All Poems – Page 2 – Knot to Be Undone

Meet Me in Seattle

You said, “Don’t come when winter’s on the ground
in slushy piles of gray beside the road
from SUVs and eighteen-wheelers bound
for stations where a guy can drop his load.

“Don’t come in April when the yellow haze
of cedar pollen permeates the air.
Don’t come in shoulder season — humid days
are not conducive to a love affair.

“But come instead when everything is right,
when waves of magic cast a perfect spell
to cure the atmosphere of human blight
and all the people wish each other well.”

That’s when I knew your summons was a stall.
It’s clear that you don’t want me there at all.

2021 Mary Boren
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Mary Boren 1 · Meet Me in Seattle

When agents of oppression rise
like buzzards under cloudy skies
to sabotage you in the steeplechase,
remember cheaters can’t compete
with fairness in the final heat
so leave it up to fate to set the pace.
In time, you’ll either forge ahead
…
or abandon the rules of the race
and relinquish your rider instead.

2021 Mary Boren
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Photo Source: As racehorse death toll continues to rise, Congress moves to salvage the ‘sport of kings’

Meat and Spice

(in the style of “Fire and Ice”, with apologies to Frost)

While some are satisfied with rice,
however bland,
I much prefer to pay the price
for hearty fare that’s basted twice
to blend a tantalizing brand
of seasonings that suit my taste;
uniquely wrought, precisely planned
tomato paste
that’s fresh, not canned.

For when the pizza’s tossed by hand
and not in haste,
the cheese and pepperoni stand
like sentries poised to spark demand.
Ingredients don’t go to waste
and every sharply honed device
contributes to the flavor laced
through every slice
wherever placed.

2021 Mary Boren
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Resilience

There’s a corner in the basement
where nocturnal creatures spawn
mortal fear that renders optimism sparkless,
but the balance born of nature
in the crucible of dawn
is reserved for those who waited through the darkness.

Human history is littered
with unspeakable events
that would justify eternal condemnation
but a nucleus of dreamers
rising up to love’s defense
can emerge from any faithless generation.

As the curtain falls on freedom
through the apprehensive night,
may a unifying spirit find us banded
with rejuvenated purpose.
Let it lead us to the light
where impossibility is countermanded.

2021 Mary Boren
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Marketing Maxims

Hold your horses, stop the presses —
online selling’s fraught with stresses.
Analyzing, advertising,
merchandising, supersizing,
pressure rising, trends and traffic’s
sudden swerves and demographics.

Camera ready? Check the lighting.
Featuring the most inviting
angles, shooting beads and bangles,
lock ‘n’ load and get to writing!
(How ya think yer gonna sell it
if ya dunno how to spell it?)

Auctions closing; buyers dozing.
Gotta beat the competition!
Handle with integrity,
pack it snug, and ship it free,
Savvy shoppers know the rules.
eBay doesn’t suffer fools.

2021 Mary Boren
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Cracked Pot on a Broken Road

(with a nod to the timeless fable and
apologies to Leonard Cohen, Rascal Flatts, and Joan Baez)

Democracy, your waterbearers’ burden
is woefully unbalanced as the schemes
of lords and ladies on the hill have hoarded
the vessel that contains our common dreams.

It may appear America is leaking
the essence of the best it might have been,
but “there’s a crack in everything”. A trickle
can nurture hope, “that’s how the light gets in”.

Your promise of equality and freedom
for all has languished in the hands of few
for centuries. We’re ready for our blessing,
“the broken road that leads (us) straight to you”.

As trampled seeds of progress line the shoulders
along the path, replenishment relies
on sharing distribution of the bounty
that longs to shower down from cloudless skies.

Let sunshine pierce the depths of every crevice
and justice flow like water to replace
the field of opposition in obstructing
“the president (who) sang Amazing Grace”.

2021 Mary Boren
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What the Tree Taught Me

When I witness your existence
as you navigate the distance
from the origin of purpose to the peak,
I am humbled by persistence
past the line of least resistance
in your resolute pursuit of what you seek.

While invincibly curtailing
paralytic fear of failing
you are crushing obstacles along the path.
Does the mountain you are scaling
lead to summit views unveiling
the reward for struggle in its aftermath?

Let us climb the hill together
as we both escape the tether
of conditioning that binds us to our birth,
for the thesis isn’t whether
we are made of wood or leather
but how feathered faith can soar above the earth.

2021 Mary Boren
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Poker Face

I met your ante, eager to involve
myself in overtrumping you. I flinched.
Your level gaze unsettled my resolve,
and now I find my thin composure benched.

No upturn-cornered rosebud lips betray
your boldness, perched in Mother’s shopping cart.
How can you be so blasted calm? I’m prey
to eyes with no propensity to dart.

I’m stuck behind you at the checkout stand,
you liquid-lidded angel. Clear the aisle —
I may as well cash in my chips. (This hand
won’t help me make a brown-eyed baby smile.)

Your halo isn’t gold; it’s burnished red.
If stares were shards of metal, I’d be dead.

2002 Mary Boren
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In Due Time

(with apologies to George Bernard Shaw and Robert Herrick)

You tell us youth is wasted on the young,
that we must gather rosebuds while we may
lest fragile opportunities be flung
like flotsam on the canvas of decay.

With body toned, thick hair and creamy skin
commanding adulation from the masses
the pattern of predominance will spin
its own cocoon around the rugged passes.

But I submit the opposite is true.
It’s adolescent angst that stands in need
of energy to busily pursue
agendas misdirected to succeed.

For only at an age when pride is purged
can artificial values be submerged.

2021 Mary Boren
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Miranda’s Midnight Walk

In a split-level duplex on Denver’s west side
where the gold dust and booze overflowed
from the previous century, someone appeared
at a newlywed couple’s abode.

“Did you see what just happened?” The unison chant
broke the silence as, bolting awake
with adrenalin pumping, they sat up at once
and described an identical take
on the bold basement visitor’s last fading flash
that remains an indelible clip
in this vividly witnessed and oft-replayed film
even fifty years after the trip:

At the headboard, a rustle of taffeta stirs
in the mystical opening scene
as an elegant lady comes slowly in view
from the rear as she glides in between
man and wife unaware that we sleep on the grave
of society superimposed
on a future dimension with tenuous thread,
its connection as yet undisclosed.

Like Miss Kitty, complete with a bustle and hat,
she is dressed to the nines for the day
in a matching plaid number befitting her role
as a fashion plate walking away.

Then she ever-so-gracefully raises her skirt,
stepping down from the foot of the bed,
still not floating but moving with purpose and poise
through the wall of the closet ahead.

2021 Mary Boren
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Momentum

If you’ve ever rolled beside an eighteen-wheeler
while the traffic signal’s hovering on red
then you’ve noticed how the driver will maneuver
in anticipation of the road ahead.

From his lofty vantage point he can determine
how to coax the engine into keeping pace,
when to shift into a lower gear or idle
as the looming obstacle demands its space.

His experience has taught that slight adjustments
can result in smoother passage through the scene
and with any luck he’ll correlate his movement
with the crucial moment red returns to green.

The imperative to keep the big wheels turning
isn’t just for show. It’s practical and wise
to elude a full-on stop, conserving fuel.
Starting over takes more energy to rise.

If the call of forward motion guides your quest,
may you never break momentum in your rest.

2020 Mary Boren
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Feed My Sheep

Once long ago in a mythical tale
weary fishermen huddled to hoist
nets that were empty back into the boat
when they heard an encouraging voice.

Jesus, not dead like they thought but transformed
at the end of his corporal shift,
told them to lower the nets over there.
Soon the load was too heavy to lift.

When his disciples were sated with fish
in his wayshowing manner, he said
“Simon, come here. Do you love me enough
to assure that my sheep will be fed?”

Refugees struggle forever, it seems,
fellow humans in need of a hand.
These are his people. He left us with notes
not to judge, just obey his command.

2020 Mary Boren
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Trading Races

“When you have only ever experienced privilege, equality feels like oppression.” ― Adam Rutherford

Here’s Karen, captured from a foreign realm,
stacked in a leaky vessel through a storm
where all the crew, from cargo hold to helm,
were black and bold, the undisputed norm.

She’s told to buckle down and never whine
about the weight of sorrow on her back
from stolen heritage. “What’s yours is mine,”
they say, “we’ve set you on an equal track.”

But drowning in an ocean fraught with tears
or stranded in a desert parched with thirst,
the vestige of oppression through the years
can never fade until the tide’s reversed.

Why should it threaten them if she demands
a sign that someone sees and understands?

2020 Mary Boren
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From Versailles to Valdosta

When potentates arrived at Louie’s gate
they frequently
were treated decently
from carriage to the crux of the estate
through spacious links to be
connected to the presence on the throne
that blanketed the monarchy alone.

But only those whose social pedigree
was highest shelf
according to their wealth
were met with individual esprit
and ushered by the king himself
through each palatial post from in to out
at every station on the winding route.

A remnant of the ritual remains,
a quiddity
that, like a whispered plea,
still echoes from the rural Georgia plains
with matchless hospitality
in gracious deference to who you are:
“Allow me to escort you to your car.”

2020 Mary Boren
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A Figurative Analysis

The secret of peacock politeness
is keeping appearances plumed.
No horse ever entered the Preakness
without being properly groomed.

One’s laundry is judged by its whiteness
plus points for a three-cornered fold.
When windows are sparkling and streakless,
the housekeeper’s virtue’s extolled.

Affluence? The public will rate this
as, morally speaking, germane
and celebrate human uniqueness
according to obvious gain.

But…

A manifestation of greatness
akin to a solar eclipse
is proof of a dieter’s weakness.
It’s written all over her hips.

1999 Mary Boren
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Cosmic Crossroads

“Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven; the pious will be deemed insane, and the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good.” -The Prophecy of Thoth

There will come a time, the ancients said,
when Planet Earth is severed from the Spirit.
As mystics strive to reconnect the thread
with sacred speech, the people will not hear it.

Redemption must go deeper than the words
to overthrow the pattern of stagnation
in human consciousness that undergirds
our currents of decline in co-creation.

For only when the willingness of one
and all anothers unified by reason
to forge ahead together has begun
will heaven manifest its winning season.

And each alone can activate the glue
that binds us to the cosmic retinue.

2020 Mary Boren
View discussion on this poem.

“No I can’t stop that, but I can stop what I’m doing to contribute to it.”

Image Source Neil deGrasse Tyson is silhouetted against the birth of the cosmos – the Big Bang – at the inception of the Cosmic Calendar and its vast 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution.

Social Pariahs

My friend’s a statistician. He relates
when I describe the aptitude we hold
to steer a train of thought that resonates
enough to stop a conversation cold.

I once revealed my fondness for the craft
of poetry, and instantly the room
went solid. No one whispered; no one laughed;
each heartbeat thundered with a silent boom.

Comparing notes, my friend and I, in turn,
recount the times we’ve staked our standing on
delivering a topic fit to spurn,
and in the process stoked a common yawn.

For poets’ prattle absolutely numbs
his brain, and I’m averse to ciphered sums.

2002 Mary Boren
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Reap the Whirlwind

“My daddy changed the world.” Gianna Floyd,
at only six, already understands
that something monumental has occurred.
She joins the ranks of children left to bear
the burden of a murderous design
infused into the bedrock of our nation.

Four hundred years of history reveal
the willful subjugation of a line
of people who, despite the barricades,
survive in force to raise a mighty roar
that shatters all illusion. We must stand
in truth to finalize emancipation.

No longer will the platitudes suffice
nor “thoughts and prayers” assuage an open wound.
The time for reckoning is NOW, the day
will soon give way to dusk, the moment lost
forever if denial perseveres.
The case demands authentic reparation.

2020 Mary Boren
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Cascadia, 2025

Shades of Twenty-Twenty vision
lie beneath abandoned cities
packed with disregarded lessons
of the centuries before.
Finally the veil has lifted,
there’s a purpose in tomorrow
and the memories are fading
from the year that brought the war.

Looking forward to commencement,
parties, proms, and lazy summer
leading into jobs or college,
we were only seventeen.
Some of us were undecided,
some had mapped a certain future
in the pattern of their parents.
Others saw behind the screen.

Since we entered kindergarten
we’d been tested, used, and herded
for political agendas
on the nation’s shrinking stage
so it wasn’t unexpected
when democracy imploded
in a world already reeling
from the chaos of the age.

Virus after virus followed,
claiming half the population.
News from other countries filtered
slowly through the riot zone
’til the power grid was severed.
While democracy imploded
we were scrabbling for survival.
Now we live on wits alone.

Here I stand, the single remnant
from a family of seven,
flanked by unified companions
whose intention can increase
coexistence with the planet.
Taking only what is needed,
with the help of one another
we will make a lasting peace.

2020 Mary Boren
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Puff Piece

A canopy of cumulus projection
aligns itself enticingly and spills
its cotton candy succulent confection
across the canvas of the Texas hills.

A viewer, from the vantage of a hammock,
anticipates the daily matinee
with vapors in their drama-packed dynamic
of interactive whimsical display.

But, looking down upon the scene, King Cirrus
harumphs a haughty epithet, “The stage
is mine alone today!” And with the merest
regard he scatters all in jealous rage.

The lively cast of Comal County Clouds
will never fail to entertain the crowds.

2020 Mary Boren
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2020 American Heroes

Coronavirus slithered through the sea
to wake a nation unprepared to face
its own reflection. Stumbling in the dark,
the sleeping spirit stirs from shore to shore
as, shaking chains of partisan divide,
vibrations rise and rumble. Soon the chant
becomes a roar, “Let’s make a better choice!”

This unexpected intermission taps
the vast potential waiting in the wings.
From dormant ranks, new patriots emerge
with intellect, integrity, and love
for fellow citizens. They’ll show us how.

2020 Mary Boren
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Oh, My Children

With the power to penetrate
the mystic guise and orchestrate
each mortal decision and consequence
I’d be a god you despise.

But with peace to liberate
all whose acts incarcerate
forgiveness and empathy deep within.
I’d show you how to relax.

And with joy to activate
the spirit’s lust to luminate
the dubious shadow on every face.
I’d be the knowledge you trust.

Boundless love to incarnate
with no intent to violate
respect for your license to co-create
rises on wings of consent.

2020 Mary Boren
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Fasting for Lent

I’ve pledged to stifle negativity
for forty days. In striving not to judge
another for the treatment given me,
I’ll dodge the bait to whine or hold a grudge.

It shouldn’t be a challenge to achieve
an altered state of transcendental bliss
if I can find the secret to deceive
emotion with a promise and a kiss.

But Ego has a credo of its own:
“Don’t give an inch in sowing discontent.”
Perception hangs as heavy as a stone
between the poles of stuck and free ascent.

With thirty days to go, I’m half inclined
to chuck it all and speak my monkey mind.

2020 Mary Boren
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Stand Up and Be Counted!

Once to every thinking person
comes a moment to decide
whether to improve or worsen
life for those who share the ride.

In a culture populated
equally by right and wrong,
half are glorified; half hated.
All must rise to get along.

Those who choose the path of kindness
have a duty to the horde
lacking empathy whose blindness
simply cannot be ignored.

Never will the sound of silence
in the wake of cruel deeds
be acceptable. Nonviolence
doesn’t mean “abandon needs”.

Standing up for truth and justice,
quell the panic, lest we fall
for a web of lies that thrust us
straight into the devil’s thrall.

Citizen of earth and nation
striving for the common good,
raise a thundering vibration
over every neighborhood.

Only in a coalition
born of passionate desire
can a movement gain volition
going forward through the fire.

2020 Mary Boren
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The two opening lines are borrowed from a hymn written by James Russell Lowell in 1845.

Contemplation

With a weighty decision to make
I had better be fully awake
and aware of the options
lest mental concoctions
compel me to make a mistake.

So I’m giving the matter the bulk
of my serious thought. Choices hulk
like a gaggle of guesses.
No’s prudent, but yes is
less likely to lead to a sulk.

If I go the direction I like
it will cost me an hour on the bike,
but this cookie I’m holding
is well worth the scolding
I’ll get from a blood sugar spike!

2020 Mary Boren
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Halt, Who Goes There?

I see you coming, melancholy mood,
descending like a demon eighteen-wheeler
from out of nowhere racing to occlude
my passage through perception’s truth-concealer.

I’m drifting in bewildering terrain,
white-knuckled now, my eyes are turning glassy.
As wretched shocks dislodge me from my lane,
I can’t escape the damage to my chassis.

With wanderlust careening off the road,
it takes a heap of strength to hold the center.
The labored engine threatens to explode
before my awe-struck psyche starts to splinter.

But wait—I have a built-in safety pillow—
I’ll stomp the brakes and let the airbags billow!

2020 Mary Boren
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We Come in Peace

I stand without apology
in offering this greeting
from Planet Ignalarious
where train of thought is fleeting.

Our version of your Earth giraffe
has fifteen toes and flippers
with purple hide that’s puncture-proof,
immune to flea-born nippers.

Our cabbage-flavored water flows
from pumps on all five corners.
Our blocks are round, our heads are square
with built-in lie dehorners.

We brought our ethnic orchestra
to serenade your breakfast.
Our champion freehand yodeller
will cue you to expect us.

We’re all completely certified
as pure non compos menace
without an ounce of enmity
to sour the pudding in us.

2020 Mary Boren
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Hello 2020

A fading dream’s elusive silhouettes
dance softly on my window shade at dawn
to remnants of a half-remembered song
as if to nudge awake what time resets.

So down a labyrinthine corridor
I chase the animated shadow’s tail
with pure intentionality, yet fail
to reinvent the guise it wore before.

You say the pragmatist within me knows
its visage drips with jewel-studded strands
parading on the stage with sick demands,
but I reject the path that poser goes.

For January brings a reckoning
in rituals to renovate the soul.
With White Stone Medit ation / Burning Bowl
the decade waits, its promise beckoning.

2020 Mary Boren
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All is Calm

Though headlines clamor, voices blare
and bitter arguments abound
in every fearful sector where
the chaos of the world is found,
each hibernating embryo
refuses to restrain its flow
of love beneath the silent snow.

When social order seems to fall
into the clutch of grasping hands,
a waiting surge is poised to call
upon the truth that countermands
the venom of contagious lies
before its spread can fertilize
the hopelessness in mournful cries.

Within the calm collective dream
of all-inclusive peace on earth
the universe emits a beam
directing to our own rebirth.
May every seedling labor through
the obstacles that block our view
of fellow feeling born anew.

2019 Mary Boren
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Falling Leaves

“Don’t say fall to an old person.”

Falling leaves us vulnerable
in ways we might not choose,
but I am here to testify
that fall enhances views.

I fall in love with others
through honest stories shared
without regard for ego’s lie
that souls must not be bared.

We gather in October,
absorb the river’s peace
and let the healing laughter fly
as worldly noises cease.

Then Spirit’s own agenda
reveals itself in songs
& words & tears to teach us why
each Child of God belongs.

In unity with powers
that fall like autumn leaves
we fertilize the old sod’s cry
for gifts the spring retrieves.

The Universal Oneness
we recognize in all
replenishes its vast supply
of love in leaves that fall.

View discussion on this poem.

Sustenance

Before she’s drawn a second breath or viewed
her mother’s face, a newborn seeks the breast.
No special training’s needed, there’s no test
for measuring a baby’s aptitude
or mother’s love. The cycle is renewed
as fed becomes the feeder, doubly blessed
with strength. Instinctively, we all ingest
the substance packed in life-sustaining food.

So why should care and feeding of the soul
be shrouded in enigma? Through the worst
imponderable doubts, our Living Guide
extends a standing offer: “Here’s a bowl
of hearty stew for free.” And with a burst
of sight, the inner cynic’s pacified.

o0o

2000 Mary Boren

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On Filaments and Firmaments

Every night when Lady Luna
beams across the wooded steep
after daily clamor dwindles
and the children fall asleep
Emma comes to tend the garden,
kiss the flowers, and commune
with the fairies, imps, and pixies
frolicking beneath the moon.

Emissaries of the spirits
spawned before the planet’s birth,
Emma and her sisters hover
gently on the edge of Earth
in the space between confusion
over what we’re doing here
and The Realm That Knows Forever
liberated from the sphere.

She is but a fleeting image
of the fiber that connects
all the multiverse’s secrets
to the path that intersects
with the pattern of Creation
spreading from a single source,
infinite beyond description,
dauntless on its chosen course.

Someone waited in the shadows
half the night to capture proof
in a picture we can study,
then she vanished in a poof,
so I left this verse for Emma
in a scented envelope
thanking her for nightly visits
seeding peace and sowing hope.

o0o

2019 Mary Boren
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With thanks to the unknown photographer

Gremlins & Goblins & Trolls, Oh No!

In the prevalent rage
of the digital age
to debate without logic or manners
be aware of the march
scheming under the arch
waving signs and political banners.

They’re a scurrilous lot
with a penchant to blot
Lady Liberty’s gains in the ether
as the poison they brew
stirred with spittle and spew
hits the platform that wobbles beneath her.

Social fabric will rip
from the zingers that zip
through each forum and blog in the cyber
til the populace learns
to ignore scum that churns
in a cauldron of fictional fiber.

If you want to survive
the incursions that thrive
on your ignorance, look to the sages.
Join the movement afoot
to see miscreants put
in the cages of history’s pages.

o0o

2019 Mary Boren
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Rational Aftermath

“There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.” -Miroslav Volf

Given the nature of tyranny’s arrogance
strutting itself on the national stage,
why should an outbreak of violent rage
borne on the bullets of deadly velocity
come as surprise when another atrocity
massacres hope?

Spare the survivors the devious sacrilege
pouring from pundits’ imperious airs,
hogging the cameras, offering prayers
full of their own brand of blatant hypocrisy.
Decency clings to our fragile democracy —
throw it a rope!

Bring us some leaders with courage and principles
poised to deliver the legal restraints
long overdue, and as reason repaints
citizens’ rights, let the cry of humanity
carry the flag of compassionate sanity
mounting the slope.

2019 Mary Boren
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“It takes a monster to kill children. But to watch monsters kill children again and again and do nothing isn’t just insanity—it’s inhumanity.” -Amanda Gorman

Thurston High School.
Columbine High School.
Heritage High School.
Deming Middle School.
Fort Gibson Middle School.
Buell Elementary School.
Lake Worth Middle School.
University of Arkansas.
Junipero Serra High School.
Santana High School.
Bishop Neumann High School.
Pacific Lutheran University.
Granite Hills High School.
Lew Wallace High School.
Martin Luther King, Jr. High School.
Appalachian School of Law.
Washington High School.
Conception Abbey.
Benjamin Tasker Middle School.
University of Arizona.
Lincoln High School.
John McDonogh High School.
Red Lion Area Junior High School.
Case Western Reserve University.
Rocori High School.
Ballou High School.
Randallstown High School.
Bowen High School.
Red Lake Senior High School.
Harlan Community Academy High School.
Campbell County High School.
Milwee Middle School.
Roseburg High School.
Pine Middle School.
Essex Elementary School.
Duquesne University.
Platte Canyon High School.
Weston High School.
West Nickel Mines School.
Joplin Memorial Middle School.
Henry Foss High School.
Compton Centennial High School.
Virginia Tech.
Success Tech Academy.
Miami Carol City Senior High School.
Hamilton High School.
Louisiana Technical College.
Mitchell High School.
E.O. Green Junior High School.
Northern Illinois University.
Lakota Middle School.
Knoxville Central High School.
Willoughby South High School.
Henry Ford High School.
University of Central Arkansas.
Dillard High School.
Dunbar High School.
Hampton University.
Harvard College.
Larose-Cut Off Middle School.
International Studies Academy.
Skyline College.
Discovery Middle School.
University of Alabama.
DeKalb School.
Deer Creek Middle School.
Ohio State University.
Mumford High School.
University of Texas.
Kelly Elementary School.
Marinette High School.
Aurora Central High School.
Millard South High School.
Martinsville West Middle School.
Worthing High School.
Millard South High School.
Highlands Intermediate School.
Cape Fear High School.
Chardon High School.
Episcopal School of Jacksonville.
Oikos University.
Hamilton High School.
Perry Hall School.
Normal Community High School.
University of South Alabama.
Banner Academy South.
University of Southern California.
Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Apostolic Revival Center Christian School.
Taft Union High School.
Osborn High School.
Stevens Institute of Business and Arts.
Hazard Community and Technical College.
Chicago State University.
Lone Star College-North.
Cesar Chavez High School.
Price Middle School.
University of Central Florida.
New River Community College.
Grambling State University.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ossie Ware Mitchell Middle School.
Ronald E. McNair Discovery Academy.
North Panola High School.
Carver High School.
Agape Christian Academy.
Sparks Middle School.
North Carolina A&T State University.
Stephenson High School.
Brashear High School.
West Orange High School.
Arapahoe High School.
Edison High School.
Liberty Technology Magnet High School.
Hillhouse High School.
Berrendo Middle School.
Purdue University.
South Carolina State University.
Los Angeles Valley College.
Charles F. Brush High School.
University of Southern California.
Georgia Regents University.
Academy of Knowledge Preschool.
Benjamin Banneker High School.
D. H. Conley High School.
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(last updated May 24, 2022)

Of Two Minds

A brain cannot absorb more than its mass.
I tell myself it helps to let it drain
in seeking to achieve a higher plane.
How often, wearing blinders, do we pass
the Buddha Image in a blade of grass
or shun the light beyond the windowpane
for fear its pull will render us insane?
My will is steel, my spirit tempered glass.

Yet there are times the mind will not be barred
from grappling with enigma. Nonchalance
won’t turn the key to wisdom or prepare
the soul for nourishment. Without regard
for tethered cognizance, my psyche wants
to conquer obfuscation in the air.

o0o

2002 Mary Boren
View discussion.

The Road Home

There is more to a word than the spelling,
neither future nor past in its tense,
and the story that grows in the telling
can jump over a pastoral fence
on the drive coming home. It’s compelling
in a deeper than physical sense.

When I think of the love that enfolds me
in the leap of a frolicsome pup
and the arms of a husband who holds me
like an obelisk propping me up,
there’s a presence that softens and molds me
to the shape of serenity’s cup.

From a window, the woodland is sounding
with the hush of an orderly mind.
In a natural rustic surrounding
there is space for the nerves to unwind
from the noise of a world that is pounding
the humanity out of mankind.

So the run-of-the-mill intersection
on the way to our humble abode
masquerades our affluent connection
to a heavenly area code
as it leads to supernal perfection
living large at a bend in the road.

o0o

2019 Mary Boren
View discussion.

At the Base of the Tower

“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tyrants learn to climb a ladder
stepping on the hands below,
thinking status gained will matter
in a human puppet show.

Sycophants advance by reaching
wildly for the boots above,
spurred into a frenzy, screeching
epithets devoid of love.

Bullies on the ground are spreading
lies to bring the ladder down,
instigating chaos, shredding
decency from base to crown.

All of us approach the spire
bearing scars that touch the core;
none are standing any higher
than the people we abhor.

Marching next to truth revealers
labeled neither “Ours” nor “Theirs”,
let me be among the healers
on a stronger set of stairs.

o0o

2019 Mary Boren
View discussion.

In the Silence

In the silence, coexistence
overcomes innate resistance
to denials that evade
Spirit, while its masquerade
chases bodily subsistence.

Synergetic intermissions
born of mystical omniscience
flourish as divisions fade
in the silence.

Buddhists, Humanists and Christians
meditating through the distance
bring a unified brigade
facing chaos unafraid,
seeking peace with calm persistence
in the silence.

o0o

2019 Mary Boren
View discussion.

Choose Love

“We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.” -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The lifeblood of the planet is in peril
of swift extinction by exsanguination
from injuries inflicted by the feral
barbarians attacking its foundation.

Physicians for society have proffered
a proven remedy through mass injection
of Zenicillin. Hordes, instead, have coffered
an arsenal of hate to breed infection.

But deep within the body, organisms
are gathering in overwhelming numbers
to spread the needle’s healing for our schisms,
awakening compassion where it slumbers.

The power of love is dazzling when it stirs.
Don’t flee before the miracle occurs.

o0o

2019 Mary Boren
View discussion.

Epiphany

Epiphany, that sacred day
the Magi’s beacon led the way
to witness royalty that lay
in Baby Jesu.

The virgin birth’s a fragile myth,
an ancient bulky monolith—
irrelevant—yet teeming with
epiphany.

For only when the trappings dim
can rebirth rise above the rim
of rigid views to welcome Him,
The Christ Within.

2019 Mary Boren
View discussion.