A Poem by Loukia Janavaras
We witness silence
as though loss can be absorbed
in an oil painting
freshly saturated.
And just then
you lean in
and I merge
once again
with the living.
Transition
1
Monthly Archives: September 2012
One Billion Rising
One Billion Rising
Please go to their web site:
When we started V-Day 14 years ago, we had the outrageous idea that we could end violence against women. Since then, hundreds of thousands of V-Day activists in audiences and on stages in over 140 countries have come together to demand an end to violence against women and girls. The funds we’ve raised together have kept organizations’ doors open, and the issue front and center in local media.
But still today, the United Nations states that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime that’s more than one billion women and girls alive today.
V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, showing them exactly what one billion looks like.
ONE BILLION RISING is a promise that on February 14th, 2013, we will ensure that millions of women and men rise up around the world to say, “ENOUGH. The violence ends NOW.”
I look forward to dancing, striking and rising to end violence against women and girls together with you.
In solidarity,
Eve Ensler
Playwright, Founder of V-Day
One Billion Rising
California’s Right To Know
A Video by Carighttoknow
Daisy Fence
A Poem by Diane Webster
Daisies
grow through
the white picket fence
like a little girl
peeking out her front door
to see if her parent’s car
drives up the street
before she can clean up
the broken glass
dropped
in the kitchen
How to End Extreme Poverty
An Idea from Jeffry Sachs, Columbia University economist
The cost to end extreme poverty in the world is about 175 billion dollars annually.
Wedding Gift
Monsanto’s Genocide
A Poem by Geno Cide
genocide the silence of spring
eco’s damage: the end is here
no healthy seeds—no children
only silence–no more an echo
crumbling everything & autistic
idiocrity gains and lost confetti
deaths disease and the dread
every birth defect: a genocide
http://projectagentorange.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/monsantos-genocide/
in excelsis Deo
A Poem by Anon ymous
She is determined to find God, figures it’s easy
to recognize a peddler when you hear one:
a teller of tales,
raconteur,
that serpent in man’s clothing.
She wonders if it is enough to fly
into the highest cloud but all she finds
is a nest built from high hopes and thin air.
Not to Be
A Poem by Michael Estabrook
All you needed Bobby
(I believe you’d agree, I know you’d agree)
to keep you content, challenged, engaged, excited,
and interested in life, to keep you alive
was a woman. That’s it, all you needed,
a woman like Patti or Linda
(who you had huge crushes on
all the way back in high school).
I know you wanted a woman, had a long-distance
relationship for years with Beth Ann
all the way across the country. But, alas,
it never worked out, never developed
into something lasting and close,
closer than 3,000 miles that is.
You were so excited after your latest le liaisons dangerous:
“It was wonderful. Especially the Watley Inn.
You have to try it. We had a room and dinner,
the “Staycation.” The food was awesome.
The room was fine too.”
So you dated now and then, here and there,
but let’s face it,
you were not comfortable with women, or even girls
back in the day. Girls are tricky,
many you encountered not intellectual enough
for your tastes, more bundles of emotional turmoil
and uncertainty, leaving you rudderless
in navigating through the shark-infested dating waters.
Because of Global Warming
A Poem by Michael Estabrook
Fiddle-de-de as Scarlet would say.
I’ve learned over my long, long lifetime
there are a handful of things best not to ignore:
Mother Nature, the IRS, my boss,
an angry cat (or dog, or gorilla for that matter),
a throbbing tooth, a seemingly benign rash,
a tornado swirling way off in the distance,
ringing fire alarms, an ominous fin
sticking up out of the water
(and moving towards you)
and—most importantly—your Wife
(with a capital “W” like Chaucer would write).
Thank You
A Poem by Seymour Brownstein
Pitter, patter, it doesn’t matter
Who disrtupts the quiet.
All we have is children’s chatter,
Quite a crunchy diet.
On Lava’s Lake
A Poem by A.J.Huffman
Bloodflowers bloom.
Like rain.
In my eyes,
they shine.
In yours,
they die.
In touches,
they fall.
For,
through,
and over.
Disappearing.
Into the shattered reflection.
Of a pool
nobody will ever name:
Us.
Snoring and Other Things About Laughter
Laugh and the world laughs with you.
Snore and you sleep alone.
–Anthony Burgess
The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? The optimist laughs to forget, the pessimist forgets to laugh.
–Tom Bodett
You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.
–Michael Prichard
There are three things that are real: God, human folly, and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension. So we must do what we can with the third.
–John F. Kennedy
Ode to My Four Year Old Daughter, Pami
A Poem by Seymour Brownstein
Little lady climbing all over me,
One would believe I’m a ramp,
Grand hugger would be more appropriate, maybe,
I love her the little scamp.
Reaching heights of delight I never could reach,
Her kiss on my cheek like morning dew wine,
all made possible with one little screech,
Little Pami, at four years old, mine.
Laughter
He laughs best who laughs last.–Sir John Vanbrough
He who laughs last didn’t get it.–Helen Gwingregorio
He who laughs, lasts.–Mary Pettibone Poole
Solitude
A Poem by Susan Dale
Wrapped in a cocoon of years
Four bare walls and four dark corners
Winter nights long with ceiling lights
Casting shadows
In another room muffled voices
And the sundown houses
I pass
Lights in the windows
Long stretches of highway
a solitary car
behind me
Until it isn’t
Moon puddles in meadows
Decades
quick as bars of melody
Lonely seabird winging over waters
flowing outside of time
In the river a boat-horn cries
In the skies the silent ways of stars
And the sun bleats summer afternoons
stretching out long behind us
Sweeps in a solitude
settling in to stay
Our Day's Encounter 