1.
The Danger Within by Lourdes Santiago
“STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING” BY ROBERT FROST
(last four lines)
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
The Danger Within
Did you know that doubt is The
danger that lies inside of us like dense woods?
It lurks in the darkness of our soul and says we Are
Not worthy to see all the lovely,
Amazing things that are beyond the dark.
The dense fog that it emits hides and
Keeps us from needed power to creep within the deep,
Recesses of our mind and see that But
For my fears I
Could Have
All of the promises
That are mine to
Achieve. If only I keep,
Incertitude And
The phobia of failure miles
Away. Then, I can move forward to
Reach my goal and go
Beyond the dread before
It engulfs me, swallows me, and spits me out. I
Try my best not to go to sleep,
But move on forward And
Take the chance, put in the miles
Needed to
Cast off what frightens me and go
Forward with the task at hand before
Giving in to panic. I
Bravely Lay my doubts to sleep.
2.
Fields of Woe by Lourdes Santiago
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Fields of Woe
Peace and harmony we
Can Hear your call. You are
Like the gentle patter of rain. The
sun that greets your face and wakes the dead.
You are Signs, signal, a Short
regress and just like the days
of long ago.
You call for us to end it, and we,
those who lived,
remember how it felt.
We yearn for peace; a new dawn,
Yet the faces in the mirror saw,
what war had wrought. and how sunset
had lost its glow.
First, we were loved.
Believing in the cause, and
Proud of the job we were
doing. But the land we loved
proved it was for naught and
the here and now
was not what we
sought. It was all a lie
Just like those who died in
In Flanders
where the poppies grow, Oh woeful Field.
3.
I Was Invisible by Lourdes Santiago
“Risk” by Anais Nin
And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to blossom.
I Was Invisible
I was invisible, a child that no one saw And,
I lived in a world of my own. That is who I was then.
Afraid of the words of bigotry like arrows being spewed and The
Lack of expectations for a girl; a Puerto Rican; me. So my Day
Was but a whisper of what I wished, I came,
To believe that there was nothing I could do. When
I was but a shadow upon this place called home and the
Echoes kept repeating: Dream low, dream low for the risk
Of victory was slim to none because I was not smart enough To
Move upward, to overcome, to cast out my outward shell. I Remain
The same. Living the vicious circle of exclusion day to day. The noose is tight.
There is no room to wiggle and the seed of doubt is packed in
to the precious Earth, with utterances and innuendo’s of a
Design not worth production but destined to be a weed, a bud
That will not, can not thrive, no birthright, no future I was
Promised. And with that went my identity, my soul and More.
I thought I had potential, I imagined my life more but the utterances so painful,
cluttered My road with despair. My ego deflated, I was no more than
Traces of humanness. A life force that had been snuffed by the
People whose goal was to empower, to give confidence, what was the risk
Of letting me be who I was fated to become. Perhaps It
Was the fear that I might rise, a spark I did not see, so they took
Away my spirit and stomped me into the ground but it was to
No avail. I was growing, becoming aware of what was done, and I fought to blossom.