New Poem: Election Day Eve 2020

 Election Day Eve 2020

by Stephanie Mesler

He commands an army of duds with nothing better to do and nothing much to lose.

They fly his machismo flag over their trucks with big dicks.

They stop traffic and make noise, demanding attention - 

dateless boys who can't get a girl into the backseat without threats or bribes or both.  

They're proud now,  their king is proof that human shit can be shitty and still bask in glory.

They shout for a while and laugh -- they think they own the road and that's enough for the moment, owning the road is proof they can own the world.

But no one pays attention to toddlers stamping their feet

Traffic backs away or goes around them, spinning gravel, ignoring their tantrum.

They are alone with just each other and their combined insecurities.

They have no binkies and no blankies.  

They are cold and hungry and afraid.  

They go home to bed without any cookies.

Perhaps tomorrow they will grow up.

Election Day Eve 2020 is © 2020 Stephanie Mesler 

Weeping For My Old Hometown

Weeping For My Old Hometown

by Stephanie Mesler

I weep.  

My old hometown is on fire.  

It is burning with the fury of a thousand mothers whose sons were shot just for living in dark skin.  

It burns with the fear of old men who once held power just because, but are now told they must earn a place around a table that used to be rectangular.

It burns with the passion of the ignorant who follow whoever makes them feel smarter than...well...smarter than they are.  

I weep.

My old hometown is shattered glass and broken beams.   

I watch on my phone as my old friends make themselves shields.

They use their white skin 

(not really white at all, BTW, more like slightly pink)

They use their pink skin to get between the men in blue 

(not really blue at all, BTW.

Except where they are swathed in camo, like they think they are going to war on Main Street, these men in blue are covered in black, head to toe, even the weapons strapped to their belts are shiny black.   

They look like they wanna join Vlad’s Alpha Group and fight for domination of a continent.  Their horses are black and so are the clubs they use to beat back resistance.)

My old friends use their pink skin to get between the men in blue that isn’t blue and the people of color.

And they really are colorful, these people; their skin comes in many shades of brown, from tortilla to umber and everything in between.  

I watch as the men in blue that isn’t blue open fire, sending rubber bullets into the shins and bellies and faces of the pink.

The rubber bullets bring my old friends to the ground where they are trampled as the men in blue that isn’t blue move on the people of color, raising their black cannons and firing orange gas at the crowd.  

All the while, even as they go blind and fall, they chant:  “No justice, no peace.”  

I weep.

My old hometown is flooded.  

Blood is in the streets.  

The river overflows with the blood of the city herself

She’s been cut by her native sons and daughters as they sort themselves out, 

many generations later than expected, 

probably too late to save my hometown.

She will die because she does not deserve to live.  

She will be a memory, a page in a future history book, a wikipedia entry about the city once ruled by men in blue that wasn’t blue.  

I weep.

My old hometown is gone.  

There are no more untended flames threatening the safety of the many.

All that shattered glass has been used to decorate a new city’s towers and spires that rise toward the sky.

The blood is gone from the streets and pulses through the veins of living men and women who come in enough rainbow colors to populate their own big box of crayons.  

From a distance, you can hear that blood thrumming and feel the city’s pulse.  

My old hometown glistens, reflecting the faces of its people, all of them.  

I weep because my old hometown has made me proud.  

Copyright © Stephanie Mesler 2020

The Fat Lady Sings: Voting Yes on Kavanaugh Proves Senators Have No Interest The Just Rule of Law

1. Given Kavanaugh's lack of composure in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senators who vote to confirm Kavanaugh to The Supreme Court prove to US Citizens that they are not interested in finding the *best* candidate to fill an open position, but only in filling the position expediently and without offending the President and The Republican majority.

2. Given Kavenaugh's openly stated contempt for "liberals" in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senators who vote to confirm Kavanaugh to The Supreme Court prove to US Citizens that they are not interested in finding the *best* candidate to fill an open position, but only in filling the position expediently and without offending the President and The Republican majority.

3. A Vote for Kavanaugh Will Make It Clear That The US Government is hostile to its female citizens. It will do this in at least three ways.
A. In choosing to disregard the testimony of one very credible female witness against a man seeking power and failing to seek evidence from other women making similar accusations against the same man seeking power, members of the US Senate prove that they do not believe they are hired by voters to represent these (or any) women.
B. Supporting a Kavanaugh confirmation is the same as supporting an end to Roe V. Wade protections for American women who need abortions. This removes female autonomy over their own bodies. Such a vote proves that members of the US Senate do not believe in female autonomy.
C. Voting to hire a justice who has been accused by several women of sexual misconduct and who has been caught in lies told before the Senate Judiciary Committee proves that the Senate places more value on the words of a proven male liar than the words of any woman. This proves that US Senators have no interest in justice for women.

For these reasons, I urge you to contact any the four Senators still undecided about Kavanaugh. Ask them to vote no on Kavanaugh and to push their Senatorial peers to do the same. There is no rush to fill this open judiciary post and there are many qualified candidates worth consideration for the job.

The Fat Lady Sings: No, I Cannot Agree To Disagree

There was a time when I believed civility required me to find the value in every opinion, to listen for the truth in every vision of our world. I believed friendship did not require agreement on politics or religion. Of course, my closest friends were people with whom I shared the most basic of fundamental values. My friends and I believed in justice and equality and in the right of individuals to pursue happiness in whatever ways best suited them. We were never in disagreement about the basic fundamentals of science and nature. We all agreed the world was round, that the Earth was not the center of the universe, that sunrise would follow night every single morning.

I was pretty idealistic back then and believed with all my heart that all people were essentially good. I thought that purest evil was a construct for fiction and the politics of people long since dead or still alive, but living far away from my comfortable American life. It never occurred to me that evil was real, that it existed in the places I visited every day, and that it had always been there.

Sure, sometimes -- frequently, even -- I found myself in disagreement with people I met. We might have differed about politics (Was Nixon a crook or wasn’t he?) or religion (Was virgin birth literally true or wasn’t it?). These differences often led to interesting and informative discussions. Once in a while someone’s opinion was changed, more often not. Still, I always felt I gained something by listening to the opinions of those who saw things differently than I.

It really wasn’t that long ago that I could argue passionately for my opinion -- discussions about the Iraq wars come immediately to mind -- and the person on the other side of the issue could argue just as passionately for hers. We could even raise our voices, angrily disputing the opposing viewpoint and, still, after hours (or days or months) of disagreement, remain friends. We disagreed, but our commonly held values kept the chasm from opening so wide between us that it could never again be crossed. We could agree to disagree.

Now, in the era of fundamentalist politics, I find that there are people in this world with whom I cannot just agree to disagree. I find that, where issues of basic civil and human rights are concerned, I cannot make nice with those on the other side of the vast divide that separates rational people from the hateful lunacy of those who would see some others subjugated. I cannot have a friendly disagreement with someone who believes women should “lay back and enjoy it” when raped and certainly shouldn’t try to ruin the careers of powerful men who commit rape. I cannot smile over the Thanksgiving turkey with anyone who believes my queer friend should submit himself to torturous therapy in order to become something he is not. I can’t exchange friendly holiday greetings with those who believe black men really deserve to be imprisoned at higher rates than all other populations or who think torture is a fine way for a government to treat foreign prisoners. I can’t look the other way when someone tells me they don’t believe all children deserve to be fed and housed and clothed and treated with gentle respect, no matter who their parents are.

Maybe the tension in my neck and shoulders would go away, if I could just agree to disagree. Maybe I’d feel more accepted in the conservative community in which I currently live. I might be able to relax again with some family members from whom I have had to step away. I do miss them. Or, perhaps, I miss the people I once thought they were. Maybe those people never really existed.

No, I can’t just agree to disagree. The fact is that some issues really are too clear cut for compromise. Racism is wrong. Misogyny is evil. Science is true. All people come into this world equal and should remain equals as they grow. No one has the right to take away the humanity of anyone else.

I can’t just agree to disagree and that’s why my circle of friends has shrunk in recent years.