Tag Archives: politics

The World Today

Posted on by
Reply

Can’t get too excited
about the choice between
the fox and the raccoon
to guard the henhouse

And though we well may be distraught
before the litany of fallen freedoms,
truth be told,
we’ve been chained
for as long as we remember

The shackles of any lie
will hold us prisoner.
Most effective are the ones
we never see

The amazing thing
is what unclasps them all —
miraculous, it seems,
when we consider
number and duration

But it’s not a secret,
it’s what we all have heard,
for surely it’s the truth
that makes us free.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 4, 2017

Greater Good

Posted on by
Reply

Tempted to throw myself
into the sea again,
feeling the waters
behind my eyes
wanting to join
the seething ebb and flow —
I remind them that this is not
inevitable,
they would only be lost,
as would I,
by taking such a dive

There is a place for me
here at the helm of thought,
making the subtle distinctions
of perception,
ready with the course corrections
that will keep my ship from foundering
and deliver my proof
of the power of the higher Mind
for the greater good.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 3, 2017

Praying for the Enemy

Posted on by
1

Anybody can be called back.
The unbreakable cord
that holds us to ourselves,
to who we really are,
to what we really want,
never lets go

And in this fullness of time,
it begins to make itself known.
The tug may first be felt
in quiet moments, between
the posturing, between the self justification,
between the self delusion

Once it starts asserting itself
there is actually no force
that can stand up to it.
Not willful blindness, not ugliness
of spirit, not power-drunk reflexes
of greedy grabbing

I affirm this cord in each of us.
I affirm it growing strong
and pulling all of us back
to our core love, from which vantage point
there is no more ability
to harm another.
I pray for all of us,
including the ones who need it most.

©Wendy Mulhern
February 23, 2017

Children of the One

Posted on by
Reply

There is no secret
that can be hidden
from honest hearts,
for they are bound together
in the pulse of everything

The rhythm teaches them,
the beat sustains them,
the sequence of the wave,
in how it moves and flows
to each one in its perfect time
assures there is no lost knowing,
for they are all connected

There is no shadow government
that can control the working
of inner truth —
It feeds us from within
with what we are, with
what can never be subjugated,
because there is no place to stand
outside the All.

©Wendy Mulhern
January 3, 2017

The Rule of Hearts

Posted on by
Reply

field of daisies

Let us not sleep.
Justice comes, not by hoping for it,
not by peaking periodically
from the cynicism we retreated to
last time our hopes were dashed

Justice doesn’t come by waiting for it,
for some last straw to topple
the systems that have ruled us for so long

In this moment, I claim my power.
My heart is humble in this, but still insistent.
It knows that every heart
has always yearned the same,
it knows that yearning leads to fulfillment.

This is the rule of hearts,
and when everything else is silent,
they will be known to be
the only ones that ever sing,
and justice is their harmonizing —
when they join together,
we will win.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 17, 2016

Voice

Posted on by
Reply

purple magnolia

We stand
startled at the sound
of our voices,
not having heard them
in so long,
lulled and cowed and simply worn down
by the loud drone constantly imposed,
passed off as our own,
asserting its message
of fear and division
all through the day and the night

Now we have spoken
and it’s wonderful how the sound
hums in our throats, in our bones,
how we find we have more to say,
how good it feels when others
resonate, corroborate.
So we stand together,
learning how to hear,
learning to be heard.

©Wendy Mulhern
March 26, 2016

Gratitude for Activists

Posted on by
1

activists

Those who fight for freedom
to be themselves beyond the norms of gender
fight for us all,
for we are all constricted by the norms

Those who fight oppression against women
fight for us all,
for every slighting of the worth of any person
slights us all

Living in privilege
makes people stupid,
because, in that mythos,
it’s to our advantage
to simply not notice
that we are complicit
in others’ suppression

There is no us and them
and every one of us
who lifts a voice in courage,
to be heard and seen and known,
makes room for more of us
under the sky,
to find our voices
and to claim our own,
to lift our many-colored heads
and grow more free.

©Wendy Mulhern
May 18, 2014

State of the Union

Posted on by
Reply

Traversing once again
the thoughtscapes
we have created
and called the world,
I see so many fractured structures,
so many castles
that clearly are pretend,
the fabrications
of such manipulations
that what I find most hard to understand
is how we ever thought they’d hold our weight.

But wait —
Even now they are shifting
more clearly into dream
and we are still standing,
yet not on nothing,
So there must be 
(and must have always been)
something here that holds us up,
some essential structure
that is not broken
and will sustain us still
when everything falls down.

©Wendy Mulhern
October 5, 2013


Americans

Posted on by
Reply

We are actually much deeper
than the stories about ourselves,
the tragic, unanchored drifting,
vertiginous sense of not knowing,
of having no basis for deep compassion
and decisive action.
We are not those shallow people
who accumulate stuff
and blame others
for the lack of joy in our lives.

This is who we are:
Grounded in truth. Formidable.
Able to demand fairness for all,
able to protect the sovereignty and dignity
of every living thing.
Able to say no to the growing, rolling
ball of lies that tries to drag us under,
Able to stand as strong
as any long-oppressed survivor,
able to see love win.

©Wendy Mulhern
September 3, 2013


Riding the beast

Posted on by
Reply

The lengths of highway
flex their strength
like muscular snakes.
We who have thought 
they lived to serve us
start to feel our big mistake,
Start to sense how trapped we’ve been
in the grid of roads,
in the grid of time,
in the grip of (up till now)
unquestioned rules
that say we have to ride the snakes
and serve the hours 
and not complain
when (for our safety)
more and more of liberty
is locked away.

If we are to escape,
we must slide, softly,
off the back of what we have been riding,
Find ourselves together off the grid,
Build the places in between
until they make new paths
for all our energies.
Let the beast grow old and still
through lack of use,
Give our every effort to our truth.

©Wendy Mulhern
June 25, 2013