More Poems to Chew On

Entrenched
By Karen I. Shragg

Here we go again
Being swallowed up
in linear circles of history
Repeating the ugliest side of herself
living the part of the cliché
That those who do not pay attention
are thus condemned to repeat it
Kidnappers do the unthinkable
Then the victim’s side
comes down even harder
bombs try to show might
in ‘how dare you think we’d negotiate’
explosion of revenge
and end up creating
even more kidnappers
Making one easily forget
On which side of the fence evil resides
This linear cycle of war and retaliation
And more war
Begging the question
Of why we think our kind is so special
When we are uniquely and oh so successfully
Excel at destruction.

Dreaming New Stories Our Way
by Karen I. Shragg

We manifest our stories
In the way
We war
Or don’t war
The way we buy
Or don’t buy
The way we pray
Or don’t’ pray
And near as I can tell
We’re about due for new ones
Oh how I hunger for new ones
We already know the results of stories
Which profess excuses for subordination
And the Earth’s domination from a specie
Whose brain size indicates
At least the potential of knowing better
Who needs to quit cutting its own umbilical cord
With silly notions that trees
Are better off when turned into paper
And printed with portraits of dead white presidents
Oh how we need new stories
That would speak of equality
That would teach how
no one ever benefits from greed
Or from forcing our ways on others
With weapons that only recycle pain
We need stories not of gods
to meet only when you are dead
But of glory one can get by
Getting that we are but one of the delicate creatures
So lucky to live in this universe
On a rare planet
Still able to support the life
Of a specie with more power than we deserve.


Maybe God went Fishing
By Karen I. Shragg

God seems to have left the scene
Allowing his more than loyal subjects
To continue breeding misery
In his name
It couldn’t be HER name
For women are excused from
A claim to god-driven evil
Animal sacrifice of bygone days
Pales in comparison
To bearing witness
strapped-on bombs
Sacrificial children
Ghostly aftermaths
Of innocent bloodshed
A bow to martyrdom gone mad
with countless victims
of a religiosity I dare not understand
What kind of religious fingerprint
Claims goodness comes with higher body counts
All done
In the name of a God
Who seems to have gone fishing
For he is not answering the prayers
Of either side.

Sacrifice
By Karen I. Shragg

War bleeds us of sanity
Humanity’s better side exemplified
by all that fills art museum walls
Vaporizes in the ashes
Of caring who started the madness
In the first place
After bombs rain down and miss their targets
After rubble fills the anguished landscape
After chasing pain with pain
Brings about only more pain
We who watch
morally wounded from the sidelines
Just want it to stop
Forever
All those orphans on both sides
Real victims nick named
collateral damage so the pain of
what we’ve done won’t sting so much
Their tears are just as salty
Their anguish just as deep
As they look among the rubble
In stunned silence for survivors
Looking like they belong to the same people
And deep down
They do.

Just in Time
by Karen I. Shragg

Wild Turkeys
Stream out of upland forests
As if they never left
Round feathered exclamation points
of conservation success
bluebirds dot suburbs
and fly around like golf balls on courses
which bother to set up houses
In glorious testimony to
Efforts of thousands who cared
To build them homes and reintroduce
Them to their old stomping grounds
trumped only by news of Ivory billed sitings
Lord god birds returning
From beyond the grave
just in time to bear witness to
a warmed up planet
and all that will not survive
because we thought we could
focus on individual species
and ignore the way our daily
habits, our increasing numbers
gnaw away at the life support
systems of planet.

A Personal Note to the Frankens

Dear Al, Frannine, Thomasin and Joe,
You are my heros. Each of you has been a superb campaigner, tirelesssly going all over Minnesota to endless meetings and events, speaking about the issues. Its been a pleasure to have worked for the campaign, to have been a delegate for you at the state, I wish I could've done more. You have toughed out one of the longest senate contests in history and with so much integrity. The best part is that I get to call long time friends and fans of the Wellstones, my new senate family. Together with Amy Klobuchar you will support President Obama's efforts to bring the economy under control, bring home our troops, bring about universal health care support the environment and green technologies and so many more issues you campaigned about.
While we won't agree on every issue, I will always trust that you will keep the interests of the average Minnesotan in mind and not serve the interests of the corporations. I trust you will never lie to voters. I know that you, like so many of us, were upset when Pauls' seat fell into the hands of those whose ultimate goal is self-serving. Winning it back feels so good and I know that as you vote and speak you will win over those who were reluctant to vote for you.
Good Luck Al... As soon as "Lucy's Hero Remembering Paul Wellstone" is out.. you are all invited to the book signing party, though it may now have to be in Washington.Thanks for all of your hard work and the way you care about Minnesotans.

Spiritual Boycotting

Boycotting works, we know it does. When people, en masse, boycotted segregated restaurants in the Jim Crow days, attention was brought to this racist policy that helped to break the backs of the bigots who supported it. The lettuce boycotts of the sixties brought attention to the conditions of migrant farm workers and so on and so forth.

But what if its just one person trying to make a lonely statement in world that hasn’t quite caught on to the need for a particular cause? What if you just want to boycott something because you hate what it stands for? What if you know that it won’t really make a difference in actuality but will make you feel better? That’s what I call spiritual boycotting. Causes small and not so small can be taken on by an individual to help shape who you are. Don’t like factory farming? Buy only from local farmers you trust. Don’t believe in the lack of benefits for employees of certain warehouse stores? Don’t set foot inside their doors, no matter how tempting the sales. Want to combat the proliferation of carcinogens? Fill your home with non-toxic cleaners and organic food. Does the waste of the holiday season bother you? Give sustainable gifts wrapped in reusable cloth bags.

Spiritual boycotting is valuable because it allows a person to define what gives one’s life meaning. If you refuse to buy something or go somewhere because it clashes with your values, it’s important to know that it does make a difference. It makes a difference because you are now acting like you would like the world to act. While it isn’t likely to change the popularity of whatever it is you are boycotting, there is value in defining yourself by your actions. There is value in being an example for others too.

It is very clear that so much of the commercial shrimp industry is doing major damage to sea turtle populations. If you refuse to eat shrimp because you don’t want to participate in the detrimental effects to this endangered animal, it will probably not hurt the shrimp industry. Apparently the appetite for shrimp in our culture outweighs the endangerment of these magnificent creatures. The shrimp industry will more than likely continue to catch and kill these magnificent animals due to the heavy demand for shrimp and their need for income. They will do this until it is no longer economically rewarding to do so or until the shrimp populations are reduced beyond recognition. Refusing to eat shrimp is all about defining your values. It’s also about connections, the one we each have to our sustaining planet. We are all connected to the natural capital of this planet.

We are also trapped in the dominant paradigm of our current societal ways which doesn’t permit us to boycott all that we’d like to, but it does allow for some opportunities for making a statement. We may not be able to choose to repair something instead of buying something new due to the prohibitive costs, but we may be able to avoid giving our hard earned money to corporate giants which have no care for anything but their bottom line.

In the song, “Alice’s Restaurant” Arlo Guthrie encourages people to go to their draft board and act crazy so that they won’t be drafted to serve in Vietnam. If one person does this, they’ll think you are crazy but if three or more do it they might think it’s a movement, he advises would be draftees. That is the hope behind spiritual boycotting. The hope is that your particular issue will “tip’ one day when a more enlightened population will follow your boycott and help your cause take hold. Until then gain meaning in your life by siding with issues of justice, peace and sustainability and it will indeed be a happier new year for you and the rest of the world which needs our committed attention.