Let Me Get This Straight

Republicans want to 1.) Not Feed the Children 2.) Let people sit in the dark without access to the very airwaves that belong to them and 3.) Give money back to rich people. Oh so so so very typical!

Today is National Pro-Choice Day. Happy Pro-Choice Day!

I do believe that corporate media is the biggest purveyor of cynicism in the world.

Inaugural Address

I Want to Post These Poems Here and Study Them

ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: “Praise Song for the Day.”


Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.


All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.


Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.


Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.


A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.


We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.


We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.


I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.


Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,


picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.


Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.


Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?


Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.


In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,


praise song for walking forward in that light.



ALICE WALKER: A poem honoring the people who don’t believe this is happening. I wanted to write a poem for the people who are still saying, “Oh, no, this can’t happen,” you know, because all along the line of this struggle to get Barack Obama to the White House, people feared that something awful would happen to him, and so many people hold so many angers and pains that they just can’t believe today. So this is a poem for the people who basically don’t believe that it’s happening. It’s called “The World Has Changed.”


The World Has Changed:
Wake up & smell
The possibility.
The world
Has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your prayers
Without
Your faith
Without
Your determination
To
Believe
In liberation
&
Kindness;
Without
Your
Dancing
Through the years
That
Had
No
Beat.
The world has changed:
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Numbers
Your
Fierce
Love
Of self
&
Cosmos
It did not
Change
Without
Your
Strength.
The world has
Changed:
Wake up!
Give yourself
The gift
Of a new
Day.
The world has changed:
This does not mean that
You were never
Hurt.
The world
Has changed:
Rise!
Yes
&
Shine!
Resist the siren
Call
Of
Disbelief.
The world has changed:
Don’t let
Yourself
Remain
Asleep
To
It.

Poem I Wrote

The way we were in West Lafayette, Indiana
Barbra Streisand amidst conformity and corn
they shoot horses don't they rising out of
the bathrooms in the Union
Creativty rising throgh the cracks in the concrete
Touching the slender thread threatens to pull apart
the very fabric that holds it together
The citygo bus rounds the corner towards the mall

I very much like Peggy Noonan.

Welcome President and Mrs. Obama!

I love the Isabel Toledo!

Today was also for Queen Liliuokalani. She can now reclaim her island.

My Lord What A Morning-Marion Anderson

I knew Obama was going to win when Stevie Wonder wrote that song for him. Always works

You can play the game and you can act out the part
Though you know it wasnt written for you
But tell me, how can you stand there with your broken heart
Ashamed of playing the fool
One thing can lead to another; it doesnt take any sacrifice
Oh, father and mother, sister and brother
If it feels nice, dont think twice

Just shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna work out fine if you only will
Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way you feel
Things are gonna be much better if you only will

You can run but you cannot hide
This is widely known
And what you plan to do with your foolish pride
When youre all by yourself alone
Once you tell somebody the way that you feel
You can feel it beginning to ease
I think its true what they say about the squeaky wheel
Always getting the grease.

Better to shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna be just fine if you only will
Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna be much better if you only will

Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel

Youll feel better right away
Dont take much to do
Sell you pride
They say in every life
They say the rain must fall
Just like pouring rain
Make it rain
Make it rain
Love, love, love is sunshine.
Oh yes
Make it rain
Love, love, love is sunshine
Yeah, all right
Everybody, everybody
Shower the people you love with love