Politics and Poetry

Yesterday had strange lights in it.  I sat with a group of homeless women and wrote about peace, and heard poignant tales of trauma and redemption.  I read about Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain.  I finished a poem about a vision I saw, nearing sleep.  Today I read some poetry online (looking into taking a class, trying to find the right teacher) and found much that was foreign to me.  And I read about a group of young people from Serbia who are teaching people how to successfully bring down dictators.  http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/16/revolution_u?page=0,1

Which engendered the following:

Political Conversion:
     Ode to CANVAS

What wins? Can empires truly crumble?

Can decades of oppression be brought down?

Perhaps they can, with methods wise and humble

the youth from Serbia have worked to spread around.

They look around and find the power areas - 

the forces to win over to their side,

In Egypt’s case, police and military,

their land as one, a people unified.

They build for years, with quiet, small successes

They grow their movement almost secretly

till when they stand, their voice can’t be suppressed:

The people claim their courage and are free.

Such wonder! That these dedicated youth

Are proving to us all the power of truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 22, 2011

Poetical Confusion

Some call it poetry when words are snatched

from multi-tasked attention - meaning hatched

perhaps as afterthought, upon observing

juxtapositions of their random pennings.

It may be so for them, but as for me

I crave a higher sensibility

I want to be transported by a poem

made to see and feel in ways I haven’t 

beyond the market’s dull, bombarding drone

the drift of mindless clutter on the planet

I don’t believe we can’t discern what’s true

that anything that flits through thought will do.

The culture speeds at furious velocity

I still hold out for luminosity.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 22, 2011