Am I a fool to think that I
might share a month of poetry?
I don’t know…I guess I’ll try.
Am I a fool to think that I
without a writer’s pedigree
would seek such opportunity?
Indeed the fool to think that I
might share a month of poetry.
©Ginny Brannan 2025
Kind of a 'bastardized' Triolet. Certainly not my best, but a start!
We chose not to eat from the poisonous tree
for those who did became caricatures of themselves
“Pod People” to the nth degree.
We knew what to expect
having seen “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”
but were ill-prepared for this reality
where gaslighting’s become the norm
where what you see’s “not what you see.”
I believe we can weather any storm,
still it takes certain bravery
to stand against prevailing winds.
Those rigid in their righteousness
will choose to break before they’ll bend
The world we know is fast imploding,
each of us must pick our fate–
safe haven feels so distant now
the laws and rules we held, corroding.
I choose to stand against the gale,
to set my face into the wind–
to hold onto my core beliefs.
Beware the “cat ladies” now reborn
it's we that hide the sharpest thorns.
© G. Brannan 2025
When push comes to shove, what will you choose
as you watch what is happening–don’t you care what we loose?
Content just to drift in a fog of complacency,
won’t you stand up and fight for beloved democracy?
For the home of the brave and the land of the free?
Ceding and bleeding, with each day receding
into the hands of the oligarchy
who want to dismantle all that we’ve done;
stripping away all that we’ve earned
burning our rights...watch them burn, watch them burn.
In silence, too many hope for the best
believing perhaps this is only a test.
Make no mistake, this is a regime:
picking their targets undoing the seams
of the fabric that holds “We the people’” together.
No one said it would be easy to weather the storm.
to keep safe from those with intent to do harm
What can we do with such limited choices?
Perhaps use our words, perhaps share our voices.
Perhaps do our best to protest the insanity,
while we still can speak out against targeted tyranny
and those unelected who shape all we do...
There are no real heroes,
just me and just you.
© G.B 2025
And it's official! At 2:34 a.m. today, March 2nd, 2025, Firefly’s Blue Ghost Serenity Mission landed safely on the moon, and attached to the lander are archived works from The Lunar Codex, which I am so very proud to be a part of!
I am proud and humbled to share that The d’Verse Anthology: Voices of Contemporary World Poetry, Edited by Frank Watson and published in 2013, was on the Serenity Mission. I congratulate my fellow d’Verse poets. Who knew when we shared our voices for this book that we would be a part of something so much larger?!!
Much gratitude to Samuel Peralta, my fellow poet and a mentor at d’Verse, for working diligently to make The Lunar Codex, his vision and dream, a reality!
I come from an area of proud tradition
filled with people as tough and as strong
as the seasons that rule it—
Farmers who toiled the rock strewn fields
turning soil to grow their food
learning to make do; to build stone walls
with the rocks they turned each spring.
We forged the rivers, sending lumber
from the northlands to the mills
and factories in the south.
We built bridges.
We built the first navigable canal.
We stood our ground against tyrants and kings.
The "shot heard round the world?"
That was us!
We know that democracy is right,
that oligarchy can never be our course.
We gave birth to founding fathers
and Presidents: John Hancock,
John Adams, John Quincy Adams
Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Pierce,
and John F. Kennedy were born here.
Our heroes did not wear capes.
They stood their ground against tyranny.
Ethan Allen, Deborah Sampson, Paul Revere,
just some of the names from our past.
Ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances
carving their place in our country’s proud history.
People like Joshua Chamberlain of Maine
who, at 34, despite the odds,
led his troops to victory in the battle
of Little Round Top at Gettysburg.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Today I've chosen remind you of just who we are—
We are a tough and obstinate lot, we New Englanders.
We are not afraid to ruffle feathers and go against the grain.
We don’t hold to lies nor cruelty; we grew up around cows
and can smell the bullshit long before we see the bull.
Our countenance is as tough as the hills, the valleys
and the rocky shorelines that we come from.
Our humor is as dry as our August summers.
We stay here not because of the frozen winters
the muddy Springs, the heat of our summers,
nor even the brief reprieve of autumn.
We stay because we are as a surly lot
as surely a part of this place
as it is a part of us...
and we are family, and like family
we may argue amongst ourselves
but, God forbid, you go after any one of us,
then you face the wrath of all!
Never forget who you are
Never forget the ones who forged the path you walk.
© Ginny Brannan 2025
Image: Early view of Bellows Falls, VT borrowed from Bellows Falls Historical Society page.
They say it “wasn’t sustainable”
the years of growth and community
of peace, and sensibility.
That our differences are “too widespread,”
our beliefs are "too far apart."
And so they came, trading decency for hard-line tactics
erasing truth with false statistics.
They say that we need to “buck up”
we’ve gotten “too soft”
as they gaslight, rewrite history,
releasing those who broke the law
with no thought to what they’re breaking.
Money can’t buy everything.
While it bought the presidency
and much of his immediate constituency.
with the promise of “legal” tax evasion,
it’s showcased our fragility.
Feeling lost, without direction.
we can’t give up and can’t give in—
We are the candles in the dark
the truth that cannot be erased.
The darkness holds a million stars
and we, the carriers of the light
must stand firm against the night.
© G.B. 2025
Credit for Image: https://starwalk.space/en/news/why-is-the-sky-dark-at-night
Oh look! A dusting of soft snow!
It falls so gently on the lawn.
I watch the flakes as they alight
to paint the boughs in pristine white.
It fills these eyes with such delight!
It purifies the grit and grime;
and brings me back to childhood days
transforms me to a different time.
Now old bones ache with winter chill–
Oh, to be that child still!
Those winter days that I recall,
no worries should I slip and fall.
I watch here from my warm cocoon
through the frosted window pane
and contemplate if I should wait
to see if snow will turn to rain.
© Ginny Brannan 2025
