February Reflections (February 27, 2020)

Wish we didn't need

A month for Black History

Or the LGBTQ+ community.

Observing

Throughout the year

Sober vigil days

Against the horrors

Committed against humanity:

January 27th

Holocaust Remembrance Day.

November 20th

Day of Transgender Remembrance.

Remembering/honouring

Those people killed/tortured

For being different.

Except we've forgotten

Human rights struggle

Never ends.

Segregating

Arbitrary based reasons

Defining one's value

By race religion sexual

Or gender orientation.

In demonizing people 

Justifying barbaric inhumane

Acts of hate

Through crimes of power.

I say this

Having personally experienced

How hate and intolerance

Scars one's soul.

To the point

One’s fight for life

Becomes a race

To the death.

Using self-harming

And self-medicating

As a means

To numb the pain.

Your soul dies

With each day lived

Until suicide appears

The only solution.

Whether 

By direct means

Like an O/D.

Or having someone else

Pulling the trigger

On your life.

Something

I have endured

For the past 45 years

Of my life.

As my tears fall

Proof of my witnessing

Those who have suffered.

Hoping

Next year

The pain will end.

Therisa © 2020  

The Charlatan U.S. (June 23, 2018)

m so very tired

Of boisterous bigots

Like Donald Trump

Who wrap themselves

In the moral cloak

Of self-righteousness.

As they spew forth

Their brand of hatred.

Whose very actions

Are death and chaos

To the vitality and health

Of a democratic society

They espouse.

Where people react

Out of unjustified concerns

Ignoring any fact or logic

Presented before them

In the debate.

And we call

This time period

The information age.

And yet

Many our decisions are made

Out of ignorance and fear

Towards the unknown.

As if

We're hundled

Around the cave’s fire

Like our stone age ancestors

Fearing the darkness

And unseen predictors.

At what point

Do we leave

This stone age mentality?

In moving beyond

The “us” versus “them”

Type of mentality

That Trump promotes

To the voting public.

Where solutions are sought

And promoted

Regardless

Their source of origin.

Instead of

This intrinsic need

To score points

By a political party

Or leader.

In taking

The lowest common denominator

By playing upon

Voters’ base fears

To win.

Therisa © 2018

Donald Trump (January 2, 2016)

Bill Day, December 15, 2015

The world is

Unfolding

Around me.

It feels like

I'm watching

An old Movietone Newsreel

From the 1930s. 

Instead of

Being shown

In black and white.

It's broadcasted

In Technicolor

On a cable news network.

As if

The world is

Experiencing

A bizarre case

Of deja vu.

With Las Vegas, Nevada

And Richmond, Virginia

Taking the place

Of Nuremberg, Germany

And Rome, Italy.

Even though

Today's date is

December 15, 2015.

In replacing

Jewish people

With Muslims

As the scapegoat

For America's problems.

As the level

Of vitriol and hatred

Is being spewed

By this crass billionaire.

Playing upon

The nation's xenophobia

And want of isolation.

Believing

That distance

And closed borders

Can protect them

From extremists.

Never realizing

This rhetoric is

Providing recruiting material

For the fanatic

On both sides.

Only thing missing is

The sound of jackboots

Marching down

The streets.

As the people stand

With stiff arm salutes

Chanting:

 

"Sieg Heil".


Therisa © 2016

Author Notes: Sigh. This poem took longer to write, than I care for, but I could find the right headspace needed for it. Especially, given the recent events, in Europe and North America. I do hope, the American voter realizes, the fear that Trump poses to global peace, with political stance. I say this, as a child of an immigrant, who came to Canada, in 1952, as a teenager, barely speaking any English.