“Navigating a Moment"

 

Destruction on a daily basis

Leaves me shell-shocked

But that’s the goal

 

Rip and tear families apart

By screaming, “Other!”  

Over and over and over again

 

Demonize educators and scientists

By screaming, “Other!”

Over and over and over again

 

Stifle art, silence music, and dictate words

By screaming, “Other!”

Over and over and over again

 

Battered and bruised

I retreat

And feel shame

I take on blame for their abuse

My stilted words dying on the page

 

How do I navigate this moment?

 

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"The Optimist"

  

I cannot spend my days counting losses   
focusing on withered branches and leaves   
opening my heart to your dark decay   
I refuse to bear your broken crosses   
over my threshold—into my beliefs   
by allowing your destruction to stay   
like a hurricane that swirls and tosses   
my gentle soul upon wild waves that heave   
and boil, pulling me under and away   
to the mirage of  dead albatrosses   
where your empty eyes gaze restless and grieve   
for the simple joy of a sun drenched day   

"In A Perfect World"

 

In a perfect world

we wrap our children within love, beauty, and grace

the fear

of heavy hands or words that scorch

of empty stomachs and lonely nights

of filth and destitution

            slayed

In a perfect world

we protect the Mother

            the rape

                        of forest and field

                        of streams and oceans

                        of mountain peaks and sloping valleys

            eradicated

In a perfect world

we honor knowledge by encouraging free thought

            the condemnation

                        of different traditions

                        of diversity in truths

                        of multiplicity of dreams

            abolished

In a perfect world . . .

 

Copyright 2013 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

           

   

"Don't Tickle the Dragon"

The Dragon Slayer by David Chapman

She soars above river and ravine in magnificence

while despair and fear play hide-n-seek with her smoky shadow.

With penetrating eyes, she seeks and destroys all defiance.

She melts lives with fiery breath and renders fair fields fallow.

Her arbitrary death paralyzes her innocent prey

by syphoning hope from their simple souls one-drop-at-a-time.

Her teeth and claws razor flesh leaving misery and dismay

As she devours their life-blood—without reason, without rhyme.

On bended knee, mankind prays to the ancient gods for relief

And many brave souls with sword and shield challenge her to the death.

Enflamed by anger, she slays them all—fueled on by pagan belief.

All hope becomes lost to young and old—all fear her scorching breath.

Offerings of their children temporarily satiate her greed,

‘til the young princess stands by lakeside awaiting destiny.

A Christian knight from lands unknown approaches on steady steed.

He vows to slay the beast if all pledge to Christianity.

His lance pierces the dragon’s thick hide with a near fatal blow;

with the princess’s girdle, he leads the creature from the lake.

With Ascalon, he impales the dragon—watches her blood flow.

The people cheer, the king sings praise, and an alter he does make.

From the alter spouts water pure, curing all ailments that grow.

The villagers gather ‘round each eve to dance and sing again

of lessons learned from valley to peak that all children should know—

“Don’t play with fire. Don’t pee in the wind. Don’t tickle the dragon!”

Copyright 2013 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Repair”

 

            Many years ago, we found a delightful weathervane for our backyard. On the top perched a fairy instead of the typical rooster or bird. The first fairy to decorate our outside, she began a collection that gradually grew into special pieces gathered through the years. When a particularly vicious storm blew through one spring, she disappeared. My garden grew, and my hopes dimmed of ever finding her hiding place.

  

         I debated replacing the piece with something new, but eventually enough vines wrapped around the remaining pole that I decided to leave it in its place. Time passed with no sign of her winged figure, and I stopped looking for her altogether. After back-to-back winters of hard freezes, I knelt in my garden hacking away at death and destruction when my hands unearthed her rusted shape. The delight I felt lived shortly once I realized she’d never sit atop her perch again. Rust and time had erased part of her entirely. I tucked her away in an outside bin after my artistic husband and son stated she was beyond repair. No longer lost, but still hidden away, she nagged at all of us until a few weeks ago when my husband and son decided they could recreate her by using their 3-D printer.

            A trial and error cycle began with failures on wing design and attachment landing a couple of prototypes onto the counter. One design finally didn’t fail, and we cheered as she sat upon her newly repainted pole. The UV resistant paint dried quickly, and we waited to see how her resin would handle our August heat. It didn’t! A subtle warp scarred her. Another round of research, a different type of filament, and victory adorned her new design and color!

            Our long lost fairy couldn’t be repaired, but a new blend of art and technology, of hope and determination, adorns the original weathervane.     

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman