Tag Archives: unfair immigration policy

The Fallen

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The OctPoWriMo prompt today, in addition to the first two words in the list below, is to devise a new poetic form. The form I’ve created is one of dual rhyme. The first part of each line must consist of two rhymed halves. In addition, the last word in each line must rhyme with all the ending words of each line in the poem.  I hereby declare the name of this new poetic form to be “The Forced Rhyme Two-Step.”
Word prompts today are stretch, disorder, topple, allegation, forest, awe.

 

The Fallen

Though the forest is my florist, it is locked in hibernation.
It’s my belief there is no leaf throughout the whole damn nation.
There’s no pollen. Leaves have fallen, and a further allegation
is an order that the border be locked up in litigation
lest the thieves of the leaves are a foreign delegation.
Word of mouth? They’ve fled south, so we’ll need a stronger station
to stop theft of what’s left of next year’s reforestation.
Yet the disorder at our border is a cause for jubilation.
Those not in awe of the law find it cause for much elation,
for the bloke is a joke who stirred up the population
when it’s galling that the falling is just due to maturation!
It’s a stretch, but the wretch who’s in need of education
is the chump, name of Trump, who’s in need of a vacation.
Fare thee well, POTUS from Hell, for we feel no reservation.
Your ablution’s the solution to our country’s renovation!!
“Vote him out!!” we all shout. End four years of reprobation!!
And when he topples, we’ll hear Koppel’s sincere felicitations.

 

 

Suspicious Coloring

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                          Suspicious Coloring

If those of foreign ethnicity around our sacred nation
are being questioned over their passport identification,
are others far more grandiose being questioned, too?
Are those of nordic extraction locked up in a human zoo?
If chain migration must end now, will the extraction rope
extend around the family of our grand misanthrope?
Or is there exemption for folks of wide renown?
Are these rules only extended over people who are brown?

https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/405017-with-trump-administrations-denial-of-passports-to-latinos-in-south-texas

Prompts today are nation, ethnicity, identify, grandiose and rope

The Church of Zeke

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jdb photo

The Church of Zeke

Zeke was a very handsome man, well-schooled in vendition,
yet some said his lifestyle had him headed for perdition.
When others went to church, he said he preferred to go fishin’,
He couldn’t stand the piety or the erudition.

He wasn’t their sort of spiritual. When they made a tape
of the preacher’s sermon, he made a grand escape.
Even taped religion to him was not a treat.
When told to go down on his knees, he remained on his feet.

When grilled on his decision, he’d been known to just repeat
that when he kicked the bucket, he’d rather face the heat
than listen to those preacher boys with their great oration
the subject of which, without fail, was his own damnation.

He fed the poor. He did not judge men by their lifestyle or their race.
What he said to others he repeated to your face.
Helpful to his neighbors and faithful to his wife,
he did no ill to others for his entire life.

All of his religion was garnered by his doing—
his piety in action—not in listening or viewing.
And when he faced the pearly gates, they welcomed him right in.
It seems the key to heaven is not talking about sin,

but how you treat the needy and your actions toward others.
Do you accept all people as sisters and as brothers
no matter what their skin color or sexual decision?
Do you face even “different” folks without scorn or derision?

Picking up a prayer book and sitting in a pew
is not retribution for what you say and do.
What you state in piety, others are out doing—
preferring to dish out the fat that you are only chewing!!

They carved on his tombstone what his whole life he’d been saying.
“What others only talked about in sermons and in praying,
he put to practice in his life by not judging his brother
 and not letting his actions be dictated by another!”

 

photo of fisherman by Chris Sarsgard on Unsplash. Used with permissionjdb photo


Not an indictment against religion by any means. Just a reply to those who claim piety but seem not to understand the words they read and preach by putting them into action.

“Actions speak louder than words.”

“Suffer the little children to come on to me.”

. . . . Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have. Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

James 2;1-4 KJV:  My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel,and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?

Then Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. And the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I do not know!” he answered. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” “What have you done?” replied the LORD. “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.

Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you. shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

And, my friend Christine Goodnough, after reading this piece, added this scripture:
“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Micah 6:8

Prompt words today are spiritual, tape, handsome, vendition and treat.

Peculiar Little Habits

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Peek at the keys spread out on the floor.

Peculiar Little Habits

Peculiar little habits and peculiar little ways
help us pass away the hours and wile away the days.
When you enter in the door, close it exactly twice
to be sure the catch secures as solid as a vice.
Always check the doorknobs before you go to bed
to be sure the deadbolt  is completely dead.
Security is something that can’t be left to chance.
You must man the battlements and take a vigilant stance.
Do not invite strangers to wander through your home.
Give foreign folks and foreign thoughts no further place to roam. 

Seal your borders. Block people who
may be a different color from you.
Be sure that you have set a ban
on each thing unAmerican.
Burn our silks. Wipe out baklava.
While you’re at it, ban our Java.
Set up a refreshment jury
to vote on food like Indian curry.
Wienerschnitzel’s got to go.
Ban sushi. Nix gado gado.

Chocolate should be exorcised.
Ban music that’s unauthorized.
Raga, salsa and jungle beat
are rhythms we should not repeat.
America for Americans
is how we have arranged our plans.
Blood tests mandatory for sure
to make sure our blood is pure.
Send all the dark skins we have banned
to places not so tightly planned:

Prince Edward Island or Mexico
are places they’ll be forced to go—
places less pristine and picky
content to take folks slightly icky,
not perfect folks like you and me,
immaculate in our ancestry.
With endearing little habits, peculiar little ways,
we’ll wile away our hours and wile away our days
waiting for those foreign folks on whom we need to pounce,
doling out our safety by the pound, not by the ounce.

Picking fights with neighbors, casting insults at Korea,
twittering and ranting in a verbal diarrhea.
As it is above, so has it become below—
Trying to regress from what was once the status quo.
Truth becoming what we make it, in spite of evidence—
reinventing science by divine providence
Though we cannot lock out hurricanes or fires caused  by our blindness,
we have power to lock out sanity, ecology and kindness.
We’ll check our country’s doorknobs before we go to bed
and insure that all the deadbolts are completely dead.

 

The prompt word today is peculiar.

Label Machine

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Label Machine

Pure rayon or crepe de chine?
Trust the labelling machine.
It for sure will have it right
and easily can solve your plight
when you have that puzzling quandary
over what to call your laundry.
It’s easy.  You are simply able
to look inside and read the label.

With people, it is not the same.
Labelling may unfairly blame
someone of a certain hue
for something they would never do.
You may as well class cleft of chin
as a mark of sloth or sin
as to choose one’s place of birth
as a determiner of their worth.

It’s clear we’ve failed our populace
when we see how many of us
trust bigotry and generalization
to determine policies of  nation.
“Give us your tired and your poor”
has been swept right out the door.
The symbol of what’s free and fair
now stands forlorn with empty stare.

Behold: the Statue of Liberty—
a symbol of hypocrisy.

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The prompt today was label, one of those maddeningly short and simple words in the English language that I have had to repeatedly look up to make sure I’ve spelled it correctly.  “Lable” just looks right to me!!!!