i was recently told that i'm no poet,
that my words don't evoke art or understanding,
that i haven't grown much, so i took that and chewed it
until it fed my insides and turned my eyes outward on
a world that i haven't dug into at all with words left
jumbling around in a brain used for other means,
i've been forcing my hands and heart to mold this world into a better place,
but without my words what capture will i leave behind, what legacy?

i marched with womxn last month, alone and surrounded by 140,000
others who gabbed and growled about a man with tiny
hands who employs those who want to take control of our reproductive rights,
and wants to throw some of us out of the country, and **** us in the streets,
but the white ladies behind me were more concerned with their clever signs
than the native's plight for their land and the black lady's murdered babies and the burkas being ripped off of women trying to buy skirts in a walmart

i guess i have a hard time finding my america in all of this mess -
i'm a white woman, but i didn't vote for trump
does that make me different? does that make me woke?
i want to join arms and resist with everyone who's ever felt
like they're less than because of something they were born being,
but i'm still not quite sure how to shine solidarity without seeking recognition

i think we all desire ego to be stroked, but how can i want for that
when some people just wish to live? i look long and hard at myself everyday
after too many hours reading about the chaos and sadness so readily
accessed at keyboards stroked by too quick fingertips, the tears they
come and the heart lays heavy, but what do i do? i rally other white folks
to march, i try to change their hearts, i explain what being an ally looks like,
i work in the communities that need it most, i love the children who feel alone,
but i wonder how much of this is for me and how much of it is true love

i'm learning, growing, changing always, but fear holds me in a place between
truly giving and giving just to fill my own cup, the world has changed and the
little girl who stood up to bullies still sits inside of my heart, but the bullies are
corporations, and the president, and coworkers, and family members, and
friends at a super bowl party, so i've got to find a way to be strong with my
solidarity no matter who, what, where, why, when, because this matters and i don't
want to be that person standing up only to put it on instagram, no i want to
affect real change, to be a part of history, to truly love all of my fellow human kind

i want to give from a place of caring without condition, a place that sees color, sees faith, sees gender identity, sees ****** orientation, sees *** work, sees disabled folk,
and doesn't pretend that their story is one that i understand and echo because
i have ovaries and know what it feels like to be frightened, no, i can't put my ******
on a pedestal and use it as a badge of courage anymore, it's time to open my heart
and ears and truly be humbled in the honorary process of letting myself learn

just because i've felt real fear, doesn't mean i know anyone else's fear, and the only
way that i will come to be a true empath, a true ally, a true warrior is if i learn to quiet
the voice within my head and listen when others speak from their darkest depths,
i must build my strength, my bonds, my heart, my mind so i can lift those up, serve as a megaphone for the voices quieted by men in uniform and suits, pound the pavement as a truly intersectional, solidarity-filled sister of every man, woman, child, they/them, that has ever felt alone, that has ever wanted for more, that has ever been denied
the privilege that i benefit from just by living, as a white woman in this world

you are wholly you and sometimes that means
that you're not a poet because you're a yogi
or a program manager or a sister or a friend
or a hiker or an auntie or a crying mess in your bed

i'm sorry for trying to shackle you to the notion
that you have to dream one dream and be
the thing you drew on your "all about me" poster
when you were in first grade and they told you
that you could only grow up to be one particular thing

i love you for being multidimensional, for capturing
the world in film, footprints, fountain pens, and friendship,
for being able to cut the dead weight out even if
those pounds feel like the most essential part of you in
this moment though you know that they have been sitting
directly on your chest and stifling your every effort to breathe

i love you because you are you, and at this point you
finally feel okay with that, and so you're able to look out
into the world and truly begin to love others in a way you
never conceived possible - your innate quality of giving has
taken on meaning that stretches beyond band aids and equality,
and instead reaches realms of equity and true understanding
despite the fact that the lens you see through is nothing like anyone else's

i love you because you are learning and willing to grow, and
a lot of growing happens to mean letting go, even if the emotions
you feel are validated and warranted, you've learned to see them,
to be them, and to breathe them back into the universe instead of
placing them in the mason jar that lives beneath your rib cage
until they explode and sends shards of glass into your most vital organs

i write to you to let you know that i'm proud of each moment you
decide to take care of yourself even if that only means washing your
face before bed time, for being brave enough to make decisions
based on you instead of him, for standing up for what you believe
and equally as much for admitting when you're wrong, for living a life
no longer based in fear, but in love for yourself and all of humanity

Thousands of us were displaced
Started careers late
Not lucky enough to have had great jobs

So we work hard
Put ourselves through night school
While taking care of family

Finally ...
Yes, yeah,  whoopee
Did it !
Once again completed school

Another certificate added to the growing list of achievements.
More bills owed to uncle Sam

Going on numerous job interviews
No one's responding
Instead ...
All this knowledge stored in your head

Current jobs pays minimum wages
Those colleges attended; mounting

When you try to get ahead  -
They hold on to their employments
As if,
It's Rocket science

Looking for younger, greener admits

Once AARP comes a knocking on
Your door
You know they don't want your
Expertise anymore

What's one to do
Still strong, healthy, seasoned
Educated, no strings to boot

Hopelessly stuck in a world of
"We will call you "

So at the tender age of fifty
Thoughts of starting your own business floats in your head

Right
Now, back to school
For another certificate
A chance to use that knowledge
Put bread on the table
Feel useful

Quality of life renewed.

JRap /2016

.

I am merely the conduit...
For those who are voiceless.
Or the servant even...
To things which lay silent.
I am the medium through which
you come alive.

A noteworthy find,
but your words are still your own.
Birthed from the deepest ocean of thoughts...
Forged with the fiercest fires of emotions...
And harvested from the richest mine we call life.

But I hadn't planted the seeds...
You did.

But you did nurture them,
so they might flourish.
You did share them,
so others you nourish.
If I am anything in this enterprise,
I am the wind that brushes your skin...
Not the gust that fills your sail.

Then I accept that we're both so fitting.
Therefore I acknowledge you
as you do I.



Me
Muse

.

she sneezesas the breezes
carry the pollen to her nostrils

she  is small
and somewhat frail
but  when she sneezes
she creates more than breezes
she makes a gale

and the noise is like thunder
as her lungs do the rumba
all in order  to expell
the pollen from her being

her eyes cross
and fixate
on an ephemeral state
in order to calibrate
the legnth of the ah
in her ah-choo

sometimes it is
large and elongated
sometimes small delicate statacco
and then again it may be somewhere
in between the two

and after she sneezes and gales
and wheezes...she seems stunned
by the fuss and disharmony
she created by nasal cacophony

and in her daze, the taps
her nose and says quite clearly

good old faithful....
                           .....thar she blows

when those we have elected tell us blatant lies
     and call them “alternative facts”
we should not wait too long to call them liars
make them aware that we don’t share
their newspeak fantasies and visions
     removed from everyday reality

nor do we treasure their maneuvers
     that keep the media all hyped up
reporting every tweet as if it were
     one of the ten commandments
     Moses once held up in stone

while
     unmentioned
behind quite secret White House doors
the leader’s relatives and cronies
    incompetent but greedy
are nominated for positions of whose duties
    they do not really have a clue

a friend of oil & coal & fracking
supposedly protects our environment

an ignorant billionairess
     who never really saw a public school
is now in charge of education

a business man with heavy ties to Russia
is asked to steer our foreign policy

a judge well known for his quite racist bias
is thought to fit into the supreme court

and many of the Wall Street’s alligators
     whose swamps the current leader
     has kept promising to drain
     all through his great campaign
are happily assembled ‘round the trough
of power  influence  and money

facts quite ‘alternative’ indeed
     from those that had been promised
          for over more than a whole year
by that self-styled
‘candidate against the establishment’
     with not so secret Russian ties

simply unbelievable

depleted
of energy,
a weight of gold
upon my heart,
its heavy dull luster
pushes down hard
squeezing out
        the light
suffocating
    my staccato
of breath
     I crouch        
quietly
in the brush,
the next step in
my process
                 pending
a dense rock
of pendulum
swaying time
  tick ticking
in my blood
cells reaching
the boiling point
just shy
of spilling over
into froth
waiting for
this conundrum
        to unravel,
my inner tigress
about to unfurl
             her heart
    to leap
and pounce
from
   within
into the
  tight
white
          of blinding
snow, the silent
storm of  
      the unknown
forever

Her room is now empty, no longer here
The mother I love and hold so dear
She has moved out, into private care home
In this big empty house I now live alone
In her vacant bedroom there is a Jewelry box
On the table are her old winter socks
I open the box and take a peek inside
Trinkets and bracelets fill me with pride
Inside the box I find letters from her past
From dad saying our love will always last
Written in the 1940s he spent many years at sea
He fought for his country in the Merchant navy
So personal she kept them all these years
Her whole life in this box brings me near to tears
Her memories may be gone in Dementia she is lost      
I will forever treasure her life in this Jewelry box

David Swinden © 13/2/2017
I love you Mum forever