Do You Know About OPEN CULTURE?

Published February 28, 2019 by Nan Mykel

A free, inclusive, rare and awesome source of precious collections of all kinds, including historical antiquities. I don’t know how I was lucky enough to get included, but you can add your name at Open Culture: The best free cultural & educational media on the web http://www.openculture.com/ Your guide to FREE educational media. Find thousands of free online courses, audio books, textbooks, eBooks, language lessons, movies and more.

(The Man Woman)

In a Nutshell

Published February 28, 2019 by Nan Mykel

It was all laid out for us to see. More than the condition of our culture; more like the human condition. Monkeys throwing coconuts at another who fell. One congressman on the verge of a heart attack, in his wrath. The downed one’s existential grief more palpable and more manly than the last pilloried miscreant.

A reversal of The Boy Who Cried Wolf?

The pointing finger’s efforts to distract. For the first time spoken aloud: if Trump loses in 2020 there will not be a peaceful transfer of power.

What responses crystallized in the hearts of the viewers? How fitting that Elijah oversaw the proceedings.

Little Miss Muffet on the Farm

Published February 24, 2019 by Nan Mykel

One day at the farm in North Carolina, during a visit from my older cousins, I had an encounter with the big black writing spiders who left yellow messages in their big webs outside the house. I was the youngest of the cousins, and had to run to keep up with their antics. One day it was up-on-the-meat-icebox-in-the-barn-and-jump-off-onto-the-pile-of- hay-day. Of course I was last, and instead of landing in the hay I slipped way down into the space between the hay stack and the meat ice box. Horror of horrors, trauma of traumas, I knew only too well what was in those spider webs I fell into.

The sky is still there

the icebox hums its own tune

last in line is last

I’m Not Friendly

Published February 23, 2019 by Nan Mykel

I’m sorry if I strike you cold.

I am.

I’m not friendly, never

had the nerve to be.

Stone cold, uncertain.

Eleven schools in twelve

years. Alcoholic father,

enabling mother. Poor,

misfit taking nothing

for granted,

especially being liked.

Excerpt on Harriet Tubman by Sonia Sanchez, Poetry Foundation

Published February 23, 2019 by Nan Mykel

Imagine her saying:

I freed a thousand slaves,

could have freed

a thousand more if they

only knew they were slaves …

Visit 2/23/19

Poetry Foundation info@poetryfoundation.org via gmail.mcsv.net

Haibun

Published February 15, 2019 by Nan Mykel

The woman who ironed our clothes on the farm was with us when we visited the patch of forest we cut for lumber. I thrilled with unspeakable elation when she told me there was an easier way to say “the day before today,” and “the day after today.” I’ve never forgotten how to do it.

Horizons open

Small seedlings sprout in rich earth

Birds herald the spring

Staying Present

Published February 14, 2019 by Nan Mykel

Lovely.

mehflowers

Dusk silences the world without a sound

Snowcapped houses blend with winter’s ground

Aromas from my kitchen bid me come

Lighted with the warmth of love I’ve found

Tomorrow like a thief comes uninvited

Spins my thoughts awhirl as love unrequited

I embrace this present darkness, not in want

Hidden treasures are waiting to be sighted

dVersepoetspub.com Prompt. Another rubyiat. This time with the (6) senses. Touch, hear, smell, see, taste and kinesthetic ( that which causes us to feel and sense motion). Feedback?

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A Thought Just Flittered into My Mind…

Published February 14, 2019 by Nan Mykel

What if it turned out that God is dark skinned, and the bigots refused to enter heaven and

stood outside heaven’s gates for eternity?

Pixabay

Excerpt from Melanie Nathan

Published February 14, 2019 by Nan Mykel

https://oblogdee.blog/

San Francisco, CA (February 14, 2019) –- The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS) filed a federal lawsuit today challenging the Trump administration’s new policy forcing asylum seekers to return to Mexico and remain there while their cases are considered.

“The Trump administration is forcibly returning asylum seekers to danger in Mexico,” said Judy Rabinovitz, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.“Once again, the administration is breaking the law in order to deter asylum seekers from seeking safety in the United States.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 11 individual asylum seekers forcibly returned to Mexico, and organizational plaintiffs Innovation Law Lab, the Central American Resource Center of Northern California, Centro Legal de la Raza, the University of San Francisco School of Law Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic, Al Otro Lado, and the Tahirih Justice Center.

“This is no longer just a war on asylum seekers, it’s a war on our system of laws,” said Melissa Crow, Southern Poverty Law Center senior supervising attorney. “This misguided policy deprives vulnerable individuals of humanitarian protections that have been on the books for decades and puts their lives in jeopardy.”The lawsuit cites violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Administrative Procedures Act, as well as the United States’ duty under international human rights law not to return people to dangerous conditions…..

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