Lawrence Ferlinghetti decades ago wrote and it gives me chills to read it today:
“Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars, whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation — oh, pity the people who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.”
― Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Category: FICTION
Traveler On the Backroads
I can hear the sun
touch the water’s edge
as daytime turns to dusk
in that magic moment
before evening falls
and the day is spent
.
you have to listen close
it’s softer than a whisper
as fragile as a dream
as quiet as an angel’s wing
but if you listen close
you can hear them sing
.
oh yes i can hear the sun
touch the water’s edge
*****I follow Michael on FB his poetry at times brings me to tears it is so beautiful and yes I am envious of his talent. follow him if you are so inclined. Tap the link at beginning of poem (in blue)
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Tonight I Cried
Tonight I totally lost all semblance of strength and just burst into tears. Not a day goes by I don’t think of my daughter, it’s seven years and the pan is as raw today as it was Feb 19, 2011. Generally, I can think of her with happiness and a bit of a trembling lip when the fact she is gone hits me. Yet tonight I lost it as if I had just received that horrible phone call. I know the agony of losing her will be with me until the day I pass away but Lord I wish it didn’t hurt so bad the majority of the time.
My immune system and other ailments have me weak physically and stress has had me for a really long time, depression as well. I just thought I was doing so well and if others were around and hubs weren’t asleep they would be putting me in a straitjacket.
I don’t know why I am writing this just needed to get it off my chest. I need no pity or comfort I just needed to write it.
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LOST TIME
The first day of Daylight Savings Time (DST), it is a dark, gloomy, cloudy day feeling like winter more than a nearness of Spring. I had hoped for a bright glorious day to give us all huge smiles. It would be a day with one less hour of the fake in the WH and his crew.
Instead, it was a day that had a ray of beautiful sun beamed through the window onto the hardwood floor, I would have tripped over it.
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Someday
Someday you will find me in a dark dirty neighborhood bar
where beer is served so cold it hurts your teeth to slurp it down
where cold sandwiches and a bag of chips are served for
breakfast, lunch, and dinner if you last that long
I’ll have crumbled Marlboro packs around me and ashes on
my shirt, burn holes in my old faded jeans.
If you look for me someday and I’m not at the bar I will be
at the old Wurlitzer playing all the oldies a dollar at a time,
Someday you will find me passed out on my sofa a
cigarette burnt to my fingers, whiskey bottle in my hand
the old turntable scratching the end of the song.
Someday you’ll look at me with sympathy and disgust
written on your face, wondering how I got to such a state.
Just know that somewhere sometime I don’t know when
my someday of happiness, love, life left me to this
darkened world of depression and this dirty lonely life.
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Winter Life
Silver stars sparkle
on the mirror lake
The air glistening
turns to crystals
covering land and trees
freezing in long icy
drips of reflecting silver
Skaters glide swiftly
the moon guiding
them round and round
through jumps and spins
Icy crystals mirror silver stars
and winter life.
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2018
As the chrysalis bursts open
A butterfly emerges with gossamer wings
Shaking itself free it takes flight
looking for the food of life which comes thru
Nectar in all the colors of the garden.
As we shake off 2017 let us become
Like the butterfly, let us emerge
Taking strength from the nectar
Offered in the many colors of us
Let us listen to our many voices,
Learning from each other
Share love, peace and understanding
Move onward do not look back and
Remember we are stronger together.
