Julene T. Weaver
Pick Your Battle
We don’t have to agree.
We live in a fabricated world:
people who don’t believe
the Holocaust happened,
or think the world is flat,
men who want to rule women.
This is not my world, I walk away.
Such deep falsity will not change
from anything I say, the wall of fabrication
is strong. But our truth is strong.
We’re drifting apart—families separated,
nations at odds, at war. It’s exhausting.
I live in my world, some say, a bubble,
but I call it life. We exist in pockets of belief—
do not give attention or clout.
The internet has spawned alternate worlds,
how they found each other,
the media has given them voice.
We carry the weight of knowing
how bad it is—but we have power.
We are survivors. Be prepared to ignore.
Be prepared not to give credit or voice.
not to buy their products. Hold Active
Hope for the planet, to find solutions.
We’ve years to stop fascism
to stand up together, vote,
take notice of the nine hundred
page Mandate for Leadership:
The Conservative Mandate Project 2025
shows us our enemy and task.
More positive bills for voters
have passed then restrictions.
There is good news to follow—bad news
brings us down—good news picks us up.
The young are doing work for the future—
their lives depend on it.
The issues make it personal.
Take small steps—one issue—
mine has been AIDS, healthcare,
death with dignity, gay rights,
social security, Medicare,
My partner’s was stopping nuclear
destruction of our planet.
The issues are not separate.
Pick your battle. Pick one.
We must make our world safe
for women and children—
whether in the military, in a bar,
or a refugee camp. Housing. We see
what’s wrong. We must stay strong.
Julene Tripp Weaver‘s fourth poetry collection, Slow Now with Clear Skies, was published by MoonPath Press. Her prior collection, truth be bold—Serenading Life & Death in the Age of AIDS, won the Bisexual Book Award, four Human Relations Indie Book Awards, and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards. Her work is widely published in journals and anthologies. She was a fellow in the Jack Straw Writing Program (2023). Julene lives in Seattle, where she had a long and fruitful career as a psychotherapist.
Indolent Books and editor Michael Broder are back with another poem-a-day series as a creative response to the threat posed to our democracy by the current presidential administration. The plan is to continue for all 1460 days of the 47th American presidency.
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