Roll Call (Sound Off)

Not even a week past Independence Day and just look at the wake of violence, of murder, of hate!

We are born to die,
but first we are actually supposed to live:

Infants and elderly, parents and children,
travellers and home-bound, scientists and wildlife,
students and teachers, shoppers and merchants,
performers and attendees, players and workers,
police force, and fire-fighters, judges and juries,
homeless and wealthy, fortunate and needy,
doctors and nurses, flight attendants and pilots,
civilians and military, first responders and injured.

Black, white, red, brown or yellow, mixed race or ‘pure’,
native or ex-pat, indigenous or migrant,
Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Agnostic, Pagan, Pantheist or Jew
all deserve to live in safety before their ultimate finish.

No one anywhere should have the right to determine when and how another ends.

We may be born to die, but we have taught ourselves to usurp Death’s purview.

This has got to end before we retrogress and guarantee Humanity’s untimely End!

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

© 8 July 2016

No Satisfaction...

(With thanks to Keith Richards and Sir Michael Jagger)

I can’t anymore:

Can’t think

Can’t cope

Can’t act

Can’t hope

Can’t fantasise

I wish I could lose the ability to dream:

Can’t rest

Can’t heal

Almost awake

Unceasingly just feel

Always on the edge of achievement

I want to stop waiting:

Waiting for calm

Waiting for ease

Waiting for order

Waiting for peace

Waiting to actually live and not subsist

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

© 23 June 2016

Animus

“Momma always said that hate was a strong, strong word."

"Poppa always said that words of hate should not be used.”

(With thanks to Tyrone Wells)

I am so tired of hatred.

I am exhausted by name calling, shit slinging, vein emptying, sabre rattling, and cross burning.

I feel beaten down by duelling liturgies, witnesses and testimonies of faith and doubt.
I have become distrusting of conviction, troubled by fealty, 

and wary of true believers.

I am afraid of the undertow;
I am horrified by the lessening of compromise, 

and the evermore rapidly rancorous rhetoric.

I want a return to caring about each other, 

a place where people actually communicated,
to a time when people realised there were others on the other side of the phone, 

the screen, the argument, the World.

We lost that long ago… the ability to converse, to commune, 

to share… or to politely disagree.

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

© 15 June 2016

”Within you…Without you… Tomorrow Never Knows”

(With thanks to George Harrison, John Lennon, and Sir Paul McCartney)

Close your eyes and open the inner recesses of your mind.

What do you find in its shadows;
pockets of doubt, pockets of fear, pockets of hate?

Do you feel the presence of loss, of peace, of love?

What do you hear in the silence;
oceans, birdsong, tears?

Do you seek answers, or questions?

What season, what place, what time;
yesterday, tomorrow, or today?

What do you sense in the darkness;
Danger, sadness, calm?

Does the quiet overwhelm you, or are you lulled by the rhythm of your heart?

Is it darkness that hides behind your eyelids, 
or do you see the explosive colours of Life?

Do you breathe out, or merely breathe it all in?

What do you see; are you still looking out, or are you truly looking in?

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

©12 June 2016 (after Orlando)

Compline

“’Lullaby of Birdland’ whisper low”

(With thanks to Sir George Shearing and George David Weiss)

Why do birds sing at night?

Morning chorales and evening reprises trill avé and valé to the sun;
but now the chorus starts just past dusk in the dimness of first dark.

There must be a reason they sing contentedly after fall of night.

They do not greet the moon as she has not yet risen
or the stars as they flicker faintly from aeons lost.

Is it a lullaby they chirp before putting their tiny heads beneath their wings, mayhap they chant their evening prayers,
or do they cheerfully rehearse their sunrise song?

Ronda R. Scott-Marak

© 25 April 2016

A Solitary Woman

(with thanks to Neil Diamond)

Always alone, though rarely ever lonely;
Never giving in, while always giving out.

My strength is formed ‘round a core of staunch denial;
determined to provide where I am needed,
resolutely finish what I start.

The path is often one-way only, with a roadblock at its end

but the goal shifts ever further;
green fields and a nap always ‘round the second next bend.

Ronda R. Scott-Marak
17 May 2016

“Through the Mirror of my Mind”

(with thanks to Holland, Dozier, Holland)

I long to be somewhere else, someone else,
I need someone to talk to who’ll listen in silence;
to hold me close, hold me upright,
support me ‘fore I fall.

Sometimes I feel so terribly alone;
thoughts and dreams ricocheting ‘round my mind.

I am an echo of myself, a ghost-walker.

I only exist in the mirror… writing.

Ronda R. Scott-Marak
©22 April 2016