I just watched
a documentary about
the first female winner
of the Nobel Peace Prize

      1905

      Bertha von Suttner

why is it

115 years later
still so difficult
to make peace?

all poetry is personal
some more than others

to just spread out your private feelings
     in your verse
may not be everyone's delight

but if you choose words
so that the many find their voices
    in your own
you may be lucky
to achieve all poets' dreams

your personal voice
becomes the public

when your president
     old friend of yours
pardons you even before
you are legally sentenced
for assorted crimes

what do you call that?

when I hear the godawful daily news
I really get the serious daily blues
dictators abound
democracy rarely found
and this also applies to the US

where are the times
when people could rely
     more or less
on what their leaders
     whom they had elected
spoke and did?

when there was yet no need
to fact-check every other sentence
of presidential self-appraisals
or denigrating tweets about opponents?

after three years of suffering
through all shenanigans of the most blatant kind
it seems that rudeness, ignorance, and lies
have quietly become accepted as new normal

we've learned that people we elected
     to fight for our cause
can say one thing
     and then the opposite
throw in a lie or two
and nobody complains
or votes them out of their coveted offices

in fact
thanks to the wonderful examples of our leaders
we now have learned to distrust everybody
even ourselves

eight billion plus of unreliables

You are the Sky ,
You are the River .
Soar high , Flow far ,
For where the Heart is happy is when the Life is at Par !

You are the Sunshine , you are the Star ,
You are the Light shining bright afar .
For where the Heart is happy is when Life is at Par !

You are the Past , you are the Present .
Do not live with any resent .
You are the Queen , you are the Czar ,
For where the Heart is happy is when Life is at Par !

You are the Season ,
you are the Reason ,
You are the one making
every Connection.
You are the Joy , you are the Scar .
For where the Heart is happy is when Life is at Par !

You are the None ,
You are the One ,
You ain't going to be Right or Wrong , just what you decide you are !

© Mrunalini.D.Nimbalkar

fake election victory
fake president
fake impeachment trial
no decisive witness
fake acquittal

real crimes & misdemeanors
go unpunished

fake democracy?