Woman Takes Courageous Stand in Affirming What All the Powers Tell Her to Affirm

Beatrice Franklin is hopping mad! And she is going to let you know about it in the most courageous way possible. She is going to repost some jarring memes on social media, the single most dangerous place on planet earth. Some might think that no-mans-land in World War 1, or religious fidelity in a time of persecution, or taking to the seas during the age of exploration, or things like that are the contexts of the greatest courage required of people in human history. Forget soldiers or explorers or faithful men and women. Beatrice has come that you might have an exemplar of bravery in these perilous times.

Not only has she stormed the ideological beach of Normandy, but she comes with opinions so bold, so razor sharp, so original, so beautiful, that they can only be uttered by the most courageous of the courageous class! She is so courageous that she is like a woman wearing daisy dukes taking a stroll down the streets of Kabul. 

Her social media feed includes such culturally radical forays into battle as these:

“White people are so racist it disgusts me. I feel sick being white.” 

“Women’s bodies are their own bodies and they can eject parasites inside them if they want to! Parasites are gross!"

"If women were in charge, there would so much less killing!"

“Everyone should be free to love whoever they love for as long as the loving lasts.”

"Capitalism enslaves!"

“Gas powered cars and plastic bottles and billionaires are killing the planet. Buy a Tesla and a yeti!”

“Rich people are so greedy. They should give their Tesla’s to college students.”

“College should be free, like the credit card my dad gave me.”

Now one would think that with such radical and minority views Beatrice would surely be facing persecution, and that probably is coming soon for such steely and courageous bravery, but most days she is only forced to summon her courage in facing her too hot chai tea latte at Starbucks, never yielding in her laser focus for social change from the plush safety of her corner booth. Thank you, Beatrice, for standing in the gap for all of us. 

Traffic

This poem was written before we moved into a much simpler life here in Bakersfield, CA. It was inspired by an all too common occurrence in our overcrowded harried lives when we lived in the big city. The "serpent" reference is significant because the devil is described as the great deceiver.

Traffic
Hollow faces turn their passionless gaze
Toward the crowded horizon…

Long ago, a liars voice beckoned and somewhere someone responded, the
rest herded after.

Generations following this path have cut a groove into our humanity.
we all spill into it, pressing upon
each other, competing for progress toward prosperity,
all energy of resistance to the voice
dissipated.
Sheer momentum has taken over.

No one questions the migration of this mob,
each assuming his place in the endless line,
each child of the scientific age mechanically clinging to his place, only
questioning relative position and not the destination.

It does not feel the sublime, this serpentine demigod.
Its poisonous breath stifles sensation.
It assimilates individuality, expanding its mass through augmentation.
It grows while the people shrink.
It converts the autonomous into automation.

Each looks to the other only for help in their movements toward
The unnamed, unknown and unworthy goal.

No one pauses.
No one thinks.
Individuality is swallowed up
as vermin before The Serpent…

But the traffic grows.



May, 2006