American Dream

All posts in the American Dream category

I USED TO CARE guest poem

Published August 15, 2022 by Nan Mykel

I used to care
When I was young
Innocent, perhaps naïve.
There was a future
To be secured and enriched
For my family
For the world.
I voted, confident it counted,
Marched, protested, and was seen,
Wrote letters, and believed they were read,
Debated, and was heard.
I witnessed change
With civil rights
Clean water and air
The end of an ugly war
Even a ban on assault rifles.

Now?
More extinctions
Extensive clearing of rainforests

More guns
More fossil fuels being burned
More voter suppression
Government dysfunction
Expansive partisan division and violence
More corporate greed
Widening gap between rich and poor
More rights stripped away.
I used to care
When I was young,
Innocent, perhaps naïve.
Now…only tears.

Thank you Thomas Shostak for permossion to share this poem

YOU SEE, I CAN NO LONGER KEEP UP…

Published July 25, 2022 by Nan Mykel

…with the young’un bloggers.  I can’t even keep up with mature Diane Ravitch, who’s only a tad younger, it seems.

I’ve stumbled  recently on an exchange of ideas when viewing Diane and Jill Dennison and Keith Wilson that really gets to the nuts and bolts of things, and from many bloggers on the subject.  Maybe Ned Hanson offers such an offering, too.  Or maybe Word Press thought I just needed a change?  Whatever, I’m convinced that all I can offer at this point is an emotional touchstone.  Feelings I have, although rushed by a November election and the question of my own longevity (smile).  (I smile when I know I’m being a little grimmer than called for).

Maybe over a year ago I asked readers to think of jingles–maybe to old tunes–portraying issues of the political heart (though I was less flowery).  Today, after reading again The Moral Ground by Elie Mystal in The Nation, I put a couple of things together: I would try, myself, to do it tho it  receive rejection and avoidance, even ridicule.  Here I go willingly into that space, having already failed at an  I Am a Woman attempt, which you will never see.:

HOW DARE YOU…

….Tell me what to do.

I wear masks for others.

Do you?

 

I don’t invade your heart of hearts

nor presume to know your pain.

Look into my eyes and see

another human same as thee.

 

Those who swallow others’ lies

and betray the Golden Rule

do not attend to their still voice

when push comes around to shove.

 

Painful decisions require clear-eyed guts

not your state’s grotesque intrusions.

Does your God favor laws that plot

to  make me suffer their invasion?

 

Out out, damned spot I say–

Let the freedom of our people

rule the day.

 

 

 

Friend Felix Speaks Again

Published July 19, 2022 by Nan Mykel

4th of JULY:  GOOD GRIEF!

If you like pretty poems, please look away,

for here I lament decay, dying and death.

I’m not bemoaning my dying contemporaries,

who lately fall like old-growth trees in a forest.

Nor do I pre-grieve my own impending death.

 

My concern is for the fate of our democracy,

as it is doing a dangerous dance with doom.

Our precious political freedoms are eroding.

Our fractured center seems not to be holding.

 

Our democracy could be in its death throes.

Female bodily autonomy has been outlawed,

voting rights have been wantonly suppressed,

there is massive support for Trump’s Big Lie.

 

The Supreme Court defies the majority’s will.

Throughout our land gun fetishism flourishes.

Louder liars shout down the voices of veracity.

Violence grows, the environment degrades.

 

This Independence Day is a day of gloom.

Sadly I fly our tattered flag upside down.

Today I can’t sing Happy Birthday America!

In these dark days, I weep as I sing of thee.

 

Felix Gagliano,  July 2022

 

I KNOW BIG RED RIDER DOESN’T RHYME

Published April 13, 2018 by Nan Mykel

BIG RED RIDER

Not so long ago, in the normal

world of things, a little woman

on her way to visit grandma met

a big red wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“You can trust me,” he said with

a grin, “She’s my grandma too and

I want to see who she voted for.”

 

The little woman became scared when

the wolf’s teeth began to show from

under the sheep’s pearly white skin,

and she feared for grandma’s health.

“I’m going on a picnic” she protested,

“on a restful picnic.” “Well who did you

vote for, my pretty?”

 

“I cannot tell a lie: Bernie.”

Big Red huffed and he puffed and he

grew red in the face too.  “Can you prove

you’re a citizen and not a wetback?

Your hair is black, unlike mine, so

the ICE team may grab you and grandma

too. If you’re not for me you’re ag’in me.”

 

Oh where was the brave hunter who

would step out and save her?  Was he

already fired for being too sharp?

“Fie fie, sir” she cried out hotly—

“How many of the 10 Commandments

have you broken in office?  Mueller,

my brave hunter will arrive at last.”

 

So perhaps the normal world of things

will return without whimper and

the denizens of Make Believe Land

will shine with the child’s regained hope

that love can be gentle, respectful and

honest, and that truth is no longer a

carelessly tossed flapjack.

 

End of the Dream for d’Verse

Published April 7, 2018 by Nan Mykel

Can’t pick up rocks no more

’cause something’s under there

just a-waiting to suck your blood

and pull out all your hair.

 

Can’t trust nuttin’ any more

It’s all rotted through

The young’uns won’t never know

how wishes might come true.

 

 

Mock Paper Scissors

The Internet's Band of Incorrigible Spitballers® and Cult Failure Since 2006

Pacific Paratrooper

This WordPress.com site is Pacific War era information

Edge of Humanity Magazine

An Independent Non-Discriminatory Platform With No Religious, Political, Financial, or Social Affiliations

K E Garland

Inspirational kwotes, stories and images

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Art and Literature Beyond Borders

Thar She Blows!

"So many people are crying in their latte!" ~ Sparks

Darcy Hitchcock

Envision a sustainable future

Barbara Crane Navarro

Rainforest Art Project - Pas de Cartier !

Kate Lunsford

Reflective Writing

Rosamond Press

A Newspaper for the Arts

Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

Second Look Behind the Headlines - News you can use...

Aging Capriciously

Divergent Thoughts on Life, Love and Death

Some View on the World

With previous posting of "Our World" on Blogger

Filosofa's Word

Cogito Ergo Sum

Trent's World (the Blog)

Random Ramblings and Reviews from Trent P. McDonald

Catxman's Cradle

Catxman dances, Catxman spins around, leaps ....... // I sing a song, a song of hope, a song of looove -- a song of burning roses. / Synthesizer notes. // (c) 2021-22

Mapping uncertainty

When nothing is certain anything is possible

%d bloggers like this: