NaPo 2022 Poetry as Peaceful Protest Prompt Comp

 
I’ve always admired a woman’s spirit
Her strength
Her toughness to overcome the obstacles life throws at them
Her patience
Her love
Her sixth sense and intuition to detect when something is wrong
That maternal instinct
 
You can put a woman through a hell
And she’ll come out the other side wielding that fire
Oh you bet she’ll adapt
The Creator gave them something extra
 
A woman’s resolve
Her resilience
Often leaves me in awe
Amazed at how much more wonderful this world is because of them

“I’m going to make my famous français prétentieux salad”
I told the grocery store clerk who was holding some brooms
“We got something special in the back” he said with a smile
Then he returned with a suspicious looking bag of mushrooms

I went home excited to make this salad for me and my wife
I tossed it (wink) then I added some of my special dressing
But the mushrooms it seemed were stale or had gone bad
So I got mad because for the longest time I’d been obsessing

“I’m going back” I said, with my face red and head full of dread
But that’s when a rainbow came shooting from my girl’s eyes
“Ooh the colors” I said as she waved like a queen in a parade
But this trip seemed like a dream I never thought I’d fantasize

My phone rang then bells with wings were flying across the room
Our dog Bandit said “damn it again” and answered it by saying “hi”
Suddenly I heard a voice behind me coming from the cage
It was our cockatoo Professor Feathers saying “haha, you fools are high”

Bandit put on his glasses with a pipe in his paw and took a puff
The smoke was a haze in my face like a phase of pure imagination
“You better hold on to something” my dog barked through the fog
As I felt the house rocking from the walls to the ceiling and foundation

“What’s happening?” I yelled as my wife kept waving at the onlookers
I felt so scared at the shaking and quaking I could almost pee my pants
I thought it was gonna be the running of the bulls from Pamplona
But when I looked at the table, it was a stampede of tiny hungry ants

“It’s him” the commanding ant pointed at me in his uniform and bullhorn
“Oh shit, you in trouble now” Professor Feathers added with a smirk
“You jerk” I said as I tried to run away but a tiny ant tripped me up
And while on the floor he punched me really hard like he was a merc

“Stop it please!” I pleaded with the ruthless and merciless angry ant
“This is my house now bitch” the tiny fella said as he flicked on the nose
“I gotta a family” I said as my wife still seemed to float on that parade
Then he said “better tell your friends about me through rhyme and prose”

 
January, 1943
The maid walked in and discovered his body
She may have been unaware of how important he was
Because at that time
His name had been thrown into obscurity

The forgotten genius
Died alone and broke
And his story
Still breaks my heart

We are where we are today
Because of who he was and what he did back then
His imagination
His brilliance was so ahead of his time
People must’ve thought he was crazy

He was a child a light
Lit up the world with his ideas
(Literally)
Foresaw his designs being applied
A hundred years into the future

Talk about enlightened

He wanted to give the world a gift
But as you know
The greed of the many got in the way

Tesla harnessed a power like no other
In his mind he saw what the man could accomplish
So many possibilities
So many opportunities

Some thought he was a wizard
Others said he had bad luck
But the truth was Nikola didn’t care much about money
He believed in science
For the improvement of humanity

 
She was a child of seduction
Of deception
Of rape
Unwanted by her mother
But she would end up changing so many lives

Her mother denied being pregnant until the day she gave birth
She’d drink and smoke and whatnot
Even with this
A healthy little girl was born
But destined to undergo through a great deal of suffering

There was a magnetism about her
Her mother’s friends and co-workers always gave a helping hand
And despite the beatings and the public cursings
The little girl had a strong resolve

Her mother, with her bad temper
Would get angrier at her daughter’s mischief and antics
Worst of all was her mother’s fury
When the little girl would not shed a tear during the whippings

She was taken in by a conservative family
Poor but well educated in the ways of the Lord
She was taught
Brought up with kindness
Given a chance to fend for herself
Even as her mother remained close by

Emma went on to become a self made woman
A strict mother
A small entrepreneur
Proud and just as bad tempered as her mother was
But the hurt inside
Seemed like a painful memory that can never subside

I’ve only seen Emma cry twice in my life
The first time when she told me her story
Asking the Lord for forgiveness
As if being born had been a curse to her mother
The time she recounts when she saw her at *Liberty Parque
Seeing her destitute
Wondering aimlessly…
Talking to herself, mad at the world

When Emma told me about her mother’s death
And how she got to the burial late
Only to see the coffin being lowered into the ground
I saw tears in her eyes
For all the suffering, for all the beatings
For all the stories and details she never told

Now at 92
Emma is loved by her family
Her friends
Her community
She has changed so many people’s lives

The other time I saw my grandmother cry
Was about losing me
During the days of the civil war
But that’s a story for another day

Your touch,
your love,
the intimate collision of our souls
will hurt.
There’s no way past this fact.
Flawed humans can’t mingle
without bumping sharp edges,
and ego tears easily
as spider webs in a hail storm.

The truth is, I could have chosen anyone,
if it was just about worth or deserving.
All souls are of infinite value,
though misshapen by circumstance
or heredity
or trauma --
so all are worth suffering for,
once you decide to know them.

But with my limited capacity for suffering,
I chose you.
And I will continue to
suffer the blows of your humanity
as long as you also suffer mine.

 
No one is perfect
Nobody is one hundred percent flawless all the time
We’re all human beings and we make mistakes
It’s just our natural quality and design

And although we do have a conscious choice
It’s emotional at first when it comes to attractions
We then become more self assured and aware
Able to analyze and evaluate our interactions

Upon re-examining our paths, goals and purpose
We know that for some love plays a big part
Thus choosing to be happy and free is like irony
It hurts when it comes to matters of the heart

Choosing to be around those who will lift us
Who will make us better beings in the end
It’s the hardest decision we can ever make
But it’s worth finding out who is a true friend