Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Justice, or Poetic Justice

"Justice was like coloured balls in a magician's hand, 

changing colour and shape all the time beneath the light of politics.” 

― Qiu Xiaolong

“Peace": the fruit of justice done especially to the Self.” 

― Alice Walker, The World Will Follow Joy: Turning Madness into Flowers

“The white man will never be alone. Let him be just, 

and deal kindly with my people. For the dead are not powerless.” 

― Chief Seattle, The Chief Seattle's Speech

“Justitia” by Bodo Kampmann.

Midweek Motif ~ Justice 

or Poetic Justice

Have you experienced or seen justice?  Whereas Justice is a social and legal concept, Poetic Justice is a literary device. I always found poetic justice much more satisfying! Examples of poetic justice:

• Disney films, most specifically animated films, often use poetic justice as an ending device with the hero being rewarded, and the villain being punished in ironic and, occasionally, fatal ways.
• The Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons feature repeated instances of poetic justice, as Wile E. Coyote always sets traps for Road Runner, only to end up in the traps himself.
• Oedipus Rex in trying to prevent his foretold fate brings it upon himself as does King Kamsa in the ancient Sanskrit story of Krishna.

Your Challenge:  Create a poem centering on Justice or Poetic Justice.  

Justice 

By Langston Hughes

That Justice is a blind goddess

Is a thing to which we black are wise:

Her bandage hides two festering sores

That once perhaps were eyes.

Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket

BY VACHEL LINDSAY

I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.

My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.

I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.

I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.

Man is a curious brute—he pets his fancies—

Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.

So he will be, though law be clear as crystal,

Tho’ all men plan to live in harmony.

Come, let us vote against our human nature,

Crying to God in all the polling places

To heal our everlasting sinfulness

And make us sages with transfigured faces.

Poem for Nana

BY JUNE JORDAN

What will we do

when there is nobody left

to kill?

       *

40,000 gallons of oil gushing into

the ocean

But I

sit on top this mountainside above

the Pacific

checking out the flowers

the California poppies orange

as I meet myself in heat

                           I’m wondering

where’s the Indians?

                           all this filmstrip territory

                           all this cowboy sagaland:

                           not

                           a single Indian

                           in sight

. . . .

(Read the rest HERE at The Poetry Foundation.)

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For those who are new to Poets United: 

• Post your Justice poem on your site, and then link it here.
• Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
• If you use a picture include its link.  
• Please leave a comment here and visit and comment on our poems.

(Next Week's motif is Honoring our Elders)

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Poets United Midweek Motif ~Earth Day or Earthiness

“We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.” 
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)

"Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. The earth is sacred and men and animals are but one part of it. Treat the earth with respect so that it lasts for centuries to come and is a place of wonder and beauty for our children.” 

― Extract from Chief Seattle.

“The Earth is what we all have in common.” 

― Wendell Berry

http://www.earthday.org/2015

Midweek Motif ~ Earth Day

or Earthiness

Today, 22 April, is Earth Day.  On Earth Day we get "down to earth" ~ We pay attention to how to care for our planet more than one day a year.  I laughed at this "Wiki-How" article until I read it:  

How to Be an Earthy Girl: Love the earth and want to be more of an "earthy girl"? Here's some advice to help you achieve this naturally, and with a minimum of fuss.

Check it out HERE!  

Your Challenge:  Write a poem celebrating the earth, earthiness and/or attempts to help the earth live. Feel free to address only one aspect of the issue. 

Workers in Port-au-Prince building rock walls and planting vegetation
as ways to save arable land and avoid flooding in lower areas.
UN Photo/Logan Abassi

For a Coming Extinction

BY W. S. MERWIN

Gray whale

Now that we are sending you to The End

That great god

Tell him 

That we who follow you invented forgiveness

And forgive nothing

. . . .

(Read the rest HERE at The Poetry Founndation

Untitled

by Al Gore

One thin September soon

A floating continent disappears

In midnight sun

Vapors rise as

Fever settles on an acid sea

Neptune's bones dissolve

Snow glides from the mountain

Ice fathers floods for a season

A hard rain comes quickly

Then dirt is parched

Kindling is placed in the forest

For the lightning's celebration

Unknown creatures

Take their leave, unmourned

Horsemen ready their stirrups

Passion seeks heroes and friends

The bell of the city

On the hill is rung

The shepherd cries

The hour of choosing has arrived

Here are your tools

Lead

by Mary Oliver

Here is a story

to break your heart.

Are you willing?

This winter

the loons came to our harbor

and died, one by one,

of nothing we could see.

A friend told me

of one on the shore

that lifted its head and opened

the elegant beak and cried out

in the long, sweet savoring of its life

which, if you have heard it,

you know is a sacred thing,

and for which, if you have not heard it,

you had better hurry to where

they still sing.

And, believe me, tell no one

just where that is.

The next morning

this loon, speckled

and iridescent and with a plan

to fly home

to some hidden lake,

was dead on the shore.

I tell you this

to break your heart,

by which I mean only

that it break open

and never close again

to the rest of the world.

(I lifted this poem from "Heartbreak, Violence, and Hope for New Life" BY PARKER J.PALMER (@PARKERJPALMER), WEEKLY COLUMNIST for On Being with Krista Tippett, I did not ask for the rights, I so wanted to use it with such short notice. Please forgive me. I love you.) 

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For those who are new to Poets United: 

• Post your Earth poem on your site, and then link it here.
• Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
• If you use a picture include its link.  
• Please leave a comment here and visit and comment on our poems

(Our next Midweek Motif is Justice or Poetic Justice.)

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