Jennifer Lagier

Exhaustion
            “When exhaustion become identity…” — Brian Lewis

It’s a perfect storm of political insanity
mixed with natural disasters:
wildfires that ravish Big Sur,
consume forests, wilderness,
decimate local businesses and homes.
Global warming-fueled hurricanes
batter coastlines, flood cities, savage Hawaii.
Lunatic proclamations of an insane demagogue
encourage illiterate cultists,
are enabled by craven legislators, mediocre yes-men.

I’ve spent a weekend battling gridlock traffic,
oblivious douches in their exotic sports cars
congesting every side street and highway,
obstructing first responders
worrying myself sick over an ill husband
stuck in the hospital,
an elderly dog nearing the end of life
with more down than up days,
illegal wars, squandered goodwill and resources,
homegrown ICE goons assaulting innocent people.

I am tired, wallow in despair, pray
we return to our senses, remember how
to cherish and protect one another
when this escalating nightmare is over.

Straddling the Bridge of Hope

I avoid news broadcasts and shrieking headlines,
no longer possess the energy or motivation
to stand among like-minded progressives
while holding succinctly worded protest signs.

Instead, I draw spiritual sustenance
from profuse pink trumpets
flowering from trellised vines.
Violet hydrangeas persist
despite lack of water, sizzling heat.

Here are the things I can count on:
Twilight hummingbirds,
Sunrise drizzle,
Prickly bougainvillea,
Peruvian lilies.

Whispering Moon

Spare lunar sliver,
surrounded by midnight constellations,
reveals covens of raucous raccoons.

Onyx sky, sprinkled with stellar glitter,
twirls foggy boa, lassoes Orion.
Sea breeze reels ashore silver clouds.

Wind and surf propel squid boats to waiting marina.
Kelp beds cradle mother otters and their kits,
ebony ocean streaked by radiant glow.

Circling hawks scream; white owls hoot.
Restless dreams pour through skylights.
Salt air infuses sleeping garden, invades silent room.

Back Yard Meditations

Entering life’s final chapter,
I second guess decisions about careers,
love and family relationships,
ponder past choices.

What if I had accepted
a kind librarian’s offer to share housing,
attend San Jose State University
and pursue a college degree
fresh out of high school?

Did I squander the chance to relocate
and reinvent myself after my first divorce?
Could I have accepted that teaching job in Japan
or worked in tech, moved to Silicon Valley?
Instead, I fell for a damaged Vietnam vet
who slept with a knife, hallucinated Viet Cong,
suffered PTSD.

Today I have chosen to turn my back
on tax complications, laundry, and housework,
sprawl in backyard sunshine,
sip strawberry Perrier,
admire lavender wisteria blossoms.

As a white cabbage moth orbits overhead,
I commune with skittering sparrows,
inhale the scent of honeysuckle, star jasmine,
welcome inner tranquility,
scribble happily at a square cedar table.

Apocalypse Now

Ooh war, I despise
'Cause it means destruction of innocent lives
War means tears, to thousands of mother's eyes
When their sons go off to fight and lose their lives –lyrics to the song War by Edwin Starr

Morning headlines announce anti-war icon
Country Joe McDonald has died.
We remember his name from Woodstock,
the Fish cheer, Veterans for Peace.
Our government now mimics Nazi Germany.
Pacificists mourn loss of charismatic leaders,
Reverand Jesse Jackson’s passing.

Targeting an Iranian girls’ school,
the U.S. annihilates students and teachers,
massacres civilians as part of a campaign
to distract from Epstein files disclosure.
Online photos of open graves
illustrate the magnitude of our moral failures.

In the Pacific Ocean,
heavily armed military operations
burn through taxpayer dollars,
ignore due process to assassinate fishermen
they suspect to be drug runners,
deliberately slaughter frantically waving survivors.

Washington D.C. resembles a festering sewer
where the rich and powerful buy politicians,
pervert rule of law, protect their own interests.
Daily, the body count rises.
Our country’s crimes against humanity escalate.
We join Indivisible protests, insist upon justice.

As Sick As Our Secrets

“Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned.” ― James Joyce

My grandmother enforced omertà,
a mandatory code of silence
that cloaked family members,
hid infidelities, physical and emotional abuse.
Mom reinforced involuntary muteness,
punished us for talking to outsiders
about what went on in our home.

Decades later, I come to terms
with our most toxic secrets:
domestic violence, alcoholism, insanity.
Old newspaper articles
memorialize arrests of my grandfather,
great uncles, older cousins
for their illegal stills and bootlegging ring.

I choose to make peace
with the traumatic past.
Engage in years of therapy.
Surround myself with healthy relationships.
Retain some humorous stories.
Subversively weave sanitized history
into flash fictions and poems.