Tag Archives: Poem

Three Poems of Struggle Against ‘The Dying of the Light’

15 Dec

[Prefatory Note: These three recent poems of mine are published here as a humble seasonal offering that is both alarmed by the ambience of darkness and encouraged by glimmers. Poetry is also my mode of speaking when normal language is stymied by unspeakable happenings. For me poetry–whether read or written is a valuable resource for me. I self-published a book of poems a few years ago with the title Waiting for Rainbows. I find myself still waiting. Read with gentle eyes.]

The End of the Road?

I yearn to know

                                    the future

                                    and yet

                                                      my dreams

                                                      seem grayer

                                                      than an overcast sky

                                    crystal balls

                                                      roll toward

                                                      the sea

                                                      clouded over

                                                      of no use

a captivity of time

                                                      thou shall not

                                                      pass this gate

                                                      now never

                                                      thou shall not

KNOW

Condemned to die

                                                      At this gate

                                                      barring entry

                                                      ghosted by

                                                      eternal

                                                      curiosity

What is to come            

                                                      will be foretold

                                                      after a light

                                                      from above

                                                      or within

                                                      shines green

                                                      by day

                                                      and night

                                                      through all        

                                                      seasons

at the end of the road

                                                      where you

                                                      will be 

                                                      waiting

                                                      and only

                                                      for me

Richard Falk

Yalikavak, Turkey

August 19, 2025

Rev. December 15, 2025

Aspiring Royalism

                                                      As if a crown prince

                                                                        impatient

                                                                                          for a crown to

                                                                                                            fall from heaven

                                                                                                                              a dark miracle

landing on his head

                                                      Not accidentally

                                                      Nor dynastically

                                                      The American way

                                                                        stealth and wealth

                                                                                          overt crime

                                                                                                            as needed

                                                      Upending history

                                                                        is part of the story

                                                                                          after all

                                                                                                            if the Confederacy

                                                                                                                              is reborn

                                                      Why not the American Revolution

                                                                        an outworn pride

                                                                                          to restore the worst

                                                                                                            to renounce the best

                                                      Keeping the pomp

                                                                        hiding the circumstance

                                                                                          indulging in state dinners

                                                                                                            while being indulged

By the ghost royalty

                                                                        of a dying kingdom

                                                                                          and dying king

                                                                                                            the pageantry

                                                                                                                              alone survives

This is America

                                                                        where kings ascend the throne

                                                                                          by stealth and wealth

                                                      No need for coronations

                                                                        or dynastic entitlements

                                                                                          in MAGA Amerika

                                                      Enough to glow

                                                                        in pale light    

                                                                                          cast by reigning

                                                                                                            oligarchs

                                                      Reinventing

                                                                        the glitter with guns

                                                                                          swag and swagger

                                                                                                            of salutes and sheiks

                                                      Farewell to nightmares

                                                                        of freedom and equality

                                                                                          diversity inclusion

                                                                                                            remembering forgetting

At this time                                                                                              

once proud citizens

                                                                                          bend their knees

                                                                                                            comply by plunder

                                                      This is not America

                                                      This is the New America

                                                      Like the New Middle East

                                                      The sun no longer rises

                                                      Over deserts of the spirit

                                                      Darkness prevails

                                                                        glimmers of light

                                                                                          here and there

                                                                                                            signposts of hope

                                                      Awaiting coronations

                                                                        of evil before

                                                                                          the next dawn

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                                                      Richard Falk

                                                      September 21, 2025

                                                      Yalikavak, Turkey/Rev. December 15, 2025

Advice to a Novice Poet

Why waste words seeking truth

                                                                        or beauty

                                                                        on these arid

                                                                        starless nights

My ancient brain

                                    instructs

My heart shuts down

                                    as storm clouds

Gather above the earth

                                    hauntingly

Dooming human destiny

                                    endangered

As never before

                                    even more

As endangered as

snow leopards

With no church bells ringing

                                    stillness seems better

Hanging out in gardens

                                    clinging to solitude

On lookout for wildfires

here and there

Daydreaming about truth and trust

                                    amid lies and bluffs

While mighty men play losers poker

                                    with our future

Grifters who rarely smile

                                    preside prevail

Claiming their toxic farts

                                    a rare perfume

Always performing

                                    partying at gallows

Satanic antics beneath

                                    a blood-stained moon

Richard Falk

August 16, 2025, rev. December 15, 2025

Yalikavak, Turkey

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CHOOSING NAMES: parenting begins

15 Apr

[Prefatory Note: This poem was initially published in TRANSCEND Media Service (TMS) on April 14, 2025. It is by the Hawaiian poet, Puanani Burgess, who also engages in healing and reconciliation activities. It made me think that we who have brought children into the world have often been complacent when it comes to giving them names, which can be lifelong gifts or unwanted challenges. When we name our child it ideally manifests love and our hopes, offering guidance at the unconscious levels of being, and if lucky, of becoming, telling us of who we are and wish to be. I thank Puanani Burgess for making me think of naming as our initial, sometimes pre-natally expressed, act of parenting.]

Choosing My Name

                        Puanani Burgess

When I was born my mother gave me three names:
Christabelle, Yoshie, and Puanani
Christabelle was my “English” name,
My social security card name,
My school name,
The name I gave when teachers asked me for my “real” name
A safe name

Yoshie was my home name
My everyday name,
The name that reminded my father’s family
That I was Japanese, even though
My nose, hips, and feet were wide,
The name that made me acceptable to them
Who called my Hawaiian mother kuroi mame (black bean),
A saving name

Puanani is my chosen name
My piko name connecting me back to the ‘āina
And the kai and the po’e kahiko
My blessing, my burden,
My amulet, my spear

                        Puanani Burgess

********************

Hawaiian Word Definitions:

  • kuroi = black
  • ‘aina = land
  • piko = belly button
  • kai = ocean
  • po’e kahiko = ancestors

__________________________________________________________

“Choosing My Name” is a poem written by Hawaiian author, Puanani Burgess. It can be found in her book, Growing Up Local: An anthology of poetry and prose from Hawai’i.

Puanani Burgess (1947 -2024) was a poet, priest, aunty, and friend to many. She was a community activist in the Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement for over fifty years. As the designer and facilitator for Building the Beloved Community – a process that brings ceremony, storytelling, and circles of trust and respect – Aunty Pua shared Native Hawaiian practices throughout the world to bring healing and reconciliation. She served as the Myles and Zilphia Horton Chair for the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee and as a community scholar in residence at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Hawai’i. Aunty Pua was an ordained Zen Buddhist priest in the International Daihonzan Chozen-ji.

“You want to make a difference? Then start by looking within.” – Aunty Puanani Burgess

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Forgetting 2019: A Poem

31 Dec

[Prefatory Note: At this age, having exhausted prose options, I indulge myself during holidays, by sharing poems that seek also your indulgence. I searched 2019 forsome glimmers of good news, and felt stymied. Of course, here, there, everywhere there were glorious private exceptions, yet hovering over the public marketplaces ofthe world I cringe beneath menacing storm clouds and below chaos and misery, and catastrophes waiting to happen. It is this spirit that I looked back on 2019, and yet reject despair, and pledge to fight for what I believe in 2020 with the conviction that it can happen, and of course should happen.]

 

 

 

Forgetting 2019

 

asphalt rain

 

darkens green fields

 

eco-extinction

 

flares Amazon skies

 

fake leaders slithering

 

toward real dangers

 

hither and yon

 

seek safe havens

 

gated nations

 

hiding from truth

 

screaming ‘no’

 

migrants fleeing despair

 

pleading ‘please’

 

hiding from evils

 

Aung San Suu Kyi

 

defending genocide

 

this fallen Nobelist

 

broadcasting abroad

 

her deadly message

 

two centuries ago

 

Walt Whitman

 

arrived in our midst

 

singing aloud

 

bewilderingly

 

of America’s future

 

later lost to predators

 

seizing their loot

 

robbing the land

 

turning dreams

 

to wilting flowers

 

our grief becomes

 

a betrayed destiny

 

tainted at birth

 

natives driven

 

off their sacred land

 

of holy innocence

 

the trusted voice

 

of Toni Morrison

 

is gone not lost

 

if we listen

 

if we listen

 

if we listen

 

all not yet all

 

lost futureless

 

nested eggs contain

 

our only hope

 

of what may yet come

 

of what to renounce

 

let’s start with gold

 

then learn not to hate

 

keep love joy truth

 

if we listen

 

if we listen

 

if we listen

 

 

 

Richard Falk

Santa Barbara, CA

 

December 31, 2019

 

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On My 88thBirthday: A Reflection

13 Nov
  • [Prefatory Note: I took part in a stirring program here in Berlin earlier this evening in support of three activists from Palestine and Israel
  • who face criminal charges for disrupting a meeting featuring Zionist denials of Israeli crimes against humanity. Two of the three who face these charged are Jews born in Israel, and one a Palestinian born in Gaza, whose family was in audience, including his father who was in an Israeli
  • prison for 18 years. It was an inspirational event that discussed with depth and insight the obstacles to support for Palestinian rights encountered in Germany because of the persistence of German guilt about the Nazi past. In my remarks I tried to convey the understanding that the only true way to erase that sense of the past is to oppose the ongoing Israeli crimes of states rather than be complicit by choosing to be silent in the face of evil. I post a poem that I wrote earlier today, and read at the end of my talk, perhaps a self-indulgent conceit on my part, but I share it here as a way of thanking so many friends near and far who sent me the most moving birthday greetings throughout the day, which made me feel that we who are supporting the Palestinian struggle are part of a growing community that will prevail at some point, and the two peoples now inhabiting Palestine can finally live in peace, and with dignity and equality. All of us agreed that peace can only happen once the apartheid structure of the present Israeli state is fully dismantled and a spirit of true equality for Palestinians and Jews is affirmed and implemented, not only for those living under occupation, but for Palestinians confined to more than 60 refugee camps, to those millions long victimized by involuntary exile, and by the Palestinian minority in Israel.]
  • On My 88thBirthday: A Reflection 

    To be almost 90

    And happy

    With good health

     

    Feels criminal

    Amid Satanic happenings

    Raising Images too dark

    To be real

     

    Children in Gaza

    Are shot to death

    Friday after Friday

    By official assassins

     

    Khashoggi’s murder

    An unspeakable crime

    Yet no more than a problem

    For hard men of power

     

    Events so dark

    And so numerous

    Casting shadows

     

    Will despair be our fate?

    Is this truly our world?

    Are we even meant to survive?

     

    My hope– to live

    Long enough to shout

    An everlasting ‘No’

     

    And may so affirming

    Become my last word

    Become my testament

    Of hope for all beings

     

     

     

    Richard Falk

    Berlin

    November 13, 2018

     

    ]

 

 

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