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Memorial Day

True democracy’s existence and endurance, owes subsistence
To BELIEF: the bold persistence that equality is right.
Equal rights, a sacred notion, thrives on courage, true devotion—
Waves of change between two oceans, woven words amended right.
Constitutional republic, envy of the world—shine bright!
Eagle’s flight reflects flag’s might.

Heroes from each generation gifted us a strong foundation,
Sacrificed for our salvation, graced our lives with space and time.
Space to weigh negotiation: Who will WE be as a nation?
Time lets hope and aspiration fashion tools to ease our plight.
Let’s hail those whose last breath left us much more room to breathe in light.
Soldier’s fight preserves flag’s might.

Host of heroes in abundance fought for different things, but one stance—
Solidarity that one stance—crystallized our heroes’ might.
Rapidly they grasped its essence, bore it in their hearts as prescience,
Taught us through profound florescence: We can surely sacrifice
For the ones we disagree with and maintain our own rare light.
Eagle’s flight reflects flag’s might.

Courage at the yawning chasm; carnage reigns: convulsion, spasm,
Limbs and bone and human plasm spewed across Time’s heedless flight;
But despite the feeding frenzy, Civil War won—end of slavery,
Normandy—crushed fascist enemy, freedom’s cost—SO MANY LIVES.
Dual is our duty to them: lift their torch and keep it bright.
Soldier’s fight preserves flag’s might.

Why not venture toward our next step by recalling those whose windswept
Markers mark a promise they kept to keep our ideals alight?
Value just how every ember, blood red poppy, blows—remember
How each dance the wind engenders unfolds differently despite
How all poppies still pay homage to the fallen, day and night.
Eagle’s flight reflects flag’s might.

In the solemn cemetery eloquence bespeaks the buried;
Silent songbird, quivering ferry, conduit to sacred site.
Whispered lessons, priceless essence emanating from their presence,
Utmost act of altruism: bone white stony sacrifice.
All they’ve given—make it matter; keep republic burning bright.
Souls in flight gain eagle’s sight.

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The Uninvited Pest(ilence)

02/15/22

Threatened by a robust Ukraine,
Russian proxies down an airplane.
Dead civilians, Dutch and others,
Pay a price just hearts deplore.
Euromaidan in the making
Left a nearby despot quaking,
Human dignity forsaking
In his quest forevermore
Seizing power, blocking trade lane,
Grifter grasping to restore
Ancient borders, dreams of yore.
 
Sabotage and cyber hacks reign;
Minsk Accords neglect to restrain
Putin who still tortures Tatars;
Donbas, coats in blood and gore.
Countless fires, constant stoking,
Sovereignty of nations choking,
Endless wars he’s still provoking.
Is there worse he has in store—
Feeding frenzy, focused grain drain—
Thrusting open wide the door
To a new Holodomor?
 
Hemmed in by Iskander missiles,
Outgunned by the bear who bristles,
Ukraine’s people, battle-hardened,
Stand unbowed amidst uproar.
So to keep the chaos climbing,
Putin and his thugs are criming,
Hopeless and hysteria rhyming
Through disinformation war.
Blatant lies don bells and whistles,
Dressed to kill (no metaphor)
Freedom’s heartbeat through its core.
 
Courtesy demands politeness,
But crass raptors shun forthrightness.
Don’t be duped by despot’s triteness;
Counter with a strong rapport:
Allies all are now amassing;
EU, NATO folks surpassing
Putin thugs who are trespassing
On a land by which they swore
To protect its sovereign rightness
In the Budapest D’Accord;*
Russia was its guarantor.

Grievances were manufactured;
Russian lies left freedom fractured:
Fourteen thousand dead already;
Droves displaced forevermore.
While the bully stands there grinning,
Allies set their sights on winning,
Ushering in a new beginning,
Stifling kleptocratic store.
Laundered money now is captured,
Cloaked accounts exposed offshore,
Oligarchs will steal no more.

 
*Budapest Memorandum of 1994
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Recoil at Recall

09/01/2021

by Pamela Toomey

Do you recall what did befall
Our nation once we sought
The call to yolk collective folk
Inside a melting pot?

“From many, one”; this smelted sum
Was greater than its parts:
Republic born on sunlit morn
Igniting minds and hearts.

But tempered pot met tempers hot
And fiery tempest blazed.
As North met South, snake’s tail met mouth
And slavery’s chains were razed.

Do you recall how far from all
Despotic lures we leapt?
We latched the gate of death camps’ hate
To prove we were adept.

“From many, one” was our song wrung
From melting pot—pure light.
“From many, none” was fascists’ sum—
Gas chambers, genocide.

Then January sixth our sights were fixed
On insurrection’s sway
As violence spread its snake-like thread
Through halls in search of prey.

We prayed while they a gallows made
Gross capital offense!
Dark deeds were thought and blood was sought
From Speaker and Mike Pence.

Do you recall our near downfall,
Bald eagle near declawed
As fascists mocked democracy
And shat on rule of law?

But shattered state was not our fate
At least at this frail time.
And now recall: CA Recall
Vote NO to stop the crime.

Preserve our rights to soar at heights
Equality demands.
O Golden State, say NO to hate;
Keep Newsom as helmsman.
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Light’s Glare on Snake’s Lair

by Pamela Toomey

Hear me, O Hermes, haunt of in-between sites: 
‘Twixt knavery and bravery, very sharp stake;
‘Twixt demagogue and dialogue, vulgar gun sights;
‘Twixt bayonets and baritones, guilty knife smites.
Clear space in the lair of the forked-tongue snake
 
For luster that glistens from lodestar’s tripart:
Sviatlana soars straight from bleeding land’s ache,
Maria, Veranika, hope’s shining restart.
They hear with the heart as a healing art.
Clear space in the lair of the forked-tongue snake
 
For civil engagement despite regime goons.
Their bolt on free speech fluent hand gestures break;
Articulate runes flow from mute finger-tunes,
Thwarting two-headed Hydra: tyrant and tycoons.
Clear space in the lair of the forked-tongue snake
 
For theaters to flourish despite despot’s binds
Making mother’s tongue mum and truth-telling fake.
Brave actor, truth-bearer, genuflects and unwinds
Real “thought crimes” awash in balaclava blinds.
Clear space in the lair of the forked-tongue snake
 
For sanctions to sink coterie who abets.
Ban access to SWIFT, apply the foot brake
So basilisk’s lucre gets snared in the nets
That trap Russian asps grabbing potash assets.
Clear space in the lair of the forked-tongue snake.
 
‘Twixt tyrant and teacher, vent and invent,
Intrepid Belarusians choose to partake
Of elections unrigged, dialogue that’s intent 
On self-determination, change that’s meant
To air out the lair of the forked-tongue snake.
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In Belarus

(Rondeau)

by Pamela Toomey

In Belarus white flowers bloom
Reflected on steel-plated gloom
Of armored bodies; phalanx hewn
From tyrant’s need to crush the tune
Of freedom’s trill, its voice entomb.

We are alive and will resume
Soft tap on Kevlar hearts, exhume
Blest Gate of Dawn while hearts balloon
In Belarus.

Outflanked by tanks and rattling boom
We face the fray: doom stacked on doom.
O Western world, seek no cocoon;
Democracy is not immune
To growing glut of despots’ spume
In Belarus.
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Gutsy Gadflies

(Rondeau Redoublé)

by Pamela Toomey

Gutsy gadfly gunned down by feral fear,
Ruble greed spurred truncheon crunch against pate,
Loathed bugbear survives lethal toxin smear,
Fierce foe defies poison-pants potentate.

Broad-backed Nemtsov bore a four-bullet fate,
Revealing the viper’s fragile veneer
Of virtue dressed in kind to liquidate
Gutsy gadfly gunned down by feral fear.

Beaten to a pulp for over a year,
Fearless Magnitsky got rubbed off the slate
Exposing state fraud; the slaughter was clear:
Ruble greed spurred truncheon crunch against pate.

Kremlin death squads seek to eliminate
Plucky Kara-Murza for czarist peer
Intent on nulling oversight. Checkmate:
Loathed bugbear survives lethal toxin smear.

The nerve of Navalny! Truth cost him dear,
Pilfering prince spoofed behind Palace-Gate.
Regardless of gulag, torture, and jeer,
Fierce foe defies poison-pants potentate.

Cagey beast ill governs still budding state
From caged bunker: disrupt and domineer,
Dismantle NATO, EU; hack and hate.
Instead spread Magnitsky Act everywhere!
Everywhere revere gutsy gadfly trait.

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HATER In Our HEART

(Rhyming Sestina)

by Pamela Toomey

You in or out? Just play the hand you’re dealt for want
Of legs shackled to the ship’s floor. The ribbed jester
Coasts on the back of the black man’s labor, his haunt
Familiar ground to cuff linked hopes that fester
And form into chain-linked chain gangs raised to taunt
The “in” club: the incarcerated protester.

Out standing on the stacked deck, the protester,
Severed steward of the earth’s ransacked heart, in want
Of a home, lays a trail of salt tears to fester
In Georgia’s mind. Gold rush at fever pitch to taunt
Indigenous love for sacred ground. Greedy jester
Flaunts the Indian Removal Act, familiar haunt –

Old stomping ground explodes into granite shards that haunt
And hail exploited labor: Pacific protester,
Nitty-gritty, nitroglycerin, noxious taunt;
Asian spade, inured, links the oceans for the jester.
Hand played: full house; Chinese Exclusion Act in want
Of victims: railroaded, lynched, strange fruit left to fester

And fold like a house of cards amassed to fester
Anew: massacre to mass deportation, old haunt –
Same tracks; treason the debunked reason the jester
Invokes Japanese Internment. Stricken by want,
Stripped of home, yet still undaunted, the protester
Bides these false premises garbed in barbed wire that taunt

Yo-o-o-o-u’re out! Three-strike law earns one life sentence, a taunt
Wound hand in glove with Jim Crow’s crowd, but hard to fester
With Hammerin’ Hank on deck, Brave slugger in want
Of access to Georgia’s ballot box. That protester
Eschewed the need to steal home or vote or life; his haunt
The diamond, not the Gold Spa of the gun-packing jester.

Here’s the deal: Stop All Hate Crimes now; thwart the jester 
By Building Back Better; don’t settle for détente;
MLB didn’t balk but yanked the big game. Protester,
Hit For The People Act out of the park and no haunt
Of voter suppression will thrive and fester.
Bat clean-up for the Jobs Plan, union jobs to counter want

And dress our EARTH in clean air, clean water, no want
Unaddressed to all but the HATER, our jester
In our HEART; let’s redress our fault and supply a safe-haunt.
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Turning Back Jim Crow’s Return

(Villanelle)

by Pamela Toomey

Bar Jim Crow, straw man, scarecrow, gun-cocked foe
Of decency. White sheets sparking friction,
Spiked eye holes, self-blind echoing ego.
 
Grim lynchpin reaper rapping out veto
In unvoiced filibuster infliction.
Ban Jim Crow, straw man, scarecrow, gun-cocked foe
 
Back to bust tied neck-and-neck Senate, so
Fake news, new noose: knee-to-neck constriction.
From choke holds, self-blind echoing ego
 
Fashions new noose: necktie, flush dough
Surging special interest predilection.
Bar Jim Crow, straw man, scarecrow, gun-cocked foe.
 
From dark money spigots, sheeted bigots flow:
Spiked water…air…gun, voter restriction.
No holds barred, self-blind echoing ego
 
Rages before justice, ethics, fair show.
Grant sacred, aching grace jurisdiction;
Ban Jim Crow, straw man, scarecrow, gun-cocked foe;
Stitch us whole. Make FOR THE PEOPLE ACT a go!