Mourning Dread: The Hard Parts

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I have to allow this process, for now . . . 

I should be at a bar,

not this coffee house

on this eve of the event

I had not once believed

was possible, 

just like I had not believed

He could ever win

or even be a 

valid candidate

to run a country --

let alone to manage

his own brain 

and body

But here I am

Not at a bar

But instead at the scene

Where I sat, pretending

there was no screen to open 

and close, again and again

But then that moment arrived

The one that made us stop 

enough to remember exactly

That moment when we focused 

Noticed the shift of direction

the screen now cluttered 

with windows of talking heads

repeating the news of a 

sudden and unstoppable 

tornado path 

to a false and ridiculous victory

Tuesday, November the eighth

twenty sixteen

Clear in my mind as the taste

of my tea that went cold

before I could sense

that my heart had also

gone cold

It was more like his usual grabbing

of what he considers his prize

That is not really his

Yet too many stood there, pretending

to let him win, for that's what you do

in America, when push and shove

shake hands and stand to support

a person who hides in front of

his mad puppeteers, cowards

who hide behind

curtains and laugh as they

try to control the tangled strings

We would expect a company

to fire, or not even hire

this fool, whom even the devil

seems to refuse and dismiss

as too easy, 

 too clumsy of a tool

So why do so many stand by

and accept this reckless wreck,

that was never even a train

connected enough to derail?

But here I am where I witnessed

this horrible scene

Like someone who keeps returning

to places of violent crimes

Or at least to spaces with walls that whisper,

"You have no voice."

The place where I couldn't believe

The disaster unfolding, had already

pushed its way in

to Pierced hearts and opened wounds,

continuing on in its mindless quest

For what, though, really?

Not redemption

Though I tried to find it

Be it, make it out of all

The pieces that were multiplying

being magnified,

It seemed

All my fiercest nightmares

Still contained

Someone else, not I 

-- it was too unkind, even for my self loathing --

Granted them permission to be

Unleashed, perhaps to join

The angry hatred resonating

From the prisons

Everywhere, at least the ones that heard

a sound within the range, and hid behind a mountain

Of the ripples, dissonant chants

Of the broken -- not just the broken-hearted, 

but the ones who are determined

to prove that being flawed

is a permanent condition

Impossible to fix 

I really should be at a bar

In my sobbing self-absorbed

Puddle of fermented remnants

Of what might have been a spring

Once, flowing from oceans

Rushing towards lakes

But instead it is bitter,

The wasted

Music I feel no one wants to hear

Love I feel no one dares to share --

in a way that I don't feel alone

Give me another, this one stronger

Only the vodka, no juice

Let me not feel for once

If no one is with me in the end

At the end of this endless day

Give me something that lets me

 escape the lack of love

I am able to let inside

This has to be temporary

Just like these other hells

Upon hells . . . I keep telling myself

They will end.

There is a new beginning ahead.

If not, I will not survive this
Mourning and
Dread

--Mary Anne Stewart, Jan. 19, 2017 (Sugar House Coffee, accompanied by Luke on the guitar)