Permission to Write a BOOK

i sit at the coffee shop
in small town Maine
my wife delivers mail
while i sit and sip and write

i hope something will come of this
in a world that has no place for
me or what i write. i hope
that after sixty years of trying
someone might publish this
memoir of a post WWII girl

awake and reaming of
the freedom that being
moved to South America
during my third year
of school will touch
chords and sing songs
to many readers yes i
write because i have no choice
but books are a bit different
requiring re-writes out the ying yang
endless returns and a patience
i have never developed and
yet give me a book to write
and my world organizes
makes sense and holds my
attention sometimes for
more than years and sits
like a guardian of my soul
letting me know value and
how in some way a divine
spark rests under my left
breast bone waiting to
ignite a new fire that
has nothing to do with
earning a living
a task so difficult for
me that I have worked
a hundred jobs and lived
a dozen lives dancing
on the edge of culture
for the simple privilege
of being allowed to write
a book.

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Post Bern Silence

i ran headfirst into the fray
not since Dennis Kucinich
had i heard anything presidentially
political to believe in

now in another aftermath the temptation
is for bitter depression to see
the world ruled by the few
i am a protest poet to the core

i will not be silent or stand down
but neither will i stand and rant
or take a side like power over does
i’m a world citizen no a particular patriot

lived too long in too many places to be
a blind follower my voice has not yet
changed the world and still i point a lot
and cry out for justice do not hold my tongue

a foolish act this closing of the mouth and word
and yet sometimes silence is so much more powerful
than words and so i end this discourse in
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