The New Aristocracy of Ash

 The sky is the color of a bruised lung tonight
As sane Americans hold their breath until their ribs ache
We did not vote for a crown
Gold plated and tacky and heavy enough to crush a skull
We did not sign up for the divine right of the Loudmouth
Or the slow rhythmic march of the jackboot on the pavement
The ballot is a ghost haunting a graveyard of empty promises
I watched the rigging go down in the flickering light of a neon sign

While the owners sat in backrooms sipping top shelf scotch
Swapping our futures for a slight bump in the quarterly margins
Carlin told us from the grave they don't care about you
They want obedient workers not thinkers
And now they’ve traded the factory floor for a circus tent
They scream that white is the apex the top of the heap
A bleached bone in a desert of their own making

But white is just a lack of light 
I’m White I’m Olive I’m Brown
A bruised spectrum of humanity bleeding through the cracks
The bishes don't get it the rainbow rocks because it’s a spectrum of survival
While they try to paint the world in shades of ash and ego
I definitely didn’t vote for that clown
I didn't vote for the greasepaint or the oversized shoes
I didn't vote for the punchline that ends in a massacre

We’re sitting in the front row of a theater that’s already on fire
Watching a man who couldn't lead a dog to water
Attempt to play God with a Sharpie and a grudge
The wine is sour and the candles are guttering out
The great experiment looks like a cold slab in a morgue
We didn’t vote for tyranny
But here we are Staring at the throne they built out of our discarded dreams

© 2026 Mary Robbins

THE TEN THOUSAND YEAR TANTRUM

We’ve been here
ten thousand years,
dragging ourselves from the mud,
splitting the atom,
brushing the moon with our fingertips
and still we bicker
like toddlers in a sandbox
clawing at each other
for the same blue bucket.

We hold every color,
every tongue,
every strange and beautiful
way to pray or refuse to pray
a mosaic of blood and bone
that makes this spinning rock
the only warm thing
in a cold, indifferent universe.

And for what?
For the ego of a few
who mistake power for purpose?

For grudges so ancient
they rot in our hands,
dragged like cursed luggage
into a future
that never asked for them?

Grow up.
Be an adult in the dark.
See that the person beside you
is just as weary,
just as temporary,
just as breakable
as you are.

Our differences are the texture,
the flavor,
the strength of this place.

The only real magic we’ve ever made.
Stop the othering.
Stop the petty wars.
Stop pretending
we haven’t rehearsed this
for ten thousand years.

Grow up
before we burn
the whole house down
and call the ashes
inevitable.

©2026 Mary Robbins

Poem: Record Straight

Saint Patrick was not Irish-born,

But Romano-British, taken, torn

Carried to Éire as a slave,

Returned to claim the faith he gave.

He chased no snakes from Irish sand,

But drove the Druids from the land

He took the wells and ancient fire

To build the church and reaching spire

The Celtic symbols bent and broke

Beneath the weight of Roman yoke.

Columbus was no “Italian” claim

In the modern nation-state's own name

Genoa birthed him, long before

Italy stood as one in law.

He never touched North America’s strand,

But Caribbean waters and island sand

Where Taino souls were bought and sold,

And worked to death for Spanish gold

A governor of whip and chain,

Who left a trail of blood and pain.

Before his sails cut western foam,

Norse ships had reached Vinland’s loam

Centuries prior, brief and small,

Yet proof the tale was not the first call.

They traded steel for furs and hides,

With Skræling kin, they fought and died

A violent spark in northern cold,

Long before the "New World" mold.

No continent was “found” that year.

Nations thrived already here.

Empires rose, and trade winds ran

Long before a European plan.

But maps were drawn to claim the prize,

To mask the theft in legal lies

A "Doctrine of Discovery" tool,

To justify a foreign rule.

Cleopatra, Nile’s last throne,

Was Macedonian, Greek by bone

From Ptolemy’s line, Alexander’s thread,

Sibling unions where royals wed.

Egypt she ruled, its language knew,

Yet her dynasty was not native through.

She used her charms as shields of state,

While brothers died to seal her fate

A ruthless queen in silk and gold,

Whose family tree was dark and old.

The founders warned of faction’s rise

Of parties split by zeal and prize.

Yet factions formed, as power does,

In human hands, because we’re us.

They spoke of "Life" and "Liberty,"

While holding men in slavery

The ink was fresh on Freedom’s page,

While thousands stayed within the cage.

The Civil War’s contested right

Was slavery’s preservation fight;

Secession papers made it plain

Bondage bound to wealth and gain.

They fought for soil and southern pride,

With human property inside

The "Lost Cause" myth was later spun,

To hide the truth of what was done.

Poe was not Black, as rumors say;

His poems bear his hand’s own way.

Emily Dickinson wrote unseen,

Nearly eighteen hundred poems between

Her Amherst walls and private air;

Most were printed and altered there.

They smoothed her rhymes and cut her dash,

To fit the Victorian social fashion.

Charles Dickens filled the serial page

With drafts that mark his working age;

History holds no hidden hand

The record stands where papers stand.

He walked the slums and wrote the plight,

Yet left his wife in bitter spite

A public man of "Christmas Cheer,"

Whose private life was cold and drear.

So let the banners wave if they must,

But test each claim against the dust.

For myth grows loud where facts grow thin

And truth requires discipline.

A modern name joins history’s page,

To mark a dark and fractured age.

Trump stands where cruelest leaders trod,

With an iron ego, golden god.

Besides the ghosts of Italy’s son,

And Hitler’s Reich, the damage done.

The worst of leaders, history’s stain,

Where power sought its private gain.

©2026 By Mary Robbins

Fake King

We didn’t crown a king that night.

We watched the numbers glitch and bite.

We watched the headlines twist and spin,

Declare a victor who didn’t win.

Smoke in the wires. Static in air.

Truth on a slab in the billionaire’s lair.

A child’s aside; unguarded, plain

Said what the adults dressed up in spin:

Without the money, without the machine,

The throne stays empty. He stays unseen.

Months of facts were tagged “insane,”

Filed as myth, dismissed as pain.

Screens went dark, then bent the knee,

Conspiracy branded as clarity.

Media mouths in synchronized choir,

Selling the spark while choking the fire.

We saw the seams beneath the show,

The puppet strings in undertow.

Power brokered in backroom glow,

Democracy staged for overflow.

Call it fraud or call it fate,

Call it greed that dressed as state.

But rot is rot in silk disguise,

And lies are lies in patriot ties.

America, this is your reckoning bell.

Submit to the circus, or rupture the spell.

Kneel to the noise, the gold-plated myth

Or rise like a bruise and answer with grit.

Gen-X raised on latchkey scars,

On Reagan nights and culture wars,

We know the taste of televised lies.

We’ve watched empires rot in real time.

You can sleep while the ceiling caves,

Trade your voice for curated graves.

Or force the exit. Shut it down.

Drag the paper tiger from the crown.

Because the world can see through it

The swagger thin, the empire counterfeit.

No matter how loud the anthem plays,

Illegitimacy bleeds through praise.

And history, cold and unsparing,

Doesn’t forget who chose despairing.

It carves in stone who stood, who hid;

Who swallowed fear. Who never did.

©️2026 Mary Robbins 

Static on the Star-Spangled Banner

The year was '83 a flatline in the dark,

Till my father’s own breath struck a desperate spark.

He pulled me from silence, from the "never-to-be,"

To wake in the cradle of the brave and the free.

But the air has turned sour, the colors have bled,

And the "city on a hill" is a house of the dead.

I’m a child of the analog, lost in the bit,

Watching the fuse of the theater get lit.

This isn't the future we saw on the screen,

It’s a glitching republic, a jagged machine.

The screens feed us venom in high-def and glow,

While the ghosts of the eighties cry out from below.

The flags are all frayed and the anthems are screams,

A political horrorfest drowning our dreams.

They’ve traded the heartbeat for data and rage,

Locking the soul in a fluorescent cage.

I remember the shadows, the cassette-tape hum,

Before we grew cold and the conscience grew numb.

If my father could see what he fought to revive,

Would he still find the mercy to keep me alive?

To be born in the smoke of a great, dying star,

And see that the "home" we once knew is this far?

I’m out of sync, out of time, out of place

A ghost of '83 with a mask for a face.

©️2026 By Mary Robbins

Rise From Ash And Dust

We gather where the silence falls
Gather just to hear the chilling calls
People screaming in misery
Doomed to repeat history

That Our Mothers Fathers Grandparents fought
Half the Nation Didn't Vote For This
We Know He Was Bought
Like a useless fish
Veterans dismissed

But we are not the ones who break
We are the ones who stay awake
Watching the cracks spread through the land
Ready to rise with an open hand

We move as one through the heavy night
Carrying truth like a stubborn light
Every voice a spark that refuses to fade
Every step a promise our elders made
We hold the line because someone must

And when the sky turns iron and cold
We stand together the way we were told
By every ancestor who refused to kneel
By every survivor who learned to feel
The power of unity built from ash and dust

©2026 By Mary Robbins

The Deceit Chain

Honesty is treated as treason.
We have a criminal POTUS still without reason.
He should have been impeached for his first violation.
Yet here we are, the people in desperation.

We allowed this by dismissing the cries for open primaries.
Now we have families crying in the streets.
ICE no longer being discreet.
Take a seat, Hitler.
Trump is finishing your reign.

Soon America will collapse.
Financially. Resources drained. Exports fading out.
Poor decisions and more lies.
Babies starving. Mothers in poverty.

We could have had the American Dream.
We could have had affordable housing.
Homeless families off the street.

The deceit hidden with fElon’s visit to PA.
How the county clerks buried the complaints.
How Cooksey declared allegiance,
Did the booksey’s dirty, buried the financial evidence.

Here we are,
standing in the wreckage they swore didn’t exist,
watching the paper trail fade where the truth should be.
Every file was moved. Every record blurred.

Every witness pushed into silence.
But the pattern is still there
for anyone who knows how to read what’s missing.

©2026 Mary Robbins