A Rather Angry Rant (Day 189)

Fair warning: This poem is neither lovely nor politically correct. Because today, I am giving myself permission to speak bluntly. That's one of the benefits of—for now—not being held to the standard of objectivity.

A Rather Angry Rant

And we sit, 

and we watch

while they take,

and expect us

to give them 

so much 

for the sake

of a law 

that doesn’t

protect us all.

Build a wall?

Ban those souls

over there?

You don’t care.

It’s not freedom

or justice

it’s the same 

old prejudice, 

and we, 

the majority, care 

for democracy.

Your wall is 

just smoke,

and your ban 

is a joke, like 

your klannish

reactions to

progressive actions.

We’ll win 

in the end

and rather 

than bend, 

you’ll break, and 

we’ll sweep up 

the shards of 

your sorry ass,

and dump you in

the compost heap

with the rest 

of the trash 

you keep company 

with. Then we—

the brave 

and the free— 

will get back 

to the task 

of erasing 

your legacy 

of cruelty, 

besmirching 

your name for 

all history.

You’re rotten

to the bone,

and you will

end alone and

forgotten.

We’ll see to it

you steaming

clumps of...

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Brocken Inaglory

Underwater Refuge (Day 187)

Underwater refuge

Afternoon light filtered by shades

Slow fan ripples the air

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Afternoon Tea, Charles Bittinger, 1912

Spoons (Day 186)

Be careful how you spend them:

Too many in the morning will 

upend your day. Summer’s 

brilliant sunlight will come 

streaming through your 

windows, find you 

where you hide, 

and set your pale skin 

aglow, inside, there in your

bed. Your plans all scattered 

to the wind, because you needed 

rest instead. Once again, you gave 

them all away, far too early In the day.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six 

(The Spoon Theory is a way to describe myalgic encephalomyelitis [ME], fibromyalgia [FMS], multiple sclerosis [MS] and other ‘fatiguing’ [major understatement, there] autoimmune diseases. Read about it here.)

Image: FaceGuard via Pixabay

The Key (Day 180)

The key: Poverty destroys 

sirens, rejects the fluttering,

alluring solutions that 

gyrate, sometimes tediously,

among the more voracious 

fishes in the great freshwater 

aquarium of problem solvers. 

It clips the wings of simple 

answers and do-gooders, and 

blasts Babylonian policymakers

with the furnace breath of

ten thousand dragons, until,

trembling bodaciously, they 

slip backward into plentitude, 

wash the dirt from their hands,

and heave the sanctimonious 

sighs of martyrs and lesser saints.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Amartya Mandal

He Will Take It (Day 178)

You smile and then 

you sulk and then 

you are hungry and then

you resent me and then 

your mood swings 

wild and I 

try to manage this 

and worry 

and think

yes actually it is 

your fault 

i have too much 

right now

now here i am 

in fucking bed again

and what should 

i have been doing

taking care of myself?

and the shame 

i feel is pitch black dark

deep black so 

no one else will see it
then he will take it

then he will lay it out 

on me and

no one else will see it

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Two Lassa With Doctors, 

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Let Them Eat Cake (Day 177)

Subtly, they slice and serve

Each morsel on a china plate,

Never more than they 

               think we deserve.

So disdainful of us,

               yet they’re sealing our fate.

A few voted them in, 

               we all fund their pay—

In most cases a dire mistake.

Now they collect our money 

               and say:

“Our constituents? Let them eat cake!”

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Cake at Madonna Inn (CA), by Daderot

Know Why? (Day 175)

know why 

you cant hear 

me 

when i say i am 

   in pain? 

because

you 

   want me 

in your 

   goddamn business 

i have tumbled

   before 

into your red hot 

   resentment

and found myself 

bruised purple 

by the sharp edges

   of your 

discontent

well that

   believe me

is one fire escape

i will never

   fall down again

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Derek Jensen (Tysto)

Persephone in the Afternoon (Day 172)

I can see Persephone 

waving to me

as we pull our way 

toward the opposite shore. 

The crossing is dark,

barely lit by a spark,

that seems to glow

and grow from the deep.

For a moment, I'm blind,

afternoon light floods in

as I struggle to climb

out of sleep. Then again, 

and a whoosh, as our hull 

scrapes the ground—

with a rush we’ve emerged, 

from the night.

Sudden sunlight bursts free,

Yet, squinting, I see 

a dim, but heartbreaking, 

sight—lovely Persephone,

in a vanishing fog, motioning, 

still waving to me.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: The Return of Persephone, Frederick Leighton, 1891