rising to the occasion by RC deWinter

clinking and clanking

a sleepwalking tin woman

rusting in the rain of my own tears

i rise clasped in the bony arms 

of another day in not-paradise

and reach for the rapidly diminishing

oil can to ease the entrance

to the arena where the bloody battle

for freedom is being fought

in the duplicitous language 

of what we call law 

that in these dark days all of us 

old enough to remember when

what passes for patriotism today

was called what it still is

that dirty T word no talking head

or newspaper will employ

to describe those now in power

and as i gulp cold coffee 

the color of love’s shining eyes 

now gone to dust i summon 

every ounce of courage remaining 

to face the row of lions waiting

my only weapon the truth of history 

undistorted by the facile gloss 

of lies served for breakfast 

lunch and dinner by the well oiled

propaganda machine of rich men 

and their acolytes 

too clueless to realize they 

along with us who refuse 

to bend the knee will also be fodder 

for the relentless gears

about to grind us into the dust

of a another closed chapter 

in the constantly recycled history

of humankind

© 2025 RC deWinter @rcdewinter.bsky.social

RC deWinter’s poetry is widely anthologized, notably in New York City Haiku (NY Times/2017),

The Connecticut Shakespeare Festival Anthology (River Bend Bookshop Press, 12/2021) New Contexts:3 Coverstory Books, April 2022) in print: 2River View, Event Magazine, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, the minnesota review, Plainsongs, Prairie Schooner, Southword, the ogham stone, York Literary Review among many others and appears in numerous online publications.