Slice of Life – Protest and Open Write Poems for February

17 February 2025 TwoWritingTeachers.org

Today there were Not My President Day protests all over the country, especially in state capitals. I have hesitated to say “not my president” because on some level I know we have elected a felon for president in this county, but we have not elected the acting president, Elon Musk. For that reason, Not My President Day was a perfect name for the protest. I went with my sister, her granddaughter, and a friend to a protest in Palm Springs, California.

I hope we can continue to #BuildTheResistance and have each protest grow in power and numbers. Read more about 50 protests in 50 states on one day at #50501Movement. There is no way we should find ourselves watching while our democracy is in such great peril.

 

Poetry is a good way to protest, as well. Here are some poems from this month’s Open Write.

February 15, 2025 “Show Your Love” with Donnetta Norris

It’s Black History Month and
here we are in america
aiming to forget all that was,
so our future will be born
ignorant and closer to where
our white ancestors made war,
nurturing the rot that became
our unfolding. No justice, no peace.
Today we rename and
amplify past genocide
and call it patriotism.


Striking line by Nikki Giovanni in “The Great Pax Whitie” “And america was born / Where war became peace / And genocide patriotism”


February 16, 2025 “Hope Lies Within” by Stacey Joy

truth
unarmed–
believe it–
truth unarmed and
unconditioned love
will have the final word.
truth and love stronger than fear.
Yes, in reality, hope will
have the final word. Right stalled today
is stronger than evil’s triumphant gain.


MLK Nobel Prize speech “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”


February 17, 2025 “Healing Hurts” with Britt Decker

A lifetime of sisterhood,
so fragile now in old age
with your inimical, hateful beliefs.

Do you also find my beliefs to be
destructive? Hmm…

Not to the planet,
not to the poor,
not to the cold,
the hungry,
the oppressed,
the marginalized.

Perhaps you are worried
my beliefs will lead to the
destruction of my
chance for eternal reward.

I think I’ll take my chances.


February 18, 2025, “Inhabiting Life More Fully” with Amber

Patriotism
shines through warriors under
Mother’s spacious sky

February 19, 2025 “Characters We Love” with Seana Hurd Wright

Brave and bold
Tenacious and honest
Uncompromisingly courageous
Humble and intelligent
I wish more people were
like Louis the Swan

#Verselove 2024 – A Week of Poetry 2

8. Zip Code Poem Memoir with Mo Dailey 

Suburban Los Angeles is home
🏡
I never thought I would move
and have
another

I was twenty-two when I moved in

with a friend. Today we live

in wonder across miles

I married you
and for the first time I live in snow–
well, in a house,
an old
frigid one

Iowa farming!
no
🚜
not us, but my
class

One baby and
another on the way our first home
with a yard and
swing
and cuddles, lullabies, and play

girls started school in the desert
Saguaros and heat
home for us
🏊🏼‍♀️
they hoped to never leave

Fourteen years later
back
¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯
in Iowa
home

Bahrain didn’t have zip codes, but
One interesting thing is we could get
delivered to church, school, or hospital with just BOX
and Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain

Our retirement home is small and good
two of us
fit just
so, except we can make room for
much company

9. True or False List Poem with Denise Krebs

By Denise Krebs
After Dean Young

  1. I am much younger inside than I appear.
  2. Jury duty is for the birds.
  3. Ishmael is also a son of Abraham.
  4. Guns have no constructive purpose.
  5. The enemy has damaged everything in the sanctuary.
  6. The day you eat it your eyes will be open.
  7. I don’t need a reason.
  8. There is chaos in spilled milk.
  9. You can have too much storage space.
  10. That tiny silver sliver in the sky is still full.
  11. The computer in my pocket rules the day.
  12. Dean Young was an ordinary poet.

read more here

10. Celebration of Yourself in All its Complexities with Joanne Emery

My Life: A Word Want

My life was a word want
It ate, it slept, it haunted
the lexicon and mined for more
It modified its field of study
often always stirring
up another
term
concept
expression
It laughed, it cried, it blurred
the dictionary page to raise its
own little words, like fiff and yit
and whimsical wistful walloping
words of wonder
words of life
Word of Life bringing it light
It wondered, it inferred, it spurred
action in its persistent pupil
My life was a word want

11. Surprising Supplies with Amber

Entrusted Earth Dust

Earth has been entrusted to humans,
But we have neglected our vocation
For the heavy and habitual lust of the
“Ever-expanding consumption of goods”1

Entrusted Earth Dust
can help restore you to your original
anti-consumerism commitment
Curb your buyological urge
with this extraordinary powder
Just sprinkle lightly
On your prefrontal cortex
To ease the addiction
And restore
executive functioning

Made with 100% crushed Amazon returns
Digital delivery sent through WiFi
(No fossil-fuel-guzzling delivery trucks needed)
Cost: absolutely free

Our Mother will thank you


1https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/consumerism

12. An Ode to the Unworthy with Jordan

Ode to the Gravel Truck
You rumble and roar
You don’t give way
to the concrete or asphalt underneath
your dozen rock-hard wheels
You bounce
You heave
You fight back
against the barriers
barummphing to a grinding
halt at red lights
You boom brave and bellicose
with uncovered load
as you roar down the highway
sand and pebbles glitter the way behind you
reminding us that terra firma is anything but
You are the great bearer
of these tiny bits of Earth
in various sizes–
pinheads and pills
bullets and BB’s
gravelly pebbles–
each spilled bit
does your bidding
bouncing behind in your wake
O, Rock Chipper, you have
earned my husband’s
nickname this time–
chipping our windshield

13. The Brain Dump with Barb Edler

Peacock
Featherful eyes fanned out to taunt the world
Staring out at all to flaunt his dominance
Blue-black piercing pupils dot his display
in magic irises of unimaginable iridescence–
meridianroyalcobaltgreenturquoise
Sclera of warm coppery sunshine

His whirled wardrobe
a quiver waving and weaving

Then the early morning
cacophony of peacock’s
screaming shrieking
laughing hahahas
tell us to go home

but we say no,
which is to say
we may look like
weak, scared girls
but we’re not
letting you win

14. If Ever There were a Spring Day so Perfect with Margaret Simon

For Sarah

If you want to be a witness to flourishing,
You are in the right arroyo. Never in
Want of observers, these creatures, down
To their temporal roots in the rock,
Know this once-in-a-lifetime bloom of
Hope is for themselves, and yet
As they share with the animals, the sky,
The sand, and us, we breathe in their life. The
Deepest desire in this moment is to know this
Thing before me. To say thank you. To attend.
Yes, to witness this contribution to creation.
I too have temporal roots, and I
Want this life of hope to always be about
That—thanking, attending, witnessing.

Nolina

April 28 #Verselove – Come, Join My Reality

Come Join My Reality with Amber, April 28, 2024

Aging
Barreling through time the steam engine
roars down the track with hope and a
future–the baby, child, teen
never (adult now and
again) thinking
that the track
will soon
end

 

Control

Snap the whip

Grasp the grip

Plug the ear

Do not hear

Break the mood

Feel screwed

Ban the book

Before a look

Don’t lose control