Untie Me

Used to be tied in a knot
Have recently been untied
My ears are now clear
My eyelids open
My chest can inhale deeply

I don’t know if I like being untied
Free, dangling
Where anyone can tie me
Into the knot they wish

Now I can be tethered
Anchored under water
Tied to a kite, soaring
Hold turkey legs together
Hug a roast
Thrown into a heated oven

They use me to tie wrists
I travel around the world on packages
Best of all, though,
Some use me to steady
sweet smelling flowers in their gardens,
Roses to the trestle

I’m used in parables
'Thread of Life'
Morphed into metaphysical theories
(the string theory)
Used as metaphors
‘held together by a thread’

I guess I don’t mind
being used to tie things together
Don’t know if I like being in a knot
But I also don’t like being
‘left dangling not knowing,
hanging by a thread’ .

I’m all knotted up

Gabby's Chant

A chant like a song
A refrain for equity, for parity
ascends from her voice

She sings the words
from her heart, her soul
‘this nation embraces all of us
in the words of our Constitution’

A crack rings out
The song is quieted
Screams resound
She falls and
a child of 9/11/01
lay beside her
on a carpet of red
now breathless

The chant has stopped
muffled by an angry hand
holding a weapon
given to him by the very ‘rights’
of the verses being sung

Her chant; ‘Our Constitution provides
us all the …freedom of speech;
peaceable assembly and the right
to petition the Government for
the redress of grievances‘.

Bullets will not quiet voices, convictions
we've tried this with 'wars'
The taste of liberty, freedom
remains in memory, in songs
chants by those with the courage
to sing on Mall corners