Freedom Lost

Human rights watch
As time ticks away
Broken promises 
on the backs of children
Forced labor
Here in freedom
Misnomer at best
For what know they
Of freedom found
Or freedom lost
And what know we
Of life, liberty and the freedom
Forefathers' guarantee
So easily taken away
For some anyway
If it ever existed at all.
                   -- Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti

Hope

Winter white snowflakes falling down
On a sea of green
Dancing violets hazy blue
Lost inside a dream
Children’s laughter high and light
Circles all inside
Fill our ears with happy bleam
And save this turning tide
              -- Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti

Lamppost

The outside world wants in

It lingers at the lamppost

Staring up

Through cracks

In the window shades that block

Out its light

But does nothing for the visions

Of tomorrow

That won’t come

Or of all the yesterdays

That won’t go away.

                -- Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti

Gant

One vile full
One sacred vile
Has spilt crimson
Upon the earth
Seeping liquid
Into its pores
Drowning
The souls of sons
Forever lost
On Sudanese soil. 

                -- Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti

Orion: Poem

Orion

Friendly naïve
Hunter grand
Point me in the direction
Of Orion.
Celestial asterism
Three kings
Three sisters
Sweep across the heavens
Guide me on my quest
Towards home.
                 -- Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti

Poem: Homeless No More

Fast and free she floated
Above the encampment
Blue tarps
Torn
Tattered
Home
A soiled Spiderman blanket
Two cups
One needle
Two blows
Violently vacant

Gone.
               --Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti

Suppression

Outshine the mighty porcupine
That lives by the river below
Decline the lax supine opine
That set the valley aglow

Stickly…
Prickly…
Dangerous
Settle down and think.

Ickity
Rickety
Scrupulous?
A nod, a flip, a wink.

Outshine the mighty porcupine
That rules with fists of ore
Confine the blackened carbine shrine
Close tight and lock the door.
         -- Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti

Enough?

Gold capped mountains
Set with the sun
As day is devoured
By night’s darkness

The same sun
Casts shadows of dawn
On the endless
Desert horizon

Noontime’s blaze
Triggers hunger’s pangs
In houses of
Wood and cloth and stone

Only under this sun
Or encapsulated
In this blackness
Few will feed
On enough.

      --Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti

Found

One night

One time

Commencement

Of life

Loved but unknown

So faraway

Hidden

Sinister deceptions

Sans reason

Don’t brake

Bonds

Formed of love

Before love is even known.

One last chance.

The ringed grabbed from the carrousel

That is the circle of life.

A missing link

A hole filled

For father and son

A new mother’s love

But mostly from her

His sister found

With secrets

Only he will understand.

When it is time.

     --- Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti

Mole People

Deep under the catacombs

Of train and subway tunnels

That run the span of the city

Eighty times and back again

And seven stories deep.

Dark, damp and abandoned

Live a people

Derelict, dirty and isolated.

Self-exiled from the dangers above

Ranks in the thousands

Mole people

Never counted

Never count

Ask and they don’t exist

Least fear creeps above

Glowing eyes under trains.

What if that were you?

    -- Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti