces

and green of my nature
reaches across divisions
and I shall not succumb

to prescribed limits
and I invite you to do the same
colour with me outside the lines.

(Art my own)

I Wish I Could Believe

That Covid is no more than the flu
that Climate change is a not real
that political speak is baffle

But my body, wracked with pain
knows too much about the nuances
of viral infections…this is no cold

And I’m too old to deny
that pollution has long threatened
our ecosystems and that reckless
disregard for our Earth home
has consequences

And that discernment
seems to have gone astray
in this Social Media whirl
We need to dig deeper
if we want sustainable change

I wish I could believe
that democracy is a given-
forget the wars and sacrifices
it took to get us here-
look away while it slips….

I wish I could have faith
that God had a hand in all this
but I can’t shake the feeling
that ignorance is bliss
and I know too much

(Image my own)

Societal Ask

Can we acknowledge the richness of our resources:
that which sustains and endures? Always looking for the next shiny thing,
craving the exotic, the surprising… pushing purpose, movement… toward what? Telling ourselves we want lifelong commitment, and then moving on… emotions depleted. How do we define standards, intuit and reassemble a frame, counsel a collective, when expectations, creeping and woven into consciousness, resemble oppression? Hope -as sold by patriarchal mindsets, striving to mutilate common sense – is useless to revive when society teaches us to blindly follow the unintelligible…

Full moon a warning –
reverence for mystery
not conspiracy

Society’s light
waning on the back of lies-
hopelessness surreal

Hate is born from fear
disinformation a tool –
We are being played.

Step back! Cautions moon
observe under a new light –
reconnect with love.

(This poem, derived from a dream, started as a haibun – prose followed by a haiku – but the haiku multiplied. Guess we will call it a variation on a haibun. Image my own.)

The History Lesson (haibun)

“Why do we have to learn about something that doesn’t effect us?” the small, blonde student asked me. “I mean, it was ages ago, and not even in our country.”

She might as well have run me through the heart with a stake, the pain of her words struck me so deeply.  I considered her:  an average student, indulged, youngest child, modestly dressed, like many of her age. Disinterested.

Because without our awareness, and interference, history repeats itself, I wanted to say.  Because nothing that happens in the world happens in isolation; we are not immune. Because ignorance makes victims of us all.

Instead, I sent the class home with an assignment:  ask questions, call your grandparents, find someone who remembers, and be prepared to share what you have discovered.

History foretells –
casts eerie shadows over
disregard’s future.

(Reposting The History Lesson as it remains pertinent. Photo collage my own)