the things about the winged rings

 (a hopeful note mused for a dearly sister's blisters) 

here in the protractedly distracted belly
of the militant beast's
pride hailed pale railed patriot sailed
presumptive consumptive "SuperPower" bowered
collective west vested
insatiable domination addiction,

what with the plushly financed
hooked by crooked
"liberal" and "conservative" receptor vectored
seaming
seeming mainstreamery
of
state plated "news,"

grooming button pushed
celebrity mushed
insecurity brushed
humble reflection hushed
evidence free followers
into
we're right and their wrong conformist choirs,

the odds are certainly 

stacked against

the rare unsettling
cropping up
of
unvained connection venting
dissent bent
would that they see
unblinking stones,

steadfastly harbouring
unbiased forsooth
profitless truth
in
the midst of that teaming stream.

but here and there
an unexpected breeze
ruffles the surface,

and in its own time,
a window opens for a
budding consciousness
you don't even realise

is listening.

*

here are two examples: 

back when i was but a tween
i wrote essays trying to kindle
hearts with compassion
for the massacres
of
the actual Americans,

and i could barely find anyone
even willing to listen.

but mere decades later when
the pipeline protests got rolling,

what was my surprise

when all these

facebook folk

started popping up

photographs
of

Native Americans
and

bandying about

Black Elk's pearls?

and just recently,

when the Congress bolstered

"spreading democracy" holstered
genocide against Palestine ramped up,

friends of friends

who'd long shunned

my 'radical'

poems and posts

suddenly thanked me
for giving voice
to
the state crated victims.

*

the thing about 

the "rights" sidling of history

is,

it's left bereft

a whole world of "others" who,

spirited bits of that Universal Soul

we all of us have an inkling of,

shift the sands of time.

*

and the thing about tomorrow is,

you just never know.

- Evan Hawthorn,

 the 4th of August, 2024