.

It Seems Like Only Yesterday

Votes and virtue did not yield
Control of our own border,
And context did not supersede
A breach of law and order.

Most people thought the playing of
Our anthem was the grandest,
The media told what they saw,
And weren’t just propagandists.

Then basic science wasn’t twisted
By buffoonish lies,
And gender was assigned by what
Had grown between one’s thighs.

Fake claims to save democracy
Are just an iceberg tip.
Now many feel it’s justified
To have free censorship.

It seems like only yesterday
That freedom’s bell was ringing;
True patriots were everywhere,
And I heard America singing.

.

.

Collisions

Each day I read self-written admonitions,
Of what I wish to be and not to be.
But though I mostly follow those conditions,
Too frequently I crash straight into me.

.

.

Russel Winick recently started writing poetry after ending a long legal career. He resides in Naperville, Illinois.

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14 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Russel, you and I are on the same page of the same song book! How well you expressed our feelings of yesterday and directly in both poems pointing out the calumny and vicious attacks we now face on us personally and on our former social norms that created our once great society. “It seems only yesterday!”

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Thanks Roy. I had that title in my mind first, and then had to craft a poem around it!

      Reply
  2. Anna J. Arredondo

    Russel, to the first — hear, hear! And as to the second, I find me crashing into myself all the time…

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Thanks Anna. I’m sorry to hear that, but there’s comfort in knowing one’s not alone!

      Reply
  3. Phil S. Rogers

    It seems so many people now are looking back on ‘yesterday’ and remembering the good things that used to be in our lives, in our country, in the world. A future to look forward to. Now there is a sadness that hangs over so many of us. Thank you for your poem today

    Reply
  4. Margaret Coats

    Russel, your “Collisions” is a blast that would have saved Hamlet from too much traffic with ghosts and corrupt courtiers.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Margaret – I’m sorry my inadequacies were not around to help Hamlet, but I’m glad that you liked the poem!

      Reply
  5. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Russel, thank you for this Winick treat of poetic wonders. I love them… and you are spot on with the title: ‘It Seems Like Only Yesterday’… my goodness, in such a short space of time the world has spiraled into an insane abyss that seems impossible to climb our way out of. At least we have your poems to look forward to… when things are going to hell, a double dose of giggles pulls us out of the gloom. Thank you!

    Reply
  6. Julian D. Woodruff

    Clear-visioned, succinct, and in the second sly. “Collisions” reminds me of Chesterton’s answer to the question “What’s wrong with the world?” (“I am”)

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Thanks Julian, although with folks like Biden and the Squad around, I’m not sure I’m that humble.

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        That Chesterton quote seems so outdated now that we know just how powerful the Deep State has become. Now the answer is, “Everything except the fact that it isn’t even worse!”

  7. Joshua C. Frank

    I like the poem. It’s good at conveying what a lot of us feel.

    I’m not sure it’s wholly accurate, though. We couldn’t have gotten to where we are today unless the elites had been pushing some serious propaganda for a long time. Remember that the Seneca Falls Declaration and the Communist Manifesto were both written in 1848 and had a lot of influence on the world long before any of us were born. I used to say I miss the America I grew up in (I’m almost 40), but the more I learn, the more I see that the America I thought I grew up in hasn’t existed for a long time.

    Still, it does seem like only yesterday that we thought the world was still good.

    Reply

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