On Inauguration Eve, No Fear: Revolutionary Napkin Rhyming Haiku

Some feared darkness may/
come down upon us. Then I /
heard me some harp blues.

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Elizabeth Can’t Know What She Started In Me That Day: Revolutionary Blogging Poem

Elizabeth,
that day
dressed in red
can’t know
what she started
that day
in me.

The fire
she lit
was not because
of praise
for that day,
nor the fire
of past time,
which were last time
lit by others,
but because
I saw,
that day,
my own potential,
my own abilities,
my own
audacity
of hope.

She stood,
cold and wind-swept,
that day,
on steps
others had built.
I heard,
and stood
that day,
and from that day,
on words
she’d written.

I claimed,
that day,
for myself,
the knowledge
and ability
that I could climb
those stairs
as well.

That day,
in her mind,
was not about me,
or my people,
or my ilk.
But for me,
that day
was the start
of a new day
and a new way
of being
that I claimed
for me.

Loving The Revolution: Revolutionary Romantic IMprov Blogging Poetry

Fulfilling a promise I made on President Obama’s Inauguration Day, to write a poem or prose a daily, I’ve now more than doubled my self-imposed quota. Thanks to the muses — known and unknown — who have inspired me, and to my friends who expressed their belief in me. Inspired by Facebook’s “The Reflective Writer”, here is my 2000th poem, combining the two main themes of this blog: Romance and Revolution.

I love
my Revolution.
I embrace
change.
I woo
adapting.
I desire
adjustment.

It’s romantic,
isn’t it?
This self-propelled
repair;
this analysis
and violent rebirth;
this surgery
that let’s me
see
and be
who I am,
revolutionary.

Accepting change
means changing
the way we view
everything.

The revolution
heads down
from our brain,
up from our heart
and soul,
and out
our mouths
and fingertips.

But first,
we must love us
and the world.
We must romance
ourselves,
believing the world
needs love,
sweet love;
love is all you need.

And when we love ourselves,
and love the world,
we take that vow
of love.
We disavow
that fear
which holds us back
from revolutionary
acts.

We change
who we are,
Because we love;
Because we romanticize
life;
Because we embrace
joy;
Because a little revolution,
now and then,
is good for the soul.

And when we create revolution
in ourselves,
we extend how much
we can love.

Years ago,
revolutionaries spoke
from Capitol steps.
It was in this hope
and audacity,
that I vowed,
hopefully,
audaciously,
to start my own
revolution,
because I loved myself,
and wanted to romance
the world.

The revolution
called for one
a day.
One statement.
One thought.
One outpouring.
One lament.
One laugh.
One cry.
One moan.
One change.
One.

2,000 posts later,
this vowed daily one
has become
my expression
of romance,
love,
and revolution.

And I’m not done.
Join me.

It’s time for a word revolution! — David Kuhns, CyranoWriter, Starts Writing

Note: I’ve tried to get the blog explanation (next article) up to this position, but can’t figure out how. If you want to know how my blog is structured and what it’s about, make certain you read the NEXT posting as well. THIS posting is more of a “Why/how I was inspired!” piece!
Inspired by President Obama’s Inauguration Speech, I recognized it was my time (after half a century) to start writing. Tell me what you think. (I’m feeling very uninspired tonight!)(PS: Please make certain you read the next entry, below, to understand HOW my blog is set up… this is mostly about the “Why”).

But now it is morning — and I feel more inspired. In brief, two things happened during the Inauguration that inspired me. One was very simple: As the Poet read her work after President Obama’s speech, I listened, and thought to myself: “My work is just as good.”

More importantly, though, is what happened to me as the inauguration took place. I was thinking about all my African-American, Native American, Hispanic, Gay Rights friends, soldiers who’d “fought the fight”, who must have been ecstatic with the events of January 20th, 2009.

And I felt very ashamed. These were people who’d LIVED with segregation, who’d been the “first to”, who’d stood shoulder to shoulder with the oppressed, who’d been oppressed themselves. And me? What had I done? Certainly nothing revolutionary like they had done.

Then I thought of my life, and the very different path it took, in one way, on the outside, a path of ease and comfort, but in another way, a path very different than I had anticipated, an uncomfortable path personally, a path of coaching soccer and baseball, of youth groups, of planting gardens, of doing service projects. And I realized that, in a small, personal way, I’d also been a revolutionary and that, because of President Obama’s remarks, and the examples of thousands before, I was able to come out about it, to shout from the rooftops that there are things I feel passionately about, things that matter, and although in the history of this nation, and in the minds of many, those things don’t matter as much as what my friends went through — they matter to me.

This blog contains my revolutionary statements.

At the same time, I experienced a personal “coming out” of the romantic writer. That writer had always been there, hiding, ashamed, not willing to believe that he was “any good”, assuming that people reading his romanticism, his rhyme schemes and free verse and prose, would giggle and say “Romance is stupid” or “You sound like Dr. Seuss / writing about the love of a Moose!” or “I don’t get it.”

Thanks to several friends — old AND new — and thanks to the belief that today IS a new day, I’ve decided to start writing, and posting my writings, along with my experiences as both a Romantic Poet and a Revolutionary Writer. Maybe it’s not right that I self-proclaim that I’m either — or both — of those things. But who is to say that I am, or I’m not?

Inauguration Day Revolution Revelation

I wrote this poem shortly after President Obama was sworn in, and sent it, along with this note, to my family:

 I rarely

dare

to share

my poetry.

 

But it is a new day,

and I have something to say.

 

I wrote this conTEXTing preface Oct. 12, 2010, preparing for the Seattle Poetry Slam –

 

I watch Capitol steps and Mall populate/

as my friends celebrate/

the Audacity of Hope/

and I grope/

to know how I,/

a suburban white guy/

fit in./

And so I begin … 
  

Inauguration Day Revolution Revelation

 

I am a revolutionary.

(The words stare out from the page,

although I’ve seen them in my mind before.

Have I?

I’m not sure!)

 

I’ve ridden – and ride — the bus

Not when it was dangerous

But when it is obnoxious.

Not for Civil Rights.

But for Earth’s Rights.

 

I am a revolutionary.

I’ve dug my hands deep

Not into plantations’ soil

Nor sharecropper’s clay,

But into the teaming,

Steaming,

Still hot, though winter’s day

at minus 20 degrees,

Compost heap,

That I first learned to keep

At ten,

And again,

At thirty,

To get my hands dirty.

And now

I know how

To show younger folk,

That they may pick up

That revolutionary yoke.

 

I am a revolutionary.

Though not the great-great grandson

Of anyone

Who history would honor

Nor remember.

 

Mine came across the water as well,

To seek a new life

in a promised land.

A land of opportunity they sought out

Of their own choice.

 

I follow that dream

Because I am the son of a father

Who has been to many mountaintops,

And rivers and marshes and forests and lakes

And said: “Make no mistake:

This is ours to preserve …

Or to eradicate.”

 

I am a revolutionary.

As the son of women who

Gave a hand up

When that’s all they could do.

Who, when others saw opportunity,

In times of greed,

Looked through with clarity,

And saw need,

And gave with charity.

 

Even now,

within my soul, I guess,

There is an inner vow:

“I can do no less!”

 

I am a revolutionary.

Lest there be any confusion

The earth,

and its people,

Are the roots of my revolution.

  

— Written after the Inauguration of President Obama, on my mother’s birthday, January 20, 2009

I read this poem at a committee meeting of the Seattle City Council in August, 2010. If you go to this link: YouTube copy of Inauguration Day Revolution Revelation at Seattle City Council sub-committee, “Words Worth”, 2010