News Stories

Death Penalty

~ CJ René ~ Leave a comment

Number 26 in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by an article in AP about the first woman at the federal level to be executed by the government.

In the face of horror
can you hold your ethics close
and lift harm from the shoulders
of the harmful?

The innocent is the easy case
but what of the guilty
the truly murderous
the unrepentant?
Do the what ifs still ring
in your ears then?

Or would you set them through
a conveyor belt process,
running so fast that twice as many lives
are guillotined in six months
as in the past 56 years?

In the wake of one horror,
how can we add another?
Let Mercy grow in lands
where even Forgiveness dies.

NO

~ CJ René ~ Leave a comment

Number 19 in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by the clusterfuck that was the debate.

I don’t want to write about the debate.
I am living on this conveyor belt of fear
Looking for a way off this ride.

I don’t want to write about the debate.
My rights are laid upon the butcher’s block
And the woman holding the cleaver
Will smile as she brings it down.

I don’t want to write about the debate,
Because my rage is boiling
I’ve burned down worlds with it before
But I don’t want to have to do it again

Symbols

~ CJ René ~ Leave a comment

Number 18 in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by an article about ownership and licensing of the Aboriginal flag.

Who could own the symbols of
our lives
our countries
our peoples
our cultures?

Disney, probably.

Stack them in the vault room
with The Mouse
Already copied, distributed, profited

What was yours was
supposed to become ours

Despite your wealth
Despite the unending parade of
Wonderful, new, lovable characters
You still hoard that mouse away

The rest of our commons caged
By your greed

Synesthesia of the Soul

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Number 17 in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by an article about a couple in Guatemala whose dance videos, in the wake of their daughter’s death, went viral.

Rhythm
rocks along the ankles
Hips
harmonize the heart

The body becomes
Music
Movement
Revolution

Oh.

The Biggest Rats

~ CJ René ~ Leave a comment

Number 16 in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by an article about a giant rat winning an award for helping to clear landmines.

The world will be fine
When we are gone
If we leave them
Anything behind

No more prizes
Or accolades
For all the good boys
Out there

No more treats
For the trick of
Sitting on a
Landmine

Yes.
The world will be fine
Without us.

Palm

~ CJ René ~ Leave a comment

Number 15 in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by an AP investigation in labor abuses in the palm oil industry.

Trees stretch
Heavenward
Eking out from the sun’s
Rays all the
Evergreen lost
In the pockets of
Supervisors, traffickers, CEOs
None to those below
Obscured by the canopy
Encaged, enraged, by circumstance
Tethered to a land, a
Host they cannot trust
Invisible to
Customers grabbing products in the malls, on
Amazon, in local shops,
Living their best lives
Concerned but unconcerned about the
Oppressed beyond their borders
Never seeing the
Serfdom in their palms
Unaware of the deaths they hold
Modernity’s requirements
Palm trees sway
Tipped by the gust of
Indonesian winds
On and on, they trek, the lost ones,
Never ceasing
Unable to escape
No one sees the fear
Dyed in their
Eyes, etched in the
Ridges of their faces, the
Cost of something so cheap
As the filler in my candy,
Put down the scythe,
Ill built for this work,
Take up the loom
And weave all the
Lost ones back
Into our fabric,
Share and
Make the world anew

Due South

~ CJ René ~ Leave a comment

Number 13 in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by an article about the Underground Railroad that went south into Mexico.

Have you every asked,

“Why didn’t
Black people/Jews/that battered woman
fight back?”

– OR –

“Why aren’t
Muslim women / Chinese people / African queer folk
fighting their oppression?”

Have these questions melted
on your tongue in
the same mouth that discounts
the railroads
riots
escapes
protests
prisons
& pleas, bent one knee?

Have you asked these questions
without curiosity, only myopic blame,
before you even tried to look?

I have.

I may again.

I hope not.

I am un/learning
And hoping that other questions
the ones they aim at me
are being un/learned too

Richness comes
in expanding
in opening
in shedding old thoughts
like so much skin

Enough to let the whole world in

A Life In Grey

~ CJ René ~ Leave a comment

Number 11 in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by an article about Black vegan- and vegetarianism.

Stereotypes are easy
make life
predictable
certain
give fodder
to humor
that in-group call,
at its best,
a barrier to us
at its worst.

And yet

Stereotypes leave us
only primary colors
and sap them of
vibrancy
lying to us that
only the ever-tightening
sphere around us
contains
the nuance of teal
the tenderness of opal
the righteousness of magenta

When we believe the lie what
magnificent
challenging
spontaneous
hues we will never see.

New Wor(l)d

~ CJ René ~ Leave a comment

Number 10 in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by a column about a new word created to capture feelings associated with climate change.

Solastaglia
a loss of identity with a place;
an attack one’s belonging there

Invented for the coming
environmental disaster
(SURPRISE! It’s already here!)
but I hold my breath in the poison air
and wait

For an avalanche of White men
and half an avalanche (a halvalanche) of White women
to pull the word close and
rename their racism
as psychological distress
Running from change and growth and liberation
under an umbrella of self-care.

How many more articles
on the disaffected White man
will be birthed from this one word?

College Covid

~ CJ René ~ Leave a comment

Number ## in 30 in 30, a series of writing challenges. Over the course of 30 days (sometimes even in a row!), I will draft a post within 30 minutes. This 30-day theme is: News Stories. Today’s writing was inspired by XXX.

Welcome, freshmen and returning students, to the best years of your life, filled with new freedoms, adventures, and – of course – knowledge. Your very first time living away from your parents, out from under their thumbs, their rules. We are so glad you have elected to come to campus even though we are offering significantly safer courses online.

As you explore this new world, please keep the following rule in mind: do not come within six feet of anyone, ever.

Please maintain this distance even in your dorm rooms. We have provided six foot wooden sticks in every room to help you ensure proper distance. Each of you hold one end of the stick at all times when in the room together. Easy! Think of it as your own little danse macabre. How fun!

Oh, and while sleeping, please ensure that you are facing away from each other. And wear a mask.

In fact, just wear a mask at all times. Including – even especially – in the dorm showers. Those things gave up a long time ago on preventing anything: athlete’s foot, herpes, and now Covid.

Outside of the dorm, all activities and parties – formal and informal – have been cancelled and are prohibited. All that new found freedom has to be used for solo undertakings only.

Which brings me us to sex. Masturbation only, please. As I said: solo activities. This is an immensely reasonable rule, and we are confident that you will all comply.

That’s it! So in summary: stay from everyone, stay alone, fuck yourself, and wear those masks!

Have a great year!

Oh! One quick announcement: Campus will be closing today at 5PM due to a coronavirus outbreak among on-campus faculty. Please pack up your things and leave immediately.

Thank you!