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.

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