Outraged by Brutality Reminiscent of Past

For some days now I have been meaning to take the time to post about the recent string of police and security response to peaceful assembly.  I've seen some footage of incidents on cable news and read a few accounts and I am saddened by the turn to aggression by many of the authorities in the past week.
Even where we have previously seen police take a responsible attitude toward protesters there has been a shift in the response to their peaceful assemble.

Have we forgotten the lessens of the late sixties and seventies? The brutality on the streets during the Nixon years only heightened the tensions in this country. The response with force to peaceful assembly 
(a guaranteed constitutional right) is indefensible.  Spraying protesters who are sitting in rows with pepper-spray and clubbing individuals is only going build a toxic climate in this country.

We seem to growing very lax in terms of many of our constitutional guarantees.  When law enforcement abridges the right of peaceful assembly it is a fundamental attack upon every one of us, not just those in a particular location protesting a particular cause.  We don't have to be associated with that cause to be the victims because the erosion of on person's right of assembly risks the protection of our own right does do so on this or some other cause.

The former poet laureate Robert Hass, was beaten on the Berkley Campus by Alameda County deputy sheriffs.  Is it really necessary to beat a seventy-some year old man who is peacefully assembled? Or a man or woman of any age? 

Someone explain to me what threat is posed by this assemblage because the threat that is posed by police with batons and pepper-spray on a peacefully assembled crowd, that threat I understand.  The latter risks bodily harm, risks unhealthy tensions between authorities and citizens, and it jeopardizes the very constitutional rights we all  have as citizens of this country.



Above is one video shot at UC Berkley that demonstrates the response to assembled students.
I am outraged by this. I'm old enough to recall the Nixon years when young Americans were coming home from Vietnam in body bags by the thousands and brutality of those times. Do we really have to repeat this? Have we not progressed in the year that have followed?

Hemingway on heros

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary. ~ Ernest Hemingway

Knock My Socks Off Poetry Wednesday

As I indicated in an earlier post I've chosen Wednesday to call to the attention of others poems that I've found this week that Knock My Socks Off. 


The first one is a poem titled  FAST GAS by Dorianne Laux.  I actually heard this on a podcast from New Letters on the Air before finding it in print. The title threw me because the poem is not what first came to my mind. No, Laux was not writing about flatulence but first love.  A powerful poem worth reading - so very well crafted.


Another poem I was exposed to this week that really did it for me  was  IF I MUST PAINT YOU A PICTURE by Joannie Stangeland.  The subtle turn in this poem left not only kept my interest to the end but also sent me back to read over several times just to appreciate her effective write.


If you have not read either of these poems I recommend you check them out. 


See you next Wednesday when I'll tell you what poems left my feet bare.

Confession Tuesday

I'm tired as it's been a busy evening since I left the office and I'm definitely thinking about bed but it is Tuesday and I have my responsibilities. Come with me to the confessional...

Dear Reader~  Yes another week has come and gone. Let's see where this confession takes me.

Last night I was late getting home last night.  Tonight I did a cell phone switch out for my wife then grocery shopping so again late getting in. It's getting dark much earlier now and I confess this getting dark before I get home is bringing me down. Tomorrow will be another late night but at least I'll be at a poetry event. I guess I can try and suffer through another late evening for poetry ;)

Tonight when I came in my wife was beading. This is significant because she has not been able to for so long because she has had to spend so much of her evening time on work related tasks. She loves beading and is such an awesome bead artist. I confess I am so happy that she is beading again. It's a passion of hers and it makes me happy to know that she is able to pursue this love of hers.

I'm about confessed out - my bead is calling me.  May your week feed your passions.

Hemingway on words

All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time. ~ Ernest  Hemingway

Poems That Knock Your Socks Off

I've listened to and read quite a few poems this afternoon. In doing so I've decided that I am going to make a concerted effort to acknowledge poems and poets I've read each week that knocked my socks off. 

It's occurred to me that there are many really noteworthy poets and poems that are not widely read. When you consider that many poetry books total sales may range between a few hundred and a few thousand that means even work published is not exposed to a particularly large segment of the population.

With this in mind, I will be starting a weekly post in which I acknowledge poems that really rock.  I think all poets should become cheerleaders for outstanding work when we see it. Pity the lonely poem that a dedicated poet toiled over to create. Perhaps weak in infancy the poet revisited it and revised it over and over and finally sent it out into the cold world to stand for itself. It the entire life of the poem it may be read a a thousand times or so.  I'd like to feel I can expose that poem to a few more people, even it it's only a hundred or so more.

I do abide by copyright laws here, so you will not see me posting poems without permission. .Where I can, I will list titles and authors and link if possible or tell you where you might find the poem in question.

I've always liked the practice at readings of introducing your audience to a poem by someone other then yourself. I see this as one more way to support the work of other poets. Right now I'm thinking of Wednesdays. Poems that Knocked My Socks Off - Wednesday! 

Magpie Tales 90 / Poem: Company

Company

There they all are

together in their aloneness.

I wonder if they relish company?

I mean aside from the cadence

of the occasional passerby.

Michael A. Wells

Magpie 90