Fighting the Good Fight

Lest anyone forget, for the last five days, Fiorella has been posting a reminder on FB of the 400 immigrant children still in custody. Each of the reminders is original and splashy.

(1) Okay, people. Have we lost focus on the children? Where are they? What's happening
(2) How long have the children been in jail now? When will they be released? Where will they go?
(3) THE CHILDREN (repeated as many times as allowed on FB)
(4) THE CHILDREN (This time surrounded by sobbing emojis)
(5) IT'S NEVER RIGHT
        TO IMPRISON
           CHILDREN

 This is the reminder for today:

While politicians bid and buy
And Donald sleeps
The children still in prisons lie
And Jesus weeps

Responsibility

When I put my wristwatch on each morning is when I start a-tickin'.
*
Thank you, God, for a good night's sleep
That washes out the anger of the day
Soothes frustration, heals the hurt
And sweeps the pain of yesterday away
*
So much is on my back
The world is out of whack
Why is it always up to me
To get it back on track?
*
So much depends on me and always has.
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Forced religion is false religion.

Why Do I Write?

I found this little essay in one of the piles of papers I am clearing out of my office. It was obviously written soon after my mother's death in 1992.

I am the woman driving erratically down the freeway as she scribbles lines about her mother's death on the backs of checkbook deposit slips. I am the woman dashing into the restroom, ripping down paper towels, and counting iambic pentameter on them with an unsheathed lipstick. And sometimes I stand on a chair in the part-time faculty office, declaiming my latest composition in a loud and resounding voice.

For the past dozen years, I have concentrated on sonnets. I taught the pattern to a literature class once and decided to try it myself, as an alcoholic takes that first drink or a harlot loses her virginity.

I love the contrast of the formal pattern against the intense emotions, a clay-lined basket barely containing its fire. In a sonnet, the form and feeling are in an exciting, escalating competition. It's good sex--and, after all, what worth is a poem if it is not memorable?

I use a personal context for my poems, but strive for a universal meaning. Not for me the idiopathic Plathian psychology, the obscure, gleeful trip to the kitchen to bake my brains with gas. I scream loud and long, in hopes someone will say, "Yes, I hear you, and I know exactly what you mean, and your poem has given me a way to express it."

I write because I am alive, and the dead don't write at all.

SHOTS, by William T. Buida

The shots rang out
And people ran to hide
The shots rang out
And people ducked and prayed
The shots rang out
And people fell and died

The news reported
On the terrible event
A man with guns
Killed sixty people in the crowd
More on the evening news at six
About this tragic event

And the people cried
Our prayers are with you in this hour
And the people cried
What can prevent such tragedy
What can we do
What is within our power

A voice was heard to ask
Why are guns so easy to get
A voice was heard to ask
Why so many automatic weapons
And other voices responded with
We should not discuss this yet

The NRA said
All guns are our right
So we can shoot
The thief at our front door
So we cabn shoot
Someone in a fight

And Congress met
With endless speeches and debates
Afraid to act
Afraid to offend the NRA
And so decided to leave
People's lives up to the fates

The tragic event passed
And nothing was done
The people in power
Did not change a law or rule
Did not take any action
Did not initiate any action
Did not limit any type of gun

And so life continued until

The shots rang out
And people ran to hide
The shots rang out
And people ducked and prayed
The shots rang out
And people fell and died
And the cycle began again

Truth and Consequences

A bee in his bonnet
Putin's ring in his nose
Trump shall spread discord
Wherever he goes

Like a panther in the night
Mueller prowls
No one know when he will strike
Till Trumper howls

Call to Action

When ignorance and stupidity reign
And ethics are flushed down the sewage drain
We must unite
And fight the good fight
To make our country whole again

Declaration of Intent

I AM A FIREBIRD

CLEAR THE WAY--

WHAT GRIEVOUS WRONG

CAN I RIGHT TODAY?

Two Poems in Reserve

I wasn't going to let myself grow up
But I did
I wasn't going to let myself grow old
But I did
I wasn't going to let myself die
But I will
*
Age
Is a cage
That bars the door
To the child I am
*

Midnight Confessions

Fiorella has, she hopes, done many kind and appropriate things in her life, but the times she has been a total ass are the ones burned into her memory.
*
Fio, a realist, is not impressed by the current art and poetry scene.  In her opinion, both have been rarified to the point of absurdity.
*
"You think too much," Fio's mother told her. But Mother, I needed to understand everything in order to survive.
*
Husband isn't too fond of harvesting fallen limbs and dead trees on the property because they're so irregular compared to the neatened up firewood that HEB etc., sell, but Fiorella likes the twists and turns of what she considers to be REAL wood. She's also drawn to people with interesting twists and turns.
*
Wanna know how powerful Fiorella is? She's the firstborn of ALL her cousins and the only one without a middle name. In her paternal line, she's especially unique in that her given name is original--she wasn't named after any of her relatives.

War Cry!

I can't march, but I can write
I don't sing, but my pen can bite--
It's my only weapon in the time-old fight
To overcome wrong and uplift right

Aging

Fiorella wrote this sonnet twenty-five years ago, and it holds true today: 

                             

TO MY CHILDREN

When I am old, so very old I stink

Of unwashed underarms and brain cell death

So old I shake, my spine and stature shrink,

I whistle, quake, and rattle with each breath--

When I am old, so very old I drool,

And age spots big as elephants appear,

When I forget my name and act the fool

And talk too loud because I cannot hear--

Even when I'm angry, trapped in rage,

Become a miser, call each dime misspent,

When I am cruel and stupid in my age,

When I reject you, scotch your good intent--

     Remember once I loved you of my will,

     And in my heart of hearts, I love you still.

What's Up With Fiorella

 You may have noticed that yesterday's poem went through two modifications before Fio was satisfied with it, That's how it goes--anything Fiorella writes or paints is subject to revision until she gets it right. But why does Fio rhyme so much, you ask. Because rhymes are always whirling around in her head like a swarm of demented fireflies--buys/size/lies/tries/dies/guys/highs/pies/rise/ties/thighs/ies/wise/ 
shies/stys/guise. And then there are the half-rhymes....
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The elctronic world has passed Fiorella by. She writes on una computadora, uses email, and knows how to text, but that's it. On the other hand, she can also write longhand, use a landline, communicate by letter, and even start a fire without turning on the gas, so maybe she'll survive in a hut out in the woods somewhere.
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The ecoles must have closed down for summer vacation because France, which bolstered Fiorella's readership to flatteringly high numbers, has deserted her again. You know Fio's theory--that English professeurs are using her blog to illustrate Ameican colloquialisms.
*
The end of La Piloto is near. The villains have been winnowed down to Yolanda's former lover, his current girlfriend, the crazed colonel, la bruja, and a crew of disposible extras. No dramatic death scenes like the ones in El Color de la Pasion, though. Just bang, bang---you're dead.
*
The temperatures are climbing here in central Texas. It's going to be a 100-degree week so think cooling thoughts in Fio's direction. She was not born for hot weather. Remember her genealogy.


/

Lacking

Where are the poets from the other side,
The voices of whimsy, of hope, of despair?
Where do they hide?
Or are they not there?

Question and Answer

INTERVIEWER: Why do you write this blog?

FIORELLA: It's my outlet. It lets me drain/ The swamp of my brain.

INTERVIEWER: You answered me in a rhymed dimeter couplet. Why?

FIORELLA: It's a game I play with myself. Blending the message, the beat, and the rhyme is a challenge.

INTERVIEWER: Lately you've used your poetic  skills to challenge Donald Trump. Why not prose?

FIORELLA: People are more likely to remember a short, smartly-turned rhymed verse than a long, thoughtful essay.

INTERVIEWER: You want your poetry to be remembered?

FIORELLA: I want my message to be remembered. We all have our roles in the resisitance movement, and mine is to fuel the fire.\

:

Potpourrie

Fio is a slave to her wristwatch. First thing in the morning, it slips itself around her wrist like a manacle and the rat race begins.
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As Melania has said, if Trump is hit, he hits back three time as hard. So, because Macron over-powered his power grip, Trump decided to screw the world.
*
Fiorella isn't as enraged as others seem to be about the bodies buried beneath churches, hospitals, and other edifices. Actually, she thinks we all live on top of decay, human and otherwise. Life has been around for a long time now, and death has to end up somewhere.
*
Fio can write what she cannot say.
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I can't do it all
I'm not a one-man band
Come on, people,
Please--lend me a hand

Coward in the White House

Trump doesn't have the right stuff--
When the going at home gets tough
He flees
Overseas
So despite the bluster, despite the bellow
Our orange julius is just plain yellow

The Ones Who Went Ahead

I often think of the dead,
the ones who gave me life--
my parents, grandparents, ancestors
back to the first beginnings.
I think of those who were
my friends and teachers,
of everyone my life entwined--
and I love them all
and feel their  love
surrouding me
silently




,

The Wall

Conway, Spicer, Ivanka, Flynn--
What a pickle they are in
So who will be the next to fall
Off President Humpty Dumpty's wall?

Declaration of War

Fiorella is late today
Not that she has naught to say
Rather that she has far too much
About the state of the world and such--
She wants to rouse the countryside
She wants to echo the world wide
In seeming contradiction, to fight
For love and peace and what is right

Poetry That Talks

This one of my favorite poems. I love the way Anthony Hecht uses everyday words and a set rhythm and rhyme scheme to express so chilling a topic. Hecht wrote this poem in reference to Nazi Germany, but for me, it also pertains to the fear, vulnerability, and helplessness so many of us in the United States are feeling since the "election."

It Out-Herods Herod. Pray You, Avoid It.

Tonight my children hunch 

Toward their Western, and are glad   

As, with a Sunday punch, 

The Good casts out the Bad. 

And in their fairy tales 

The warty giant and witch 

Get sealed in doorless jails 

And the match-girl strikes it rich. 

I’ve made myself a drink. 

The giant and witch are set 

To bust out of the clink 

When my children have gone to bed. 

All frequencies are loud 

With signals of despair; 

In flash and morse they crowd   

The rondure of the air. 

For the wicked have grown strong,   

Their numbers mock at death,   

Their cow brings forth its young,   

Their bull engendereth. 

Their very fund of strength,   

Satan, bestrides the globe; 

He stalks its breadth and length   

And finds out even Job. 

Yet by quite other laws 

My children make their case;   

Half God, half Santa Claus,   

But with my voice and face, 

A hero comes to save 

The poorman, beggarman, thief,   

And make the world behave   

And put an end to grief. 

And that their sleep be sound   

I say this childermas 

Who could not, at one time,   

Have saved them from the gas.