The most common way
people give up their power is
by thinking they don't have
any.
~ Alice Walker
Use It
Category: Inspiration from others
Satsuma
SATSUMA
Crescents of tangerine cool nipples
that purse like lips as
O of navel grips its slice &
taut shiny glans raises its
section to the sun, hot through
blue-green leaves of eucalyptus;
tongue slides between citrus & skin
belly arcs smooth,
teeth release juice bursting
through this moist cavern,
tongue, lapping in slow pulses,
swallows, wet open flames.
Thank you to the editors of HOT FLASHES:
sexy little stories and poems for publishing
this poem.
Choose
There are two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as if everything is a miracle.
~Albert Einstein
Iniquity
I once showed a party of Sioux chiefs the sights of Washington, and endeavored to impress them with the wonderful achievements of civilization.
After visiting the Capitol and other famous buildings, we passed through the Corcoran Art Gallery, where I tried to explain how the white man valued this or that painting as a work of genius and a masterpiece of art.
“Ah!” exclaimed an old man, “such is the strange philosophy of the white man! He hews down the forest that has stood for centuries in its pride and grandeur, tears up the bosom of Mother Earth, and causes the silvery watercourses to waste and vanish away. He ruthlessly disfigures God's own pictures and monuments, and then daubs a flat surface with many colors, and praises his work as a masterpiece!”
~Ohiyesa (Charles Alexander Eastman) 'The Soul of an Indian'
Friendship
Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination
in two persons to promote
the good and happiness in one another.
~Eustace Budgell
Democracy
The opposite of poverty isn't wealth; it's justice.
~Bryan Stevenson
Release
In these past years, hurts, disappointments, confusion, resistance, loss, e.e. cummings‘ poem says it best:
let it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go
let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go
they were born
to go
let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear
so comes love
Antidote
This, my dear, is the greatest
challenge
to being alive:
to witness injustice in the world
and not allow it
to consume
our light.
~Thich Nhat Hanh~
Art As
Art enables us to find ourselves and
lose ourselves at the same time.
Thomas Merton
Art benches
Obrigada
OBRIGADA
What if the first word we learned
in another language
was not toilet, how much,
or even where, but instead
thank you;
would we see past lines of experience,
the stumbling of innocence,
broken teeth, exquisite eyes,
to each person’s essence,
the miracle of existence,
and be grateful for a form
that could say gracias, dhanyavaad,
tak, xìe xìe, spasibo, danke, shokran?
Thank you to the editors of Marin Poetry Center Anthology VI for first publishing “Obrigada.”
