Word of the Day

(Wednesday) “Sophistry” – sof-uh-stree | Noun

Many people bought it, enough,

this argument that promised so much

greatness again, feeding into us

an image so real as to be believable, almost,

but here we sit, waiting, duped perhaps

and not even aware that we are,

seeing walls and power where there is none.

********************

(Thursday) “Saudade” – soh-dah-duh | Noun

Often we yearn for the “good old days”

when life was simpler, better even,

when gas was cheap and we didn’t fear

our neighbor’s wrath or offending them,

joining them instead at our table for holidays,

backyard barbecues, and good conversation, a shared life,

and we feel so low now with its loss

that we’ll place our faith in anything

with promises of hope and renewal and change.

********************

(Friday) “Imprimature“ – im-pri-mah-ter | Noun

So we raised Him up,

this newly-crowned deity

Who would save us, take us forward

in reverse as He feeds us

a diet of platitudes, mostly,

safe behind walls that shut us in

while we wait and wonder

and surrender ourselves to His greatness.

********************

(Monday) “Luddite“ – luhd-ahyt | Noun

In 1811, bands of Brits fearing for their jobs,

diminished employment, fearing progress,

rose up to destroy those machinations they feared

would replace their handwork, those machines

of manufacturing that would ease their effort

and increase production, move industries forward,

life, too, progressing, trying instead to hold it back.

And for six years they fought and destroyed,

afraid, fearing progress:

short-sighted, uneducated, misled.

Today, perhaps, we rise up again

against the machinations of progress,

afraid to move beyond what we have,

beyond what we are, advancing to what we can become.

********************

(Tuesday) “Forgettery” – fer-get-uh-ree | Noun

Perhaps, too, in our saudadic yearning, 
our memories fail us, fail

to recall the long hours our forebears

toiled in the factories and fields, their lives shortened,

and us, too, losing our youth and health, dying young;

fail to recall their beginnings before us,

immigrants leaving to come here to make

our futures better, the struggle to learn a language,

a strange tongue, and earn a wage, raise their children

with greater options than they or crushed by it because

of their name, unpronounceable, and rising above it,

embracing freedom’s opportunities to speak,

to worship, to gather together, unhampered

and guaranteed; or the sacrifices made to get

where we are, now, those lives lost or destroyed

for an ideal written in blood spilled to give it meaning,

give it value, give it greatness, to give us life

and reason; or will our faulty memories

drag us back to a time of fearful living, giving

up who we are, what we can become?

Luddites all, lost in sophistry’s trickery

and our own imprimatur given too freely

to those who would take us backward, away

from greatness, our forgettery becoming our downfall.