“When Red and Blue Meet” by Elise Palmigiani
stark arctic Aleutians
steamy tropical keys
mighty arms holding
liberty out to the world
as totalitarians seethe
at their fingertips
shivering sweltering
punishing remnants
of dead Marxist dogma
sustained by resentment
of personal enterprise
shouted across narrow
waters so close yet
so far mere proximity
helpless to overcome
doctrinaire minds
meanwhile here in
the heartland our
pluralist strengths
undergo a malicious
conversion to weakening
forces inflicting
diseases of deepened
divides between
free-hating factions
that threaten to leave
this exquisite geography
uglified chopped into
isles of intransigent
red and blue stains
From my books Pieces of Wine and Legacies (vol. 2)
Poesy plus Polemics 
Sometimes a gentle form of anarchy (an impossibility, I know) has great appeal over politics. Just where have leaders with a moral compass all gone? Left, right or centre, I see none. Fine work.
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Not an impossibility, Mikesteeden, an American misunderstanding of language, now reinforced by political agenda. Let me inform you, that you may inform others. From the Greek (prefix An) – ‘without; the absence of’ and (noun Archon) – ‘master; ruler’. Anarchy does not mean “without rules”, anarchy does mean “without rulers”. What is implied is No Masters and No Slaves. Many believe that the term implied chaos, while it absolutely does not. It implies free will and liberty from government, taxation, and the sort. Pleased to me you here.
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You raise a fascinating point, Sir. In essence society needs, desperately, visible compassion. Maybe, gentle anarchy, as you have expertly defined would be a way. The only potential drawback is that, even my ideal anarchy would require organisation, perhaps a contradiction too far? Without an actively central, leadership its cause would be stillborn. I enjoyed, still pondering on your words, your comment and am most pleased to meet with you also.
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With all due respect to you, sir, I have not defined “gentle anarchy”. I have defined “anarchy”, period. So long as you maintain this idea that all things must be “gentle”, you will be a slave. You do not have gentle tyrants, now do you? No, they will intrude your home and property, take your property, and kidnap and murder you without batting an eye. Being passive is no way to fight tyranny. The confusion here would be that the modern political agenda (dialectic) has programmed society so as to believe that all self defense is ‘violence’. The people blindly believe this because they cannot define simple terms such as ‘violence’, ‘force’, ‘right’ and ‘anarchy’. Anything you wish to do that does not harm another living being is your inherent freewill Right. “Violence” is an intrusion of your free will. You may combat violence with “Force” so as to defend yourself. Force is just and in accordance with Natural Law, whereas Violence is evil and opposes Natural Law. What you must ask yourself is this; Are the actions of your government and the law which you support with taxation in accordance with Violence or Force, according to how each interact with the freewill of yourself and the people as a whole? If you pay attention you will notice that America now governs itself according to the same murder, taxation, and theft, which our Forefathers united and gathered a Force in order to oppose. So much for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, right? Peace didn’t solve our issues with the Crown, and peace won’t solve our issues with America either.
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as this is primarily a poetry blog, I’d appreciate your taking this discussion to a more appropriate venue – thanks
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I attempted to remove my comment, but it seems that one can only access the comments on their own blog. If you be so kind as to remove it, there will be no others off topic.
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oh no – I don’t want to delete it – this is thought provoking intelligent commentary – I just didn’t want it to keep growing and overtake this space
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I like Lewis Black’s comments on this: essentially, most people don’t want Anarchy because it requires more work than most people have the energy to handle (i.e. they actually have meetings and decide the laws; most people don’t know how tribal Anarchism works). Of course the West has painted Anarchy as a dirty word, which much of this has to do with Immigration laws and the constitution during most the years that followed the civil war because someone thought that simply calling yourself an Anarchist meant you were required to take a bomb and blow things up. Of course most people would be upset to find out that they really know nothing of Anarchy in its purest form. We go across seas and it actually means you are a freedom fighter, but people have a bad habit of confusing the gossip of news with fact.
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as this is primarily a poetry blog, I’d appreciate your taking this discussion to a more appropriate venue – thanks
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I am so sorry that discussions went this way on your poem because I believe you address a real issue: if people generation after generation continue moving without settling the problems they left behind do they ever solve anything, leaving red and blue stains? It saddens me that people can’t talk out their differences and that there are such polarities to the point people block out lines of thought that might challenge their own: running as immigrants, but for how long? I very much like your poem and do think it is a great look at current issues and events in the world.
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no need for apology – see my last reply to hutchins above
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thank, mike – I agree wholeheartedly with your comment – FYI: https://poesypluspolemics.com/2014/08/09/under-archons/
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Profound and powerful.
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I deeply appreciate that
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Thank you for sharing, Paul. I apologize about my comments on Anarchism above in the comments because I think your poem is less about this or that particular stance and more about these separate ideas that have growing pains with one another, and instead of talking out differences leave things separated and would go as far as leaving the continent not really resolving anything within its states, which is a real shame. You see that happening amidst various other forms of politics around the world and ideals and it doesn’t necessarily make things any easier. My question would be how to go about making changes? I think as difficult as it can be with all separate walks of life that if we didn’t have these different views these different ideas to challenge one another the world would be more boring, however it is a shame that we have to see grown individuals act like children and not settle differences.
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Your putting “uglifying” realities of our contemporary sordid state into poetry is like the spoonful of sugar that makes something beyond distasteful go down. Thanks from my heart for your poetry, Paul. You help restore beauty to my world.
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oh my – blushing warmly here – thank you for your kindness
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