pictured words

a simple pairing of pictures and poetry

Tag: Love one another

October 28, 2025

LET’S BE OPEN

Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels.com

LET’S BE OPEN

Well, while our government remains shut down
and citizens debate who is at fault
and billionaires don’t lose one grain of ground,
*SNAP benefits are coming to a halt. 

Our churches, mosques, and temples work to fill
the need our government’s left in its wake.
We’ll all step up to compensate — but still,
where will we find resources it will take?

We’ll find it in abundance we consume.
We’ll find the here and there that we can spare.
We’ll set our table, and we’ll make more room.
And even those themselves in need will share.

While left and right debate who is at fault,
the poor among us feel the full assault. 

© Marie Elena Good 2025

*Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

“For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.” ~ Jesus of Nazareth



 







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April 12, 2025

Untitled angst


If not for nations
coming to my own doorstep,
I’d never know them.

I’d never have seen
they’re here to feed me the food
that comforts their souls.

I’d never have seen
they’re here to make my home both
strong and welcoming.

They’re here to make us
kinder. Gentler.  Here to make
their own lives better,

but also the lives
of all those who welcomed them,
and those who didn’t. 

I want to save them
from the strangling hands of this
administration.

If not for Donald,
would Vance, Rubio, Musk, Noem,
and all the others

be so emboldened
to heartless vindictiveness
and mercilessness? 

If not for clear signs
from history (you know which),
one might never know.

© Marie Elena Good 2025

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October 13, 2024

At Risk of Inconvenience

Photo by NEOSiAM 2024+ on Pexels.com

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

CHURCH

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

CHURCH

Brick and mortar
house far too many walls,

as though Jesus
never came.

#seventeensyllablesfortwentyseventeen

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May 4, 2023

Prayer for my country, on this National Day of Prayer

Photo by Filippo Bergamaschi on Pexels.com

This may be sung to America the Beautiful.

O Father, mold my country’s heart
to seek love’s endless length.
Let all our public servants speak
with honor, truth, and strength.
And gift us with Your favor, Lord,
which we can never earn.
God grant my country
health and peace,
and for You, let her yearn. 

O Father, hold my country’s feet
fast to a path of grace.
Let all within her borders seek
to welcome and embrace
our neighbors from around the world,
and see them as Your own
that none should hold
a hungry child,
and none should walk alone.

© Marie Elena Good, 2023

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November 1, 2022

“Asking for a friend.”

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

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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January 9, 2022

FIRST, DO NO HARM

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com
I’m itchin’ to upgrade, and pitchin’ a fit.
For now, I’m afraid, I have zilch to submit.
While someone is flippin’ through pages of verse,
I want my name there before I’m in a hearse.
It’s paltry and petty, this dream I’ve unfurled. 
But?
Improvin’ at versin’ can’t worsen the world.

© Marie Elena Good, 2022
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May 30, 2021

BENEATH THE MOON OF GOD’S CHOOSING

Photo by Keith R. Good

In the midst of war
(and there is always a war)
lies grim misjudging.
Fear of difference.
Insatiable greed for land.
Resolute loathing.
Dire false impressions.
Grave miscommunications.

And a common moon.

And beneath that moon,
in God’s perfect alignment,
is home to us all.
We’ve food and water
(if only we’d gladly share),
great plains and mountains,
celebrated seas
with unfathomably large
communal mammals.
With microscopic
yet astoundingly complex
sentient beings.
Sands God has numbered
stay in place as our home spins,
not spilling a drop
of the vast waters
that both adorn and provide,
beautify and quench.

And though we do not
tend to her needs (let alone
the needs of “others”),
God gave us this home
brilliantly placed beneath the
moon of His choosing,
populated with
children He chooses to love.
(There are no “others.”}

© Marie Elena Good, 2021

#5-7-5

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April 12, 2021

“RACE CARD”

Photo by fotografierende on Pexels.com

We need new mantras –
new voices of conviction.
We are not playing.

© Marie Elena Good, 2021

In response to Robert Lee Brewer’s 2021 April PAD Challenge: Day 12 – Writer’s Digest  (Day 12: 6-word poem [were given 6 words from which to choose at least 3 to include in the poem])

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April 1, 2021

NO STRANGER, THIS

Image by Jan Steiner from Pixabay

He asked for water.
We’d never seen each other,
and we were alone:

He (a Jewish man)
and Samaritan-woman-
me, knowing my place.

Finding it a bit
amusing, I asked Him why
He asked this of me. 

He spoke in riddle,
“If you knew who was asking,
you’d have asked of Him,

and He’d have given
the gift of living water.”
Then He spoke again

and everything
there is to know about me,
He already knew.

I wasn’t disturbed.
There was nothing unsettling
in His countenance.

There was not a doubt
the gift He offered me was
His for the giving.

I drew His water.
But He? He quenched a thirst I
never knew I had.

© Marie Elena Good, 2021

In response to Robert Lee Brewer’s 2021 April Poem-a-Day Challenge at Poetic Asides (Day 1: Write an introduction poem).

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