Therisa, Am I? (July 31, 2018)

Who's this person

Writing personal things

I've trouble talking?

Removing personal filter

Previously block

Information release.

Typed words flows

Unconscious stream

Painful thoughts

Unspoken.

Stuttering rapids

Sentences shredded

Angry white water boils

Cuts and bruises hidden.

Confusion grows

Emotional reactions

Not understanding

How (raw[?]) lines of verse

Moves you so.

Sigh.

Helping others find

Where serenity pools

At life's cul de sac

Of inner peace.

While life is

Wild spawning salmon

Swimming upstream

Against current.

Chronic battle

With mental illness

To stop-is death.

This is me

Yet not.

Therisa © 2018

Author's note: A poem for Poets United’s midweek motif writing prompt: "a bundle of contradictions" or Anne Frank's last letter.

Being Honest (July 27, 2018)

Know these words

That you'll read

May anger/upset you.

For this reason alone

I've done my job

As an artist.

Today

North American society

Views feminism

A pejoric word.

Demeaning those

Who believe

In total equality

Regardless

Of birth gender.

As a transwoman

Discriminated by

My birth gender

From those women

I sought help.

As if

Having a birth defect

Between one's legs

Is a capital crime

Needing punishment!

Not compassion

Or understanding.

Wanting to scream

At the top of my lungs

“F----ng bi--hes.”

Knowing

You'll never hear

Or care about the pain

Your actions have done

To a trans-sisters.

Advancing

Your feminazi platform

At all costs.

Justifying your crushing

All with Y chromosomes

That's all cismales transwomen

Or intersex people

Given this genetic inheritance.

Never mind

How you treat transmen

With your brand of hatred.

Sigh.

Your male bashing

Reeks of penis envy

From this side

Of the gender divide.

In wanting

What you don't have.

Honestly

If one steps back

We see your radfem

Is the flipside

Of the misogynistic beliefs

President Trump presents.

Destroying any chance

For sympathetic support

From enlightened men

Or women.

Oh love

I wish my body

Could give birth

With my own fully functioning

Female reproductive organs.

Welcoming

My monthly visitor

With open arms.

Despite the BS

You spread

About us.

Therisa © 2018

Author’s note: Part of the debate that has raged in Canada, over the past year or so:  

(http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/transgender-rights-bill-female-born-spaces-1.4110634?cmp=news-digests-canada-and-world-morning)

The seed of this poem was started by walking to my pharmacist, Thursday night.

Political Convenience (July 27, 2018)

Hearing the phrase

“A bundle of contradictions”

My mind wanders

To a darker time.

When medical

And experimental research

Justified excuses

For barbaric torture

Those deemed

Subhuman.*

Satisfying the curiosity

Of Nazi researchers

And scientists.

Rightly so

Victorious Allied forces

Condemned Nazi’s austerities

Against Jewish communities

And other ethnic minorities.

Yet

Deadly silent

About LGBTQ+ inmates.

LGBTQ+ were

Lowest of the low

In Nazi’s concentration camps

Among guards and inmates.**

Often forced

Enduring years longer

After liberation

In prison.***

A history

Deliberately ignored.

Only LGBTQ+ information table

And campus posters

Educated me

During university years (1990-4).

Ironically

Openly embraced

These monsters’ research

During the Cold War

With the Soviet Union

And its allies.

As the building blocks

For jet plane and space programs

We take for granted

Today.

Therisa © 2018

Author's note:: A poem for Poets United’s midweek motif writing prompt: "a bundle of contradictions" or Anne Frank's last letter.

* http:///www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005168

** https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wike/LGBT_history.html

*** http://www.thepinktriangle.com/history/symbol.html

When Fiction Becomes Reality (July 23, 2018)

In global capitals

Sounds of war drums

Being beaten

Once more.

Senior civil servants

Scurry between offices

Briefing political masters

Possible retaliatory targets.

Reviving fears

Of global tariff war

Last seen

During the 1930s.

Republican president

And dominated Congress

Passed Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act

Protecting economic interests

During the early years

Of The Great Depression.

Gifting U.S. presidency

To the Democratic Party

For two decades (1932-52).

Are we walking

With our eyes

Open wide shut

Into a toxic wilderness

No one escapes unharmed?

Accepting

As holy gospel

Rantings of a man

With pathological need

Telling half-truths.

Claiming knowledge

Fully restoring America

As global leader

Once more.

Boasting

Tariff wars are winnable

America will win.

Counterintuitive

Historical observations

Business and economic leaders

Publicly present

Empirical evidence

Drawing dire warnings:

Hundreds of thousands jobs lost

Multi-billions dollars wiped out

Economic development and wealth

For the U.S. alone.

American tariffs

Exploding atomic bombs

Targetting everyone

In radioactive fallout.

Instead

Selective tariff application

To guilty countries

Like using a hammer

Banging nails down.

Will local economies devolve

Into barter base systems

As hyperinflation crushes currencies?

Like Latin America's

Bitter 1980s experience.

Each step forward

Into swirling cesspool

Hope fades

Underbrush grows back

Obscuring all pathways

For quick settlement.

Awaiting

The next shoe drop

On the global economy

From President Trump.

Therisa © 2018

The True Toronto (July 25, 2018)

Second time

This year

Toronto is mourning

Senseless mass murder

Of its citizens.

Maelstrom of emotions

Fills the city

From anger to sadness

As we learn

Victims’ age and names.

People are asking

What motivates someone

To randomly attack

Total strangers.

Who are out

With family and friends

Enjoying warm summer night

At local restaurants

And coffee shops.

Greatest fear is

We'll isolate ourselves

Into ethnic ghettos

Where strangers are viewed

Possible security risks.

I live

In the east end

Of the Danforth.

Where one can find

An Ethiopian supermarket

Nestled beside

A shop selling hair products

And services

To Afro-Canadians.

Further down the street

One finds shops

Catering to Toronto's

Southeast Asian Muslims

And Italian restaurants/social clubs.

The Danforth is

An avenue of immigrants

Intermixing together

Uniting the current wave

With previous ones.

Learning from each other

Blending cultures

Still retaining

Our identity

Of who we are.

Real life

Mosaic portrait

Of an emerging Toronto

Built on understanding

And not fear.

Therisa © 2018

Author’s note: Just some thoughts about the Greektown shootings and my section of the Danforth.