Di Viera Poet Rhyme

Respiration 2020

Cover your face.
Wash your hands.
Cover your voice.
Take care where you stand.
 
The world isn’t safe.
Boy, stay in your place.
Can’t take a knee 
- unless it’s on me.
 
Too weary to cope
No peace; no hope
So much despair
Don’t trust the air
 
I CAN’T BREATHE!
 
More lying,
      more crying 
               and too much dying
More shooting, 
        more looting and
                own horn tooting, 
Leaders just lurking
or under-mask smirking.
We aren’t working.
 
I, CAN’T BREATHE?
 
How will They learn 
if you just came here to burn?
Stop all the violence, and 
be done with the silence 
It’s all gone berserk 
but, MY lungs still work.
 
I CAN BREATHE. 
 
So, I’ll breathe loudly; 
I’ll breathe proudly. 
Breathing for JUSTICE, not Just Us. 
I’ll breathe knowing who must - US.
I’ll breathe with a chorus that can’t be silenced,
young and old; 
timid and bold;
dark and light;
all breathing what’s right.
Breathing firey tongues of 
history untold;
Breathing through tears for 
the ones we can’t hold;
Breathing righteous love and true understanding 
until with my last breath 
when I am no longer standing 
I’ll breathe release
while the chorus breathes
 Hope and Peace
 
       - - D Viera (June 2020)

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Caren Krutsinger June 15, 2020 at 10:25 PM Hope and peace. At this time we have to focus on these two things. A reflective poem that works well at this slice of time.

Rico Leffanta June 15, 2020 at 1:51 PM We all breathe the same air, yet many exhale hate yet expect purity when they inhale! Aloha! Rico

John Watt June 15, 2020 at 10:43 AM D, first of all, welcome to Poetry Soup. Your voice is needed and welcomed here, I hope you find it a supportive community in which to poetically thrive. Secondly, this is an excellent expression of the pandemic year and the demonstrations being held to protest violence and injustice towards blacks and other non-white races. The "I Can't Breathe" motif is so powerful. This is going into my faves so I can re-read it in the future. Please keep writing! ~ John

Richard Lamoureux June 14, 2020 at 9:59 PM This would also have done well but the other created just the right amount of discomfort which is the hallmark of good writing.