POETS PLACE
JULY 2021
We can breathe again! Ahhh exhale. We are experiencing what is meant by Freedom. The release from the constraints of wearing masks. The ability to join in and hang out with others. To rejoice in the freedoms that this country has granted us, its sacred promise. The constitution guarantees freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and the right to assemble. “Freedom, generally, is having the ability to act or change without constraint. Something is "free" if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state. In philosophy and religion, it is associated with having free will and being without undue or unjust constraints, or enslavement, and is an idea closely tied with the concept of liberty”. WIKIPEDIA. Liberty and justice for all. Here in America. But not everywhere in the world. There is no free speech in China.
We are lucky to live here and have the freedoms to share our thoughts about anything without the fears of imprisonment. Let us take this opportunity, with the respect of others who do not have those freedoms, to be grateful.
THANK YOU AMERICA! LAND OF THE FREE AND HOME OF THE BRAVE!!!
14
By Linda Kaye
It was the dawning of the age of Aquarius.
The unprincipled life of a baby boomer.
The juxtaposition of right versus wrong was meaningless in the age of promiscuity and the search for love within the context of an unsupervised teen.
Look out!
The blasting hormones of a love child meant the world was pretty much open and free to explore, anything, everything, without guilt or shame.
There was no rage against the machine just a rage against loneliness
The youth left to her own devices could do anything or nothing.
No one was watching.
An inexperienced, sometimes unconscious and omnipotent punk looking for something to fill the void could and was at times a dangerous combination.
The world was wide open. Scary and exciting.
Constraints were nonexistent then, but hey, it was the 60s baby! Free love! Hop on board. Take the ride. It’s a gas man! Just hang loose. Could be a blast! How do we sign up??
Jack up the stereo, roll and smoke a joint. As many as you like. At $10 a lid what could be better!
Unconscious to the political streams of consciousness lost in a sea of the ignorance of youth, too young to care, and no parental guidance, yahoo! Get down!
It was a personal measurement of freedom. Freedom to be you, whoever that was at 14. Freedom to find out.
A liberation from the norms of society since society was that other person’s thing. Its your thing now do what ya wanna do!! A timely mantra sung by the crowds of liberated youth.
To be blessed by the gods of rock ‘n’ roll! Now that's shaking!!
BANNED
June 23, 2021
6:51 a.m.
By Mary Cheung
My roots, my one time home.
I read how you are changing.
Forced to be something you are not.
By something less than democracy.
Dire consequences if you are caught.
Shouldn't, wouldn't, crushed and stomped down by the giant voice of unity.
Can't you see that your individuality is destroying our beautiful purity?
They don't want to see who you are really.
They don't want to hear your voice.
Fall in line and act right.
Be who we want, you really don't have a choice.
BANNED! How can you survive? When you are imprisoned for your thoughts?
It doesn't matter if you have wealth.
Even your freedom can't be bought.
How can you fly, when your wings are cut to the bone?
With razor sharp precision we can remove you,
a practice we have honed.
Your millions won't save you.
Because they'll still make sure you are dead.
Displayed for the world to see,
more effective than a bullet to the head.
Resurrected only by the power of the propaganda,
that it's good to be united under our way of thinking.
Slowly the ship that is democracy goes under....
Any freedom left is rapidly sinking.
And the only choice that is left,
the only life to be had.
Is our way or no way.
Don't worry you'll love it!!
So please don't be sad.
Sold on the bill of the life that you should want.
And if you think any different,
A concrete box awaits you.
A cozy cell where you can join the others,
No one else can save you.
Yes, the sleeping giant has awoken! Ready to deal with a harsh hand.
We'll tell you what you can think and do.
It must all meet our approval if you are to live on our land!
CCP, is our acronym, it's what we'd like to be called.
You no longer have your freedom.
Even though for years you have stalled.
Hong Kong is our bitch now.
No longer under the protection of the UK.
You no longer have a say.
Our, views and opinions are the ones that matter.
We have spoken, this is our way.
Are you willing to sacrifice your freedom, just to be heard?
I can't imagine you giving up your life,
Just so people can hear your word.
So moving forward into our shining new future.
We've set down our roots in your territory.
BANNED! There is no more individual, culture.
Ours... is the only story.
Mary Cheung- she is an innovative Artist and Costume Designer. Her works contain a strong sense of story as well as a highly sensuous style. She mostly works in paint or photography and sometimes making art that is wearable and innovative. She states “I am usually more of a Visual style Artists and have only recently been open to sharing literally art/poems, often paired with visual art of my creation, birthing a new form of spoken word art as another form of expression”.
Grizzly on My Back
By Valerie Larsen
It’s gnawing again. It sneaks up on me. Right when I’m doing something mundane, Or something meaningful,
Or something in- between. Bam! There it is. In my mid- back. A reminder that I’m not free. That more is to come, My body is not my own. Soon, a grizzly’s paws dig in. Unbearable pain sets in. 11 on the scale of 1-10. Pulling my shoulders to my feet, Ripping my insides out with his claws. Agonizing, but I don’t cry out. I refuse to give the bear that satisfaction. A couch! A couch! Where’s a couch? As if no ambulance in sight, I must sometimes stand in pain.
But I won’t give up My life to the couch. So I walk. I exercise. I zoom. I join friends. And always, my pain comes along To remind me I’m not alone.
I go with God who hates pain As much as I do. So I ask to be healed.
But in the meantime, I have come to accept This shrieking inside. “Be gone, you! Leave me alone!” It is an animal I can’t control With pills or shots or exercise Or positive thinking. Sometimes short fixes work: Communal prayer, pills, the couch. I’ll take whatever works.
But the grizzly always grabs me Again and again and again. Yet a mustard seed of hope remains That one day, God will shoot That beast off me for good.
Valerie Larsen is a retired high school English teacher of 37 years teaching in California. She now writes poetry in a writing group in the San Gabriel Valley and spends time working out and volunteering at a house of prayer. She is a recovering alcoholic with 27 years sobriety and she laments, “hold my head high with that acknowledgment. I have had chronic pain, emotional traumas, and addiction as part of my life. I have written all of my life and as an adult, spirituality has intersected with pain in my very personal poetry. It has become a therapy for me as well as an art form”.
The Great Experiment
By Ronald G. Carrillo
Inalienable rights support all lives matter
Especially those denied these God given universal rights
Those famously penned by Mr. Jefferson
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness uphold human dignity
American revolution and its accompanying independence
Kept the institution of slavery alive
Despite the great experiment’s best efforts
Our initial attempts in our declaration of independence
Were self-serving and at best only a lofty ideal
But still it was far reaching not quite peaking
Seeking our best short sighted immature political beliefs
Our nation’s history made certain that this separation of races
Of white rulers and chattel slavery was building the nation’s backbone
Believing black slaves were inferior however created a poison
In the young nation that was to incur serious consequences
And ill side effects for democracy and the great experiment
We are still perfecting this experiment after more than two centuries
Black citizens survivors of a slavocracy system
Black sufferers longing and still awaiting
For the completion of the American dream
These people mostly holding the candle of our constitution
Before the light of its founding principles are blown away
In the red, white and blue winds of hatred
We hold their words sacred still waiting for a true American harvest
Liberty’s manifest developing in the new Jerusalem
In God we trust but would his son have been welcomed in the south
On the cusp of a moral resolution or another revolution
Brothers we must be or mortal enemies to become
We can reach a higher level in this democracy
Stretch ourselves, believe in freedom, seek brotherhood
Realize the dream and re-energize all our people
Politically, morally, humanely retrofit the nation
The great experiment creation maturing or rotting
A half empty or a half full democracy
We are now meeting that fork in our road
Pick a side if not sink in the tar like the dinosaurs
Or soar from the ashes of slavery like a phoenix
Toward a new level playing field
Those who have not had freedom seek it with vigor
Even those amongst us treated the worst
Still believe in America’s best
And freedom’s slow motion delivery
Black civil rights has opened up the doors
For other civil rights movements that the founding fathers left out
Yet still black Americans are denied
Generations of slaves in waves born in this country
Know no other birthplace
Yet our black brothers and sisters persevere in their determination
For full citizenship and full respect
An American renaissance for all its people
Let us pray to realize the great American experiment
Cleanse our sin of slavery
From rebirth and resurrection
Direct our path toward a true humanity and salvation
Amen America rise again and lead the nations in righteousness
Coda: The woman carried a heavy load
She was pregnant with liberty
Her child was raised in privilege
He became wanton with greed and power
He maligned those who built his riches
He exploited his resources beyond their means
He was never satisfied but denied others their happiness
He suffered from gluttony
He injured his destiny and psyche
After many years some of his generations sought redemption
The sins of the fathers are inherited by the sons
The sons can chart their own way
New horizons abandoning the damaged past of our ancestors
And realizing at last the dream of the great experiment
America your best days can still be ahead of you
I see the glass of liberty and justice for all our people
More than half full like a rising bull market
The people now thirst for the waters of your true liberty
Show your mature constitutional identity in this 21st Century
Ronald G. Carrillo is a native Lincoln Hts Angelino, living in Eagle Rock and a retired LAUSD educator and influencer. He writes of his passion and rebirth into the golden age of living. He has been writing since high school and was initially influenced from the songwriters, Keith Reid, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Neil Young.
Oda a Frida
By G. Billie Quijano
This is where the story begins
This is where I stand
This is how I see
I was born in the cosmos
Soy hija de Tonantzin, Coyolxauhqui and Ixchel
Poetry was written as I swam in their swells
I am a prodigy of the revolution
Vibrant colores de Mexico a solution
Colonization and patriarchy has a beginning and an end
It was always a question of when
My Mestizaje sangre washes over and baptizes me
The Indigenous dna was always free
There was a time in my life my life my heart was in fragments, my body broken
That occurrence will not be reduced to token
The sway of my skirts whisper brush strokes that only know truth
And the mirror will not be shattered
My soul will not be battered
My eyebrows furrow the likeness of lust, beauty and pain
This chapter in my life was not to feign
Los ojos de claridad ignites the rhythm of 2 heartbeats, but interrupted
And you left white pulque glistening on my inner thigh uncorrupted
I breathe you in every movement across my palette
I see you in every flor
Many times our words were dipped in war
My feet on the ground, my soul in flight
I am the red that ignites the heart
I an art
This is where the story begins
“Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately it can propel people toward social emancipation”. Angela Davis
G. Billie Quijano
Gracias Angela. My life as an artist has liberated me, my mind, body and soul. Expression is boundless, color eternal. Art ignites movements. We are citizens of the collective consciousness. This month I submitted this poem, Oda a Frida to reflect our mutual monthly birthdays. We share a cosmic connection-East Los to Coyoacan, Mexico. Angela, Frida, Dora Maar,Lola Alvarez Bravo, Sor Juana Ines, sisters, brothers, and yours truly are the faces of freedom.
Thanks for joining us! We will continue to host writers and poets of all genres.
With great hope for a loving and accepting future!
Love,
Linda Kaye
Please submit your written work to:lindakayepoetry@icloud.com and include a short bio.
Linda Kaye writes poetry, curates poetry, produces spoken word and art events and produces a poetry column POETS PLACE for the online publication LAARTNEWS throughout the Los Angeles area.
Linda’s poetry events have included several summer poetry salons, and shows at the Align Gallery, 50/50 Gallery, Gold Haus Gallery, Ave 50 Gallery and Rock Rose Gallery in Highland Park .The Manifesto Café in Hermon, Pilates and Arts studio in Echo Park, and Native Boutique and Zweet Café in Eagle Rock. And at the Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum in Silverlake. Her first short documentary film “BORDER POETS” was a socially and politically inspired event with poets and musicians filmed at the border wall near Tecate, Mexico on the Jacumba, Ca. side of the US. The film co-produced by MUD productions is available for viewing on her website and on youtube. https://youtu.be/5Te4-dlhxco
Her most recent project a rap music video in collaboration with Mary Cheung, “ERACE-ISM” can also be seen on youtube. https://youtu.be/NfrbveNUBgg
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Linda Kaye is a native Angelino who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. She claims to be both a first-generation Valley Girl, and The Original Hipster. Educated at Antioch University and Cal State Long Beach in psychology and social work. Linda, now retired was working for the last seven years as a psychotherapist and licensed clinical supervisor for an out patient mental health clinic. She was a licensed medical social worker for 30+ years working on the front line of healthcare, a private consultant for Physicians Aid Association and for skilled nursing facilities throughout California and Arizona. She was also an adjunct assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
www.lindakayepoetry.com
Twitter/Instagram: lindakayepoetry
www.laartnews.com
