United, Not …

The Chilean composer (Ortega) wrote a song:

‘The people united will never be defeated’

based on a shouted slogan for social change

under the great Allende (three months before 

he fell to Pinochet). It was the time

of uniting classical music with popular 

melodies and the instruments of folk.

The American (Rzewski) then created

a piano opus: thirty-six variations

on the theme. And now on Labour Day

in Australia we shout the slogan, changed:

‘The workers united will never be

divided!’ – although the fact that 

Labour Day happens on different days 

in different States makes you wonder

if Governments are making us 

subtly disunited, or maybe not so subtly 

when you think about many other 

things that go on – like tax breaks 

for huge corporations, like …

well, so much (attitudes and rulings;

erosion of wages, safeguards and conditions)  

which in the end, gradually, without 

bloodshed, make us feel bloody defeated. 

Written for the 'Getting to Work' Labor Day prompt at Poems of Garden Gnomes' Also linked to this week's Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Pub;ished in HAVE YOUR CHILL, July 2018

My Soul Says to My Heart:

Yes, there are horrors going on in the world.

Keep picking up the litter. Turn off the tap.

Gaze at trees where you find them;

touch them if possible.

Drink the sky.

Live now. Do the thing you can.
It is true that people kill people. It is true 

that our governments respond

with their own versions of terror. And 

it is true we are not being told the truth.

So sign a petition, or march, or even 
write a poem. Dream of another country
where there is peace and freedom. Dream

that you have the means to move,

and would be made welcome. Meanwhile….

Go outside. Find a flower or a leaf or

a blade of grass. They will not always

be common. Look at it, stroke it,

breathe its scent.

There is not much time. Get on with it!

An Ironic Little Tale

How hard he strives to make her proud — 

chasing worldly success and money,

proclaiming his triumphs aloud.

If it wasn't sad it might be funny.

When he was young, he was a honey —

idealistic, kind and giving.

She was proud then of her sweet sonny.
Now she deplores his way of living.

Written for A Glance at Narrative at 'imaginary garden with real toads'. (And I wanted to try the huitain form.)

Think Positive

The TV shows me Kenyans dying of drought.

Cattle become skeletal; babies droop.

On facebook people chirrup:  'Life works out.’

The parents of the babes don’t scream or shout.

They weep, but are resigned. Their shoulders stoop.

The TV shows them close up, dying of drought.

Calm commentators tell what it’s about.

I pour myself another bowl of soup.

On facebook people burble: ‘Life works out.’

The self-help gurus urge us, 'Banish doubt!'

I sign a petition, join a spiritual group.

The TV shows me Kenyans dying of drought.

On facebook, though, we know that life works out.

Prompted by dVerse: How to Write a Villanelle (I have written this one a little bit 'wrong'; let's call it a modified villanelle.)

My Upbringing as a Girl

My parents and grandparents, my aunts 

and uncles, and several of my teachers

were progressive thinkers who thought 

that girls, too, could grow up to have careers, 

just in case they never married (in which case

of course they wouldn't – or, more precisely, 

home and motherhood would be the glorious,

totally fulfilling and naturally preferred career) 

but they still believed, those adults of my youth,

unquestioning, that girls couldn't, indeed mustn't

play football, or any of those rough sports, 

because that was what boys did: those critters

who were made of slugs and snails and –

you know how it goes.

(The era was the 1940s.)

This grew out of (1) a discussion, 'Exploring our feminine' inspired by the writing of Brooke Medicine Eagle in Buffalo Woman Comes Singing, and (2) an exercise in Wingbeats, to create a one-sentence poem of 14 lines and at least 100 words.

Linked to The Tuesday Platform for June 20 2017 at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.