Two Poems By Ray Marafino

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

for Heather Hyer

Tell us that the Confederate flag   | does merely stand for heritage   | when waved alongside the Nazi.

And tell us that this is free speech | while being exercised as the swing | of a fist striking.

Do tell us how the President lies | by dog-whistling a false symmetry | when condemning hatred, bigotry, | and violence…..on many sides.

August 2017

CAN THERE BE ANY NEUTRAL ANGELS?

The essence of his Madonna | might be an envy of Botticelli’s | “Quiet privilege of the middle world” — | the morally neutral position | of “Neither this nor that.”

So anyone at any time | may read art as | Undisturbed by a moral ambition.

Nice as far as works of beauty go.

For Dante, however, | people who joined the neutral angels — | all those neither faithful | nor rebellious to God — | were marked as driven out by Heaven | or rejected by Hell, | simply because they had not chosen! | Thus argue those who see | no connection between morality | and art….with certain artists | self-conditioned to eschew | using their art to choose sides | in great conflicts.|

Maybe — and maybe not —

September 2017

From The Bottom Drops Off First: Fifty-seven poems of theology, politics, history, sociology, art and memory pp. 14-16 by Raymond Marafino. First Printing, 2023. Published with the permission of the author. Selections by NBPoliticus

About The Author:

Raymond Marafino, and his wife Liz, live in West Hartford, Connecticut. Both are professors emeritus/a of Connecticut’s Community Colleges (Capital and Tunxis) and longtime labor union leaders. “Raymond’s high school colleagues highly praised him for his reposeful somnolence and, thereof, he gained a kind of glory due that high achievement. He expected similar lofty distinction during employment in the factories of Waterbury, Connecticut…….and later in the Army of the United States, but to his profound shock such did not pertain. So he ran away to college. Subsequent to all this, he expended almost fifty years of teaching, helping raise a family, doing intensive union work, and reading lots of books from many fields.”

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