" Poetry and Art together, performing a Duet "

Poet Suzanne Bruce and Artist Janet Manalo

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Her Visions Her Voices, the second published book by S. Bruce and J. Manalo, has six chapters:
Empowerment; Conflict; Trauma; Politics; XX-Energy; and Muses.

Strategies

Tased by propaganda,
stunned into red and blue
confusion

we go to the booths,
smiles, waves, promises,
a ferociously flown flag

like chameleons,
candidates transform colors
to camouflage truth

ask us to trust without doubt,
political bullshit disguised
as American rightness,

more gov’t power, less choices,
less tolerance, more gov’t power,
gridlocked with fear, we

wait for numbers to speak
wait for said change
wait for confetti to fall

 

Suzanne Bruce
©Strategies

When We Neglected

to pay attention to the environment
toxins, murky pollutants captured
our clean air. There once was a time
when you could see everything
so clearly, a palette of natural balance.
Like a blanket, soft grasses between
our toes, now gone, trails of crusty
shale the only ground, and so much
more soiled with coal-colored dots,
oil spills spattering more than oceans,
float in the crying sky, dry as hardened
muck on the places we step, a slender pink
film has closed the final curtain on a plump
golden sun.

We happened upon crusted path
when we noticed a large crack,
peering down into the open space
we saw flowers, yellow, stretching up their
black eyes, fossilized in front a perfect-blue sky,
and we saw actual green leaves, as we breathed
in joy like we used to.

Suzanne Bruce
©When We Neglected

Below are a few duets from Voices Beyond the Canvas, published in 2007.