I still stumble upon something of yours –

a sock,

a receipt,

a misplaced dream,

and it seems you are here.

.

I go through old papers and photos,

looking,

always looking for you.

.

I catch a glimpse,

a taste,

a smell.

.

I try to put these pieces together,

to put you back together, to put you back.

to put you back.

.

Here,

with,

me.

.

It is as if you were at the door, looking in,

but I turn and.

.

the leaves blow in the cool Fall air

.

The woods are dark.

.

Someday I will enter that line of trees to look for you.

.

but for now,

I will try, to stop trying to put the pieces back.

.

I know,

you told me,

I know.

.

You would not want me to enter those woods,

before,

my own cold winter comes.

© words by Daniel DeMarle 10/10/2020

When someone says “nice house, bet you got nice stuff in there.” Then later they say “I bet it would be easy to break into”, then later you see them staking out your house. Then they tell you they are going to break into your house.” Then they tell you how they will break into your house.” Then you come home and your house is broken into. Who is at fault?

When the President, says he wants 8 more years. When the President says repeatedly he wants 8 more years. When the president starts dismantling the locks to protect voting, by destroying the USPS. When the RNC, his best friend, starts legally trying to suppress the vote. When his old campaign is found to have suppressed black voting and the vote. ‘ When the Supreme Court is making a much larger number of emergency rulings in favor of Trump (they require no hearings and no written opinions). When his allies in the Senate will put in place a 6th conservative Supreme Court Justice prior to the election, so she can vote on his attempts to overturn the election. When he tells his brown shirts (the Proud Boys) to stand down and be ready. When he encourages illegal voting. When he tells his gun-wielding supporters to go into election sites to act as poll watchers, to suppress the vote and voting by BIPOC. When he finally claims he won, when he lost, and illegally claims a second term, and the Court supports him. Who is at fault?

We are – for not stopping this right now. We can shush this down. We can demand change. We can march on Washington. We can do sits ins and shut down the government. We can shut down the economy. We can stop a Supreme Court process until after the election. We can vote in overwhelming numbers for Democrats down the ballot. We can stop our house, our country from being plundered. We can give money to the people reporting the stories we need to read. We can fund the advocacy groups that do the work to keep democracy strong. #BidenHarris2020 #ProtectOurDemocracy #stopthesupremecourtnomination

You can help, start by donating to the ACLU. They are fighting our battles for our right to vote. #ACLU

© words by Daniel DeMarle 10/1/2020

Breathe.

One of the most beautiful sounds in the world is a breath

breathe

the first breath of a newborn

breathe

the tickilsh breath of your father zerbertining your baby belly

breathe

the anxious breath of your first kiss with your first crush

breathe

the inhalation after you come up from a deep dive

breathe

the shallow breath of your lover sleeping next to you

breathe

your gasping breathe as you push for that final contraction

breathe

the baby breaths of your infant as they nurse

breathe

the last breaths of your dying parents

breathe

the breath right before your start to cry as that former baby now says I do.

breathe

your last breath on your last day, in your last hour

bre….
…
..
.
.

© words by Daniel DeMarle 9/30/2020

The issue is not the Supreme Court, the pandemic, the protests, the right to abortion, or any of the very real and significant issues before us.  The absolute real reason you need to remove Trump and the Republicans from the Senate is all about tipping points, irreversible chain reactions, and unknown feedback loops. It’s about 1.5 degree global temperature rise, and that we have maybe 6 more years.  We may have already written our species death sentence.  If nothing is done, and they have four more years to not only do nothing but to actually make things worse, we certainly will have.

Vote on November 3rd, as if your future depended on it, because it does.

© words by  Dan DeMarle 9/21/2020

If I told you someone said something nice to me, you would say ‘oh that was nice.’ Yet if I told you someone said something racist to me, you would blame me and want a 1000 questions answered. If you can believe the first, why can’t you believe the second?  I am the same person in both situations.  You and your attitude and beliefs are what is different. Don’t ask me to explain it or prove it to you, I am the victim, ask yourself instead what is wrong with you?

© words by  Dan DeMarle 9/21/2020

Snarky post warning!!! I love the complete ignorance of anyone who lives in America, or is an American abroad, who says I don’t do politics!! You live in a democracy. Everything you do is about politics. You turn on a TV (FCC regulated), you pick up a phone (FTC, state and local taxes), you get in your car (oh boy to many federal agencies), you drive your car (again to many federal agencies, federal laws, and state laws), you drive on a road (who built it, who maintains it, federal, state, and various local dollars), you cross a bridge (OMG way too many federal, state, and local regulations and money), you go to the grocery store (building codes, building permits, federal and state regulations let alone all of those regulations related to its building and whether it was union or nonunion work), you buy a tomato from Argentina (OMG internal laws, federal law, state laws, etc… etc… etc..) Who makes those laws, who negotiates those trade deals, what judges rule on those disputes. Oh I know take a deep sigh (what’s in that air you breathe who regulates the pollutants), take a drink of water (OMG regulations, thank God, or you could be in Flint all over again). Then turn off your social media (regulations) turn off the light (OMG where do you live, near Canada? Where’s your power coming from, international treaties, federal laws, state laws, business laws, environmental regulations, fees, taxes). So sure when you say you don’t do politics, all your saying is you don’t want any power in any of this and guess what, that is exactly what they want. They won, you lost. Sucker….

Don’t be a sucker! Register, and Vote November 3rd.

Why is it that,

the names of Fort Sumter,

Bull Run,

Shiloh,

and Gettysburg,

resound even today

after more than a century and a half?

Yet, what happened in 1919 during the red summer

leaves a resounding blankness.

Two years before the Tulsa Massacre,

America ran red with black blood.

From April to December Whites attacked blacks

many black servicemen returning from World War I.

The city streets ran red.

Tennessee, Georgia

Florida, West Virginia,

Mississippi, South Carolina

Arkansas, Connecticut,

Maryland, Arizona

Pennsylvania, Alabama

Texas, Arkansas

New York, Louisiana

Nebraska, Kentucky,

Delaware, and even Syracuse NY.

Even the famed Buffalo Soldiers,

were attacked by local police in Bisbee, Arizona.

In Elaine, Arkansas when black sharecroppers tried to unionize,

white militias came from miles around.

At the end, 100 to 237 blacks and 5 whites lay dead.

When Southern Justice came in,

seventy nine black people were tried and all convicted by,

all white juries and 12 were sentenced to death for murder.

So when someone tries to raise that rebel flag,

When someone wants to tell you “all lives matter”,

Just remember the red summer,

Remember that no whites went on trial in Elaine, Arkansas.

Then when you say that could not have happened again,

Then read about Tulsa,

Tuskegee,

Emmett Till,

those four young girls in Birmingham,

then remember,

Philando,

Sandra,

Ahmaud,

George,

Breonna

and Daniel Prude.

Do not tell me it can’t happen again,

because it is happening everyday.

© words by Daniel DeMarle 9/15/2020

I remember exactly where I was when the planes hit the towers. It was a tragedy. A tragedy that a scared President and a vengeful congress used to start two wars that are still going on today. I remember finding out about how we were illegally taking people with no right to judge or jury to Guantanamo Bay Cuba, where some still are. I remember hearing the totals of the billions of dollars spent to keep them there. I remember extraordinary renditions, waterboarding, torture, and other massive violations of human rights, deaths by the probable hundreds of thousands if not millions in the middle east, I remember the Patriot Act and librarians and businesses not even being able to tell us that we were being monitored. I remember the NSA surveillance of US citizens that is still going on today. I remember how we the American people gladly gave up civil rights because we were taught to be scared. I remember the government not even letting us see the bodies’ of our brave US soldiers coming home, because they were afraid we might notice. I remember the terror and loss of the families that lost loved one’s in 911. But mostly I remember that we as American’s failed in our most basic duty to not be scared, to not be misled, and to hold our government accountable. There is no tragedy bad enough to give up our rights or to kill millions. We still have armed forces in Iran and Iraq, and some of them were not even alive when 9/11 happened. On this tragic day, let us remember that tragedy and honor the victims and their families, but let us also remember that due to the President’s and our government’s shameful response to that day. We all have blood on our hands and the surveillance technology that can watch us try to wash it off in vain.

© words by Daniel DeMarle 9/11/2020

The truth is

the problem with protests,

the problem with marches,

the problem with angry words,

is that they are all attempts to demand change;

to demand to be heard,

to demand power,

to demand a seat at the table.

That does not work.

Stop asking white people to give you something.

Stop asking men to give you things.

Stop asking people who are able to give you something.

Power given can be taken back.

A seat at the table can be withdrawn.

Asking for implies it is not yours.

Asking for means you must be given permission to have it.

The power was always yours.

They have just convinced you that it isn’t.

Stop asking and claim your power.

The system will not change if you ask it to change.

It will only change when you change it.

Asking someone to open a closed-door means they have the power to open it.

However, putting your hand on the handle,

results in an open door.

© words by Daniel DeMarle 9/9/2020

Rochester, NY 10:54 PM. There is a moment of silence between the police militarized attack on peaceful protestors. The marchers have been beaten back by flash bang grenades, tear gas, sonic weapons, pepper ball bullets. Many were injured and medics are helping them. The marchers are regrouping and planning on moving forward to attempt to continue the march and exert our right to peacefully assemble. They have guns and weapons, and we have masks, cardboard shields, and umbrellas. Later after pushing back this march they will corner marchers in a church where they sought haven and shoot bullets at the church.

In that short time, between all of that light, and noise and chaos I come across this woman in the street praying. Even amidst chaos there can be calm. There are times when there is simply beauty and grace amidst the chaos.

© photo and words by Daniel DeMarle 9/5/2020