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#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 52

Presented without commentary.

One Year In

parents have endured relentless and
repeated phone calls--video and otherwise--
	but no flights and no visits
	no hugs and no kisses

you can only see smiles by the starburst
scrunches at the corners of the eyes

two jabs have vaccinated exactly one half household

this Queens-bound R on a Thursday afternoon
has in this car ten masked New Yorkers
one asleep; one phone-focused; one scribbling in a notebook

we have seen knees on necks and shoves to concrete,
kettling and kicking and killing and crying
we have seen protests for justice and
insurrections for just nonsense

we have showed up at the polls
and avoided subway poles
we have washed and washed and washed our hands
but not enough to remove the stench and stain
of white supremacy

we have threatened and condemned
grocers and governors
and baristas and bartenders
and teachers and preachers
for the great sin of being asked to mask

we have received pittances
and projected penances 
and broadcast our grievances and gripes and grudges
on the world-wearying web in which
we are caught
prepped to feed 
bloodthirsty capitalism
and mega-mecha-tech kaiju

we have read books and replenished them in piles
and binged the movies and television series 
of distraction and hope and humor
	and drama

we have said goodbye, too soon,
	to half a million dreams
	and half a million second-chances
	and half a million next times

one year in
	and the only way out
		is waiting

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021. Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 49

Revisiting and revising the ‘companion pieces’ from a couple of days ago, today we play with what those voices say together: the first step in what will probably be a long revision process. Join us, won’t you? What things strike you, or miss you, in this version?

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 47

New York City has recently upped indoor dining capacity to 35%, which really doesn’t mean much: families of five aren’t allowed to dine together; the number of tables available to seat guests is the same. But, it does allow for people to wait in the lobby of the restaurant for a table, rather than outside or in their car. Today’s poem captures a bygone moment of indoor dining in the city (no one smokes inside restaurants anymore!), but it also captures a yearning for whatever the new normal will be.

Being an Habitué of a Dingy Diner on the Lower West Side


the clatter of coffee cups &
saucers
a low roar of mumblings of stock quotes
& college grad hopes
& waiter dopes
& cream-&-sugar notes.

there’s a stirring of swirling steam & cigarette
smoke.  there’s a 
mixture of chuckles &
venture capital hyperbole.
there’s	the man with the over-used laptop,
		typing & tapping away
the cashier with dancing fingers
	       fast & elegant as they waltz on the keypad
	the busboy with the zebra-streaked dishrag
       &  the manager with the shiny bald spot
		& stress sweat.
don’t forget the single man who stirs his espresso with two lumps
        or the woman on the cell phone who chatters like boxes.

but none stood out like the waitress
		who gave to me my 
			
				sticky check.
 

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 45

A poem, presented as an early draft to be revisited later (since, really, it’s always rewriting), without commentary.

Who Are They Now?

--at the planning committee, since the Jan 6 redo set for March 4 got moved 
to some future date where it might be moved again 
depending on the weather

--limiting days and dates and times to vote so that lines and losses and limits 
will be long and lamentable

--making it illegal to give food and water to those waiting in those lines

--rubbing the golden idol, flipflopped and beshorted, in the hotel lobby
in a silent prayer for white prosperity or white power or 
a weak constitution

--giving guided tours to the scouting party
of the weekend insurrection enactment club

--flying to Cancun, 35000 feet above burst pipes
and dead bodies and the panted breaths
of a spaniel fogging the sliding glass door of an empty house

--voting every vote a nay, every nay a guess

--suddenly worried about deficits and defiant tweets,
protocols and POC protesters in streets

--sleeping while states burn and states freeze
and states turn and states wheeze

--donning white hoods and goose-step boots 
and star-spangled speedos and boxers, grafting
murderous intent, spreading the big lie for
murderous dissent

we know who
and
we know where
	and when
	and why
	and how
		now what will we do about them?

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

Posted on by waxyandpoetic · 1 Comment

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 43

In recent days, NASA’s rover Perseverance touched down on the surface of the fourth planet from our Sun. As it parachuted through the atmosphere of Mars, a coded message appeared on that cloth meant to slow its descent. That message–“Dare Mighty Things” –comes from an 1899 speech by Theodore Roosevelt, where he says, “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat.” We take that inspiration and hope the day’s poem might inspire or motivate you. We all need a PMA boost–here’s to a Positive Mental Attitude.

Dare Mighty Things

like, say, sending a probe 
some 139 million miles away
and add some coded message
to the parachute of that probe
decipherable as it billows and spreads
in the foreign winds
of the war god’s world.

chase, with perseverance,
the triumphs of a vaccine in arm,
first and second dose,
that keeps you out of hospital beds
or the victories of putting away
folded laundry, of filing the papers
piled under the desk,
of hanging the final framed photo
in a house now made plainly a home.

fear not the failures
of losing at checkers
or losing car keys & good pens;
of losing the plot in an autobiography
written as you glide along;
of losing a BIG BUSINESS DEAL
or losing a BIG SPORTS COMPETITION
or some other such inflated task.

poor spirits may soothe
the suffering segues that stretch
between twilight and dawn;
flasks of rich whiskeys may commemorate 
the joys in finishing 
a drafted novel or a degree from
the universe’s hard knocks.

Dare mighty things:
crack the code
kiss him
call her
help them
defund the police
prosecute the offenders
hurry up
seek justice
people over profits
change over comfort
slow down
stop
Just stop,
the glory and the joy
are scattered along the surface--
the dust and rocks and craters
of always-to-be-remembered
victories
and
defeats.
The world may never see them.
But the world never need know.

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021. Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 42

Over a month into a new moment, not yet at a new normal, there’s still something lingering. And might just, for a long while to come.

House For Sale SOLD!

A man leaves a white house
and his long shadow fades from
the porticos and palladia
of his former residence, mostly.

A man leaves a white house
and his long shadow stretches
across the flaccid tail of America,
wags across keys and pan handles,
panhandling for the gold and the coin
necessary to stay unnecessarily relevant.

A man leaves a white house
and the stains in walls and in carpets,
on papers and on books, like a long shadow,
mark the tainted trespasses of his
torturous tenure.

A man leaves a white house
and his foibles and foolery follow
him, or lead as the court case may be,
and his long shadow, darkness on darkness,
darkened by darkness,
sucks the light from star-spangled America
and lights fires in darkest heart America
and hides truth and reality from already blindered America.

A man leaves a white house
and it is impossible to forgive
or forget his long shadow which,
though muted, still gapes & gasps,
guffaws & grumbles,
beneath shuffling paper rustles
of work being done.

A man leaves a white house
and despite the nose-to-the-grindstone
dive into repairs and renovations
(a bargain fixer-upper at 81 million or 1.7 billion or 306, 
depending on how you finance)
the long shadow keeps debasing & daunting,
hovering & haunting,
never quite giving way to 
new day’s light.

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021. Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 40

Today’s poem is presented without commentary.

At The Roundabout Joining Wall St & K Street & Main Street

Even the angels are taking off their halos and even the demons are sawing off their horns and the revolution will not be biblicized and the manifestation will not be idealized and they’ll dance in the streets arm in arm leg over leg and they’ll waltz and waddle and make their way down avenues and boulevards and cross cross-streets until they get to the crossroads or the end of the road and they’re forced to forge a new path, one where destiny manifests in its own unique choice and voice and the fates fake your fate and the great news of the world is yet to be printed and the terrible news of the world runs and runs, the ink is not dry and the pages not cut and the date is unknown or wrong or transposed, and some future inquisitive newshound sniffing around an idea or two, some former photographer developing a framed memory or two, and at the present, a gift or two, underneath the holiday tree, blowing up a dream or two, all before the dawn of the last great childhood hurrah, all following the first weighty childhood trauma

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 39

Two big numbers are in the news lately: we are hitting about 1.5 million vaccinations per day, and we passed 500K deaths early this past week. Poet Mark Fishbein honors both in this, our 39th poem.

Shot In The Arm

In the antiuniverse 
Help is on the way: immunoglobulin.   
Today they have injected some into my arm.
Now microscopically, and unknown to me,
An army of antibodies sharpen their teeth,
Angry barracudas hungry for a COVID snack
Y shaped savages in the electron microscope.

I feel that I have been marooned for a year;
A year lost when you are “elderly” is a year lost.
At last a rescue ship is seen, but with torn sails.

The daily numbers flow like a lottery, 
The graphs of the dying and the infected,
Corpses filling ice trucks in the parking lots,
The photographs of the family members 
Warning the world the COVID is real,
Eyes of the nurses, tears on their masks,
Names posted on the hospital walls   
Of loved ones who died alone. 

After a war, the wounded return home
And stay up nights to remember some carnage.
But we are still at war, despite I have a cure:
The state of alert and death surrounds us all.

Yet let us sanctify with silence.
My 98 year old mother among a half million gone. 
So many unwelcome deaths. Let us remember them,  
Not by hopes, not by prayers, but with a silence      
That the heart wears like a coat of wordless lament. 

Let us have a requiem in silence
For the dead and the dead to come.

©Mark Fishbein – 2021

*****

Mark Fishbein has been writing poetry for over 50 years, and he is also a classical and brazil style guitarist. He hosts two weekly Zoom writers workshops, POTF (Poets on the Fringe) and DC Poetry Workshops, which publish anthologies and give readings. He also hosts poetry readings on Eventbrite, the next being Feb 28, which include 20 poets using the share file on Zoom to display their poems while reading them, a unique way to engage in virtual poetry events. He has five books available on Amazon. For info- www.poetwithguitar.com (workshops or events) or email  mark@poetwithguitar.com.

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 37

Rafal  Borynski, the author of today’s poem, is a teacher, artist, and metaphor developer based in Queens, New York. He introduces his work for us today.

Haikus are traditionally meant to be self-standing pieces of poetry that express a single thought, not parts within a larger poem, as is the case here. However, this pandemic has significantly blurred the notion of breaks between phases. Everyday, news stories go something along the lines of “We were in Phase 3, but we’re moving back to Phase 2B, except for this and this, which we’re expediting to Phase 4(assuming this and this continue to be this). In other news, this other state is already in Phase 5, but Phase 5 is different for them.” Just as the phases to curtail this pandemic have leaked into one another, so do the haikus about the vaccine(s) to curtail this pandemic. 

Haikus Between Vaccines

in Staten Island
the only appointment was
ferries in cold, nope!

the ferry was cold
the uber back, expensive
“it’s worth it,” I hoped

“left shoulder hurts” was
my one short-term side effect.
long-term, who does know?

that was the first dose
my second is coming up
“it’s worth it,” I hope

“the government lies”
they say, “how can you trust it”
I can’t dispute this

It misleads often,
yet is truthful other times
hope it is on this

“Have you had Covid”
the nurse giving the first asked
“it’s fine if you have”

I looked back at him
and gave an honest answer
“not that I know of “

“a large elephant,
sitting on your chest for days”
survivors have said

some hesitation
fades as I think of such pain
waiting for Dose 2

©Rafal Borynski – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? Day 36

It is with great sadness that Waxy & Poetic has learned of the death of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He once said, “The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.” Most days #100Days100Poems calls out more overtly, but today, in honor of him, the call is more intimate.

Thank you, Mr. Ferlinghetti, for your influence and inspiration.

©David Siller – 2021

*****

For the first 100 days of the Biden administration, this website will feature a new poem of What’s Next!? These pieces can be calls to action, calls to attention, or calls to anger. They will light the way and guide the fight. They will get us moving and keep our momentum. They will be filled with hope, with anger, with sorrow. They will get us into good trouble and point out the trouble we need to stop. They will be polished gems, or rough-cut drafts of rage, or in-process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered.

#100Days100Poems of What’s Next!? wants your poems, your prose, your visual art (photos, drawings, sculptures), your music, your short films and animations. Interpret the theme as broadly as you’d like.

If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with your visual art (as .jpg or .pdf) or your poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. Include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and social media/website information. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. Waxyandpoetic.com will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day beginning 20 January 2021.

Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !