Posts for June 20, 2025 (page 6)

Saltana the Singer in Porto, Portugal
by Marianne Peel  

They can’t help moving their feet
to his music. A microphone
and a reverb machine
and there is magic in motion.
Obrigando. Thank you.
A child puts his ear to the speaker.
A woman in a wheelchair
spins circles around the singing man.
They are an orchestra
of belonging, here on the sun-slick pavement.
Everyone in this water-side restaurant
lifts their glass of Porto wine.
Applause rattles the limestone cobblestones.
No one can keep from singing.
Leonard Cohen’s Halleluiah
in Portuguese. Communication
across oceans, across where the river bends.
A man wearing a fedora asks me,
Where are you from?
I raise my glass and say:
Here.  I am from here.  

Upon Being Released from the Amber:

What colors
Yellow
Like a highlighter
Glow
Like a lightning bug

Or  
Glow stick
Blue, pink, green
Species at the deepest depths of the sea 
They are magical and create
Underwater rainbows

Blink and glow
Hundreds of meters below
Do they know how beautiful they are
Do they know the light inside their bodies
Blink on and off
Like a Neon sign

Do they blink to attract
Do they blink to defend
Or do they blink to show off
An electric light battle

Who would know who wins
 

Raise the Ones

Raise the ones who rise
to claim their name,
their birthright essence,
their own divine flame.

Raise the ones who embrace
the truth of who they are.
No more shrinking.
No more shadows.
Our divinity no longer hides.

The door is open.
The wellspring breathes.
The trees are beaming
with ancient knowing.

Raise the ones
who will claim the flame
warriors and wise ones,
peaceful protectors,
loud-mouthed witches
who stitch wounds
and banish parasites with fire in their tongues.

Raise the ones
who rise to remember
their name,
their essence,
their sacred flame.

As I sit here devouring my toasted, croissant, turkey sandwich;
sipping on a Homie coke, savoring each bit of my raspberry scone,
and contemplating life with each potato chip bite:
an epiphany startles me from the pursuit of my pleasant palatability.
I am fat: love handles on the sides, stretch marks rubberbanding my waist,
cake so large you could see it amongst the cosmos, side profile not as appealing
as the front face view.
Yet, Whitman once said “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
A metaphorical sentiment, but literal perception exposing something profound:
that as much as we nourish the soul; the body must eat to survive
and not every vessel is built up of the same star stuff,
shining and shaping in different forms
as God took the clay of Earth and formed Adam;
humanity given short lives to find joys even in the act of digestion.
I am fat, and that is beautiful.

Sweet summer touch my skin~~~ kiss my breast gentle
like a child hold me to you until I can no longer breath
For it is you
Sweet Summer that I’ve longed for
in the last shadow of the Spring
I see you quiver~~~~
Sweet Summer

Open up the branches
and let the light shine through,
speckled leaves in the wind.

When a branch shifts in the breeze
and the wind caresses each flower,
don’t panic.

The roots are growing deeper
as we speak, longer, reaching further,
just like the tree next to it. 

Nearby, strong and tall.
Close by, short and wavering.

Don’t be scared
when the leaves fall and
the soil washes away.

It will all come back,
even if not the same. 

It’s pixels, miniscule dots of light 
emitting color to transfix your eyes 
and vex your thoracic cavity. 

It’s a mirage, a brilliant lake 
in a desert of desolation, blurred
lines of reality shimmering. 

Please, close your eyes. 
Take the light and the lines
inside the blackness behind 
your lids. Let them fade. 

Please, close your mind. 
Take the longing intensity 
into the hollowness of 
your heart. Let it calm. 

When shapes press into 
your darkness and you feel
the rattling of oxygenation, 
breathe deeply. Take in air. 

Know your hope is time, 
and your path, onward. 
Your salvation is breath. 

In February, clouds—huge charcoal
smudges—perched on pale grey sheet
of sky & would not leave.  They pointed
to a horizon I did not believe in. How
to sail to a better place I could not see?  

Fires crackled inside, but land shivered
in barely-green grass as it met complacent
waters, unconcerned about brittle river birch
doubling over in wind & the small houses,
mere boxes, even the one that pealed a dirge.  

With such an expanse overhead—mottled, soiled,
dirty graphite on tarnished silver, shapes of vague
arrows, bottoms like rough wood shards, edges
as random as the universe—how can a head
not be bowed under shroud-thoughts?  

April rolled in, displaced winter sky with
its rain, softened earth, greened blades,
darkened bark of pine & hickory, then
peeled back firmament’s flotsam & threw
flashes of light on earth & wave.  

Now June waltzes in to the tune of cardinal
& bullfrog on a dance floor with an
embarrassment of blooms—coral bell
& coneflower & lavender gushing from
warm roots & topped with purring bees.  

How could I not foresee a sky of solid
cerulean, an ocean under which I
could soar, drink storms, skim
puddles, savor sun-&-shade
filigree on ground, navigate
a soft drift to a rose-gold
horizon, morning-wide?

                                        “It’s easier to fool people
                                        than to convince them that
                                            they have been fooled.”
                                                                                      -Mark Twain-

Her name is Karen.
So now ignorance leads,
as we cling to the lie—
that a name is a punchline
A slur for the smug.
A lazy label
used by the “tolerant”
to mock the mom
who speaks too loudly,
or the woman
who dares to ask questions.

How brave of you.
To preach against stereotypes
while crafting your own.
Cancelling comedians
but applauding your friend
for calling someone a “racist”
only because she asked for a receipt.

Is this the justice
you keep hashtagging about?
Where judgment is noble
as long as the target
checks the right boxes?
Where prejudice is progress,
when it’s dressed
in your flavor of outrage?

You call it commentary.
I call it cowardice—
mockery masked
with a smug grin
and no spine to own it.

If we’re really building
a society where people
are judged by character—
not color, not gender,
not age, not names—
then let’s be consistent.

Don’t quote Martin Luther King Jr.
in your Instagram bio
while ignoring his dream
in your conversations.
Quit excusing cruelty
just because it fits your feed.

Every “Karen”
is still a human being—
some of them great moms,
kind neighbors,
hardworking professionals
who don’t deserve
your viral venom.

A name doesn’t define someone.
Your actions do.

So grow up.
Be better.
Or stop pretending
you ever cared
about justice
to begin with.