Humanity | pictured words

AT RISK OF INCONVENIENCE

When is the time to
ask, “From what are you fleeing?”
to decipher which
response sits well with
your belief system of what
is acceptable?

A conventional
distance between bombs fallen,
and their child’s bedroom?

Number of women
kidnapped for sexual gain?
Number of children?

The amount of food
unavailable to feed
themselves? Their children?

Are there adequate
words to set your mind at ease
that this person’s plight’s
perilous enough
to justify leaving home,
setting themselves at
risk in different ways
than what they feel forced to leave –
forced to escape – now?

To make certain their
endangerment matches your
own definition?

And when, in your thoughts,
is it acceptable to
bomb a hospital?

Perhaps when evil
lurks beneath? Then, innocents
are expendable?

What gives you enough
luxury of ease of mind
to give your thumbs up?

© Marie Elena Good 2024

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April 21, 2024

HUMANITY, ECLIPSED

A Syrian friend
flees the supper table with
her whole family

leaving home-cooked meal
to decay in silence, as
bombs scream her story.

While bombs shake her house
in Ukraine, a sweet young child
runs out the front door,

glares at a gutless
foe, shakes her fist, and bellows,
“You cannot scare me!”

A gentle woman
from Afghanistan stumbles
as she tries to bolt

away from the bombs
in her path. She breaks her nose.
But her lungs still breathe.

More friends from Ukraine
had no light, no heat for months.
This, in my friend’s words:

“Life is divided
into before and after
war came to our house.”

In shadows, evil
slinks across the globe beneath
our sentinel moon.

© Marie Elena Good, 2024

These are just a few of the stories of war-weary refugee friends of mine. These few don’t express but an infinitesimal spec of the havoc war wreaked on our planet in the time it took me to pen this poem. What we humans are willing to do to fellow humans is unspeakably horrific.

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November 1, 2022

“Asking for a friend.”

WD November Chapbook Challenge. Day 1. Write a beginning poem, or an ending poem

“Asking for a friend”

Dear fellow persons,
When did handwritten letters
become an art form?

Birthday greetings change
from carefully picked cards, to
instant facebook posts?

Did spelling our words
become an imposition
on us? idk.

When did we mutate
from people people, to mere
convenience junkies?

Have we managed to
make effortlessness a god
of our own doing?

A god that will bring
us to our knees when we see
it filched our intents

made us its robots
robbed us of our humanness
made us drop our

love.

© Marie Elena Good, 2022

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June 14, 2020

UNTITLED

OIP

“They call me Mr. Tibbs.” ~ Virgil Tibbs, In the Heat of the Night

It’s 1967. I’m 9 years old. My dad is explaining the gist of a movie I am not allowed to see. I don’t want to see the movie. More than that, I don’t want to see the nightly news.

It’s 2020. My granddaughter is 9 years old. As in ’67, I don’t want to see the news. Yet, there is a difference in the images this time: Many protesters and police officers are wearing masks, attempting to protect those they see, from a virus they can’t.

The Long Hot Summer
of Nineteen Sixty Seven
begs us take a knee.

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June 7, 2020

2020 VISION

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

In my imagination,
I see the eyes of a nation
opening
focusing
noticing
seeing each human being,
and agreeing their wellbeing
gives meaning to our own
as we bemoan our past
and hold steadfast
to our bloodstream’s dreams
of fairness for all
that made landfall
in 2020 –
not for the goal of the many,
but the whole of humanity.

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May 31, 2020

voice

Image courtesy of Pixabay

in need to be heard,
he sings. flies. calls. cries. songbird –
winged and otherwise.

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April 19, 2020

STAY-AT-HOME SUNDAY MORNING CONFESSIONS

Photo by Anemone 123 at Pixabay

She’s become a permanent fixture
in her own home. Comfortable and cozy.
Not lonely, and
determined that nobody else will be either.
But there is a bump in her road, and
a chink in her resolve.
A chasm, built of laziness
she has come to embrace.
Isn’t idleness inherent
in permanent fixtures?
Deep inside her is a plea she turns a deaf ear to:
the low howl of the lonely.
And she wonders why she writes her poem
in third person.

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April 7, 2020

PLACED IN A TIME SUCH AS THIS

Ohio Department of Health Director, Dr. Amy Acton (thankful for her)

I don’t believe in fluke of fate.
No, we were slated for this time.
But as we climb this curve
we work to flatten as ordered
to slacken this attack,
I am looking forward
to looking back.

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March 15, 2020

RELATIONSHIP

This is an age of unbroken connection.
Our fingertips tap into instant links.
We’ve little tolerance for imperfection,
And as our ego grows, our goodwill shrinks.

And in this age of unbroken connection,
Our face-to-face relationships have waned.
Resulting loss of physical affection
May render us emotionally maimed.

Now suddenly a time of social distance
Is thrust upon us necessarily.
Most look for ways to be of some assistance,
And find these ways, extraordinarily.

I’m thankful in this time of social distance
For God, who binds my drifting heart to His.
Our Father God pursues us with persistence.
Be still, and let Him show you who He is.

Quick note: My last three lines include words and truths from scripture, and from a long-loved hymn, as follows:

“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” by Robert Robinson includes the phrase of prayer, “Bind my wandering heart to thee.”

The Bible overflows with God’s pursuit of us, including Psalm 139.

Psalm 46:10 tells us, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

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January 14, 2020

ARMED TO THE TEETH

Image courtesy of Pixabay’s ThePixelman

My stomach is tied up in knots.
I wonder who’s calling the shots.
And will they admit
when the bullet gets bit
even they had their own second thoughts?

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pictured words

Tag: Humanity

October 13, 2024

At Risk of Inconvenience

April 21, 2024

HUMANITY, ECLIPSED

November 1, 2022

“Asking for a friend.”

June 14, 2020

UNTITLED

June 7, 2020

2020 VISION

May 31, 2020

voice

January 14, 2020

ARMED TO THE TEETH