Tag Archives: poems

Former Forest #Poetry #Essay #Nature #Resistance

Former forest 

steeped in fog  

takes one last breath 

before the concrete smothers 

hidden roots and hearts 

lungs and streams 

For the moment, the river and sky 

sleep 

Underground dreams    

travel

After a few years

nightmares of metal-mouthed equipment subside, 

and the birds wake the seeds

Above and below

Indestructible roots and limbs strangle

billionaires’ dreams

Today I looked at the news again (instead of hiding inside a heavily warded blanket fort of ignorance) and damn, the giant rock we live on just continues to roll downhill towards a pit full of scorpions, broken glass, credit scores, and other such miseries. Despite having an ample number of empty houses in existence and the means to grow the food supply in relatively safe ways, those who believe themselves to be the unequivocal authorities over all that they see have chosen to hold everything behind a paywall. The lock only turns for those within the groups that don’t really need anything but want more than they can ever reasonably use.

Unlike the hopeful vision of the future proposed in Star Trek, the current reality is that technological advancements and their capabilities will not be used to benefit you or me. Cities have begun mounting a i cameras on the back of trash trucks, not with the intent to keep the drivers safe, but instead, to search for code violations in homes in areas where people have limited ability to pay useless fines. Municipality revenue-generating cameras on trash trucks was not the story I wanted to read today. Or tomorrow. Or ever, really. But if I choose to stay awake and aware, then I have to hear some absurdity or another, every single day. The price of knowing these things is anger that burns, constantly, to some degree, in every facet of my being.

I just wanted to go outside and enjoy the parks and beaches, and to be left alone and enjoy my privacy. But the forests are all being torn down to make way for ugly gray warehouses that drink all the water and breathe smoke into our air. Data center parks and data center villages replaced all the trees, but “no worries,” we’re told, we can still look up digital images of forests. A sacrifice for the greater good. I can’t figure out what’s great about it, though.

Robot eyes in the skies assist our phones in spying on our words and purchases. Companies line up to pay for the consumer data, because we’re just numbers with wallets to be exploited, and that’s not even the worst use of our information. The electronic spies report our habits to programs designed to fleece the people bare before the billionaires create their dream of an everlasting winter, leaving us no option but to trade years of our futures for the chance to survive the manufactured cold for a little while longer.

Concrete Screams – #poem #poetry #nature #ProtectNature

Concrete Screams

Data havens spawn through forests

multiplying into cities

devouring homes and family farms

The concrete warehouses wreck the air

with their discordant screams

that sing

the rivers dry

Image description – a photo of part of a forest that has been destroyed in preparation for a building project that will overtake land once filled by old trees and streams. A piece of destruction equipment sits behind a path in a wooded area that has been cleared of trees.

At the moment, nowhere feels safe from the imminent threat of data centers and overdevelopment. Beautiful, old trees and creeks and streams are being destroyed at an alarming rate to make way for things corporate overlords are trying to convince us that we need. City and county planners know that people don’t want these monstrosities but somehow, approval gets pushed through. Money has a lot to do with that process, I’m sure.

Money and greed play a large role in overdevelopment of land without proper infrastructure to withstand all the new homes and businesses. The money, though, is something most of us will never see. We work and pay taxes, and yet, those in political power seem determined to keep the majority of the money paid into the system for themselves. They toss the majority of us mere scraps and tell us to work harder, blaming us for their hoarding of resources that should have been shared. Sharing money was the original agreement, the promise, after all.

Taxes were meant to be shared for things that benefit us all. Data centers are the personification of greed and hoarding behavior. The centers collect our personal data, to be utilized in ways that maximize profits for the corporate overlords. The centers drink massive amounts of water and drain the power grid, offering us common people nothing in return, and yet, the hideous warehouses are multiplying everywhere, because the uber wealthy benefit from these monstrosities.

The monoliths that seek to box people into a perimeter of ever-dwindling opportunity must fall to make way for a system that benefits the land and allows people to thrive instead of living under the constant threat of manufactured scarcity.

The Song Changes – #poem #poetry #change

The marketing director for the department of Everything is Fine

cuts out the disconnected, the supposed blight

Anything and anyone that deviates from the flavorless version of their ideal

must be eliminated from the glossy brochures that assure

shareholders along with obedient pitchfork and torch raisers

that the conditions under the rule

of the United Corporations are great and getting greater

Newscasters for the grifting enterprise

smile and take the bribes

They tell us to be quiet about the violence

but silence is a slow death

and being cooked alive on the low setting is no longer enough of a reason

to keep on being

an ant

marching to the tune of a song called “comply or die”

Time for the pieces to connect into a picture that can’t be denied

The song changes

The wind carries our words

and shifts the tides

A broken toilet, disconnected from the plumbing system and separated from any place it could be useful, is forced to occupy a space where people passing by become angry that the scenery is marred, yet nobody moves it- because we can’t be late to work, because we don’t have the right equipment to lift and move something so heavy, because alone, we don’t have the resources to fix the problem.

The current system was designed to be an obstacle to any type of progress that doesn’t benefit the wealthy donors who have purchased politicians’ favor. This system is only workable when we are merely individuals, trying to exist and endure, but when we step together and organize, we become something the system of oppression can’t survive

The Return #poetry #naturepoem #poems

The Return

The highway finds me broken

and broken free from the mountain’s grip

bleeding from a fight with the clinging trees

Distance restarts my heart

Each mile is another beat

At the edge of the ocean

my breath and my dreams

return to me

No Kings #poem #poetry #NoKings #resist

No Kings

They came at night

and hollowed out the trees

then told us what our damaged forest needed

Messages broadcast through empty shells masquerading as

the heart of the land

polluted the water and some minds

But the wind, she collected

the outrage

the broken dreams

and the agony of every being

that the hollow shell of the wannabe king

tried to silence

The wind screamed

“We will not bow to kings”

Each of us a became a raindrop in the storm that tore down

the emperor’s gold-plated castle

NEW RELEASE – The Heart of Us #anthology #poetry #womenwriters

I’m thrilled to have The Wind is the Only Thing (a collection of four poems) featured in the anthology, The Heart of Us. This anthology is a collection of poems and stories by women and mothers about the joys, pain, and revelations of love. To love takes strength and courage, and the journey makes us who we are.

Image description – image is a pale pink graphic. On the right is the book cover for The Heart of Us. It features the outline of a woman’s face. Her hair is created by love-related words and a rose graphic. On the left side are the words “as women, mothers, and storytellers, we live from the heart, and it shows in every word we share. These pages hold our joy and our sorrow, our victories and defeats, our laughter and our tears. Each piece is a reflection of what it means to live, feel, and grow with heart. This is the heart of us.”

The Heart of Us- a moms who write anthology is available on Amazon and all proceeds go to the American Heart Association.

https://www.amazon.com/heart-us-moms-who-write-ebook/dp/B0FCBT8SQ7

Song Beyond the Trees #poem #poetry #chooseyourownending #naturepoems

Song Behind the Trees

Beyond the tree line

music beckons

Keep reading for the two possible endings to this poem

Ending 1 –

Past the threshold

no trail awaits

The stars can’t breach the canopy of leaves

A chorus of vines wrap around me

I’m a present for everything that stings

Venom lessons leach into blood, muscle, and bone,

Wolves wait and rabbits

scream

Over the crickets’ wicked laugh

I hear the stream

whispering

that the forest doesn’t go on forever

The music is gone

so I write my own

Ending 2-

When I cross the threshold

leaves swallow me, doing their best to hide me

from things that steal and sting

Whisper of the stream

guides me

off the path

through briars that cut into my leaves

piercing muscle, clawing at hope

but the sound still calls

I hide from spiders and walk with snakes

through the rain

over places where the earth

split

Stars and fireflies stay true

And the night’s butterfly takes me through the last miles

to the heart

the symphony

the beginning

of everything

Image description – a photo of somewhat barren trees at the edge of a forest. The sky is overcast, and a layer of fog gives the trees a hazy appearance.

Why two endings for the poem?

After I wrote the beginning of the poem, I started thinking of two possible endings- one more sinister and one with a more joyous outcome. I remembered reading those Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was a kid and thought, why not have two endings to this poem?

A song, a promise, a path- hidden except for the first few steps- could be a trap, waiting to ensnare any who dare to enter. Will the price to move past the trees be cuts so deep that souls and bones need to be pulled back together with a needle and thread? Or is the hint of the hauntingly beautiful song a prelude to something wonderful?

The threads binding our souls and bones remember the agony of past lessons, yet the stitches come alive with curiosity. In stillness we dissolve. Beyond the tree line, we find reasons.

The Electric Doors Never Stop Eating #poems #poetry #essay

The Electric Doors Never Stop Eating

Earlier than necessary

electric doors open wide

ushering in employees who either

drank the corporate-issued devotion-to-policy brew

or chose a regular cup of coffee and steeled themselves to slog through

another day of being under the eye and thumb of

cameras and software packages designed to report

each word

each keystroke

to measure productivity, to predict loyalty

to the almighty company

Corporate mission statements decorate walls and computer screens

Remember:

Positive attitudes only

Daily emails politely warn

that questions come with a penalty

When bodies drop under the weight of unattainable goals

and crack like stones

No blood left to squeeze

The boss with the broom sweeps the old dust out

so the doors can welcome in

younger faces ready to bleed for a company

that will demand the impossible

then sweep away the broken pieces

with a broom

Image description – photograph of high-rise businesses overlooking a rocky section of the James River

About the poem:

As rights for workers and conditions for workplace safety continue to erode, the reality hits hard that lawmakers are not coming to help workers. Nobody in politics is coming to provide actually legislative help because their pockets are being lined for staying silent. Since nobody in power is coming to help, it’s up to us to set a precedent, to draw lines, to set limits, and to be loud and obnoxious when we can if subtle strategies and quiet subterfuge fails. Otherwise, the spineless, manipulative, ass-kissers who have sold their souls for the privilege of serving their corporate overlords will continue to perpetrate wage theft, require unattainable goals, tout unrealistic expectations, discriminate both overtly and covertly, and cause unsafe and/or inhumane working conditions.

Life in a Bottle #poems #poetry #nature #earthday

Life in a Bottle

Plastic bottles inhale

breath from the river

Corporations sell

life

and take it

without regret

Image description – A photograph of a narrow, winding section of the James River surrounded by trees on a sunny, spring afternoon

About the poem – Corporations have been given the rights (for the right price, paid to hungry politicians) to bottle up water from waterbodies that people depend on, both in the United States and in other countries. These soulless corporations then sell the bottled water to the people whose streams and rivers the corporations have claimed. There are so many short-term profit tactics that involve destroying water and land for temporary gain. Politicians who allow the land to be polluted and destroyed are often working under the assumption that the aftereffects won’t catch up to them in their lifetime. They assume that they will always live in the protected, fortunate areas where such things don’t occur.

The earth can’t protect itself from shareholders and CEOs or from smiling lawmakers bent on getting kickbacks for passing along environmental destruction laws, all so they can send their kids to the good schools and have summer homes by the river (in the sections the corporations can’t touch, of course), so we have to respect and protect the earth.

Earth Day is a chance to remember and appreciate all the beautiful parks and natural landmarks, but it’s also a reminder that we need to be active in the fight to preserve them.

Audience Participation #poem #horror #poetry #carnivalhorror

Audience Participation

The billionaire showman

of the carnival his father bought

forces us into a ring where we fight for scraps

and betray our friends for the chance

to survive another night in the land of horrors

The showman gives us piles of bones for bedding

We eat the tendons and scraps for breakfast

until the bone shards in our bellies

hemorrhage

slowly and surely

The affluent audience laughs

at the display of our desperation

because they don’t realize that they’ve become

part of the show