On November 8, 2016, Donald J. Trump won the Electoral College to become our President-Elect, at the absolute shock of most of the country...
The same day, a person close to me, who I have always loved dearly, experienced a bit of a break with reality. The cracks I saw forming in my friend’s life with those closest to them mirrored the chasms forming in our ever more polarizing nation. I had just recently become a mother, and all of the tension in my friend’s life and the nation made my mind spin over the world my daughter had just been born into. I imagined Lady Liberty as a kind of mother to us, and how she might react, unable to believe the country she had watched over so long changing in ways she could not grasp.
The same day, a person close to me, who I have always loved dearly, experienced a bit of a break with reality. The cracks I saw forming in my friend’s life with those closest to them mirrored the chasms forming in our ever more polarizing nation. I had just recently become a mother, and all of the tension in my friend’s life and the nation made my mind spin over the world my daughter had just been born into. I imagined Lady Liberty as a kind of mother to us, and how she might react, unable to believe the country she had watched over so long changing in ways she could not grasp.
by CLS Ferguson
Mother
Liberty has lost her mind
There's
something infiltrating
the
system in her brain
that
usually separates right and wrong, logic and farce
Right
around where so many have tread,
at the
front of her head, behind her crown
Perhaps
her madness is from her father,
fathers
really
no one
knows which is really responsible
They all
had in common a bit of madness
Abusing
Liberty's natural born children,
then
forcing her to adopt foreign kids she hadn't ever met
Mother
Liberty always sought
the right
man to be her partner
She had
man after man
They
started out more old fashion, racist, sexist
But got a
little better each time
Every
divorce left her heart a bit worse off than the one before
Each new
marriage a bit of hope
at least
on the groom's side
It got
worse when she and Dad divorced
Now all
Mother Liberty sees is orange
She's cut
off her children, natural born and adopted
She
refuses to speak to her best friends
And no
one can speak anything real to her
She just
keeps standing, green and slightly rusted
Denying
anything has changed
Her children
of color march because
Liberty’s
police were killing them
Her
natural born children dance in traditional dress
Her
daughters march, some for her daughters born,
whose
rights were threatened
Some for
her daughters yet to be born,
whose
right to live was threatened
All her
children cry out to her
"We
need you, Mother Liberty!"
She won't
respond
"Don't
you want to be a part of your grandchildren's lives?"
"Send
me pictures," she says, and just keeps looking eastward.
 |
| Photography by Cat Gwynn |
CLS Ferguson, PhD is a communication professor at Mt. San Antonio College and California State University, Northridge. She paints, sings, acts, models, produces independent films, and has published many academic articles and two academic books. Her portrayal of The Black Rose in Silence, which she also co-wrote and produced, earned her a best actress award and a best film award at the LA Neo Noir Festival. Her music video, Secrets & Lies recently earned accolades on the indie film circuit. CLS has published poetry in Shangri-La Shack, Still Points Quarterly, PQLeer, Dirty Chai, Sheepshead Review, Drunk Monkeys, and other places. Her poetry collection, God Bless Paul is out on Rosedog Books and her co-authored chapbook, The Way We Were with JC Jones is out on Writing Knights Press. She and her husband, Rich are raising their daughter, Evelyn and their Bernese Mountain Border Collie Mutt, Sadie in Alhambra, CA. You may visit her website here.
~If you are interested in seeing your poetry appear in this blog, or submitting a poem by a woman that has inspired you, please click here for submission guidelines. I greatly look forward to hearing from you!
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