Author: Ernie McCray

by Ernie McCray

Visited the place of my birth a little while ago.
Tucson.
Needed the trip so desperately
during bluesy soul-sapping times like these
as that desert town,
over the years
when life was somewhat getting me down,
has always eased my mind
gifting me with a kind of assurance
that nothing has really budged,
that everything’s going to be okay,
making me feel that way
going back to my childhood days

by Ernie McCray

I’m shaking my head,

wishing I could go upside the heads

of a handful of

self-righteous wealthy Silicon Valley tech moguls

I just finished reading about

in a most revealing book, The Nerd Reich,

devious fascist narcissistic eggheads

who, in spite of

their enormous wealth

by Ernie McCray

It’s so refreshing,

especially nowadays,

to hear ideas being expressed

in loving ways,

and I listened, recently,

to a few speakers,

at a forum sponsored by

H.O.M.E.

the abbreviation for

Humanitarian Outreach for

Migrant Emotional Health,

who spoke with affection concerning how the organization

goes about its mission to ensure

that the voices of asylum seekers,

ICE detainees,

and immigrants in removal proceedings

by Ernie McCray

I’m definitely one of those folks
suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome,
as I’ve got TDS
to the bone
and it really showed
one day when I was sitting at home
and turned the TV on
just as congressman, Hakeem Jeffries, was asked
“Would you consider seeking an impeachment
for the president?”
and I sat waiting for a reply
such as
“Hell, yeah, can’t wait”
and got, instead,
“We haven’t
ruled anything in
and we haven’t
ruled anything out”
and I couldn’t help but wonder,
as I held back a scream,
“What the hell was that all about”?

by Ernie McCray

I sat the other night
squirming in my seat
as a woman,
Tina Cordova,
a co-founder and executive director
of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium,
spoke about our country’s neglect
in respect
to protecting
people who suffered the effects
of the “Trinity Nuclear Test”
in New Mexico,
how since that day
in July, 1945,

by Ernie McCray

The words,
“Be excellent to each other out there,”
that I read on a Facebook post recently
really struck a chord with me,
especially considering
how too many of us
treat each other these days
on social media,
attacking a fellow human being’s very person
rather than challenge
a specific point-of-view intellectually,
the very opposite
of treating someone
the way you want to be treated.

by Ernie McCray

Regarding all that’s being said
about Anthony Fauci’s
handling of the Covid-19 pandemic,
what he did or didn’t do
to keep us safe,
we, as a nation,
have to come to understand
that science, inherently,
is a mixture of failures
wherein an approach to a problem
put into use one day
might require dismissal
the very next day
based on new data
that has come into play,
something I noticed
without a real grasp of the situation
as a child at play
when people in charge of public health
deployed all kinds of do’s and don’ts
that had me asking my mom an array of questions
about why the pool was closed

by Ernie McCray

It’s great
that we continue
to chant and sing
“No Kings”
and constantly scream
at ICE
and other such things
but now
it’s time to
take-to-the streets
and demand
the termination of Donald J’s presidency
before he makes our democracy
look like a ship
sinking in a turbulent sea,
and we should do so
for any number of reasons
that we could list randomly,

by Ernie McCray

With the tragedy
at the mosque
still on my mind
I’ve been thinking
of a wonderful book
I just finished,
“The Future is Peace,”
written by Aziz Abu Sarah,
a Palestinian,
and Maoz Inon,
an Israeli,
who, rather than focusing on their ethnicities,
choose to view themselves
as human beings
who are trying to cultivate

by Ernie McCray

I experienced an evening
in these times of cares and woes
just a short time ago
that was ever so heavenly,
like sweet music to my ears,
beginning with a Lyft ride
in a car
whose radio,
speaking of music,
was playing
a Sonny Rollins’ song
in memory
of him
now that he’s gone
and the bebop phrasing
coming from his tenor saxophone
those deep rich strong tones
for which he’s known
set the tone
for a dinner
I was going to at the home of my friend,
Cecil Lytle,

by Ernie McCray

Juneteenth is a celebration
that causes me to wonder
what enslaved men and women
felt when they got the news
of their emancipation
approximately 900 days late.

So many of them, surely,
must have stood gasping and crying, in disbelief,
feeling joy from such an outrageously delayed freedom
while, simultaneously,
grieving from the realization
of all the hardships
that came from the years stolen from them,

by Ernie McCray

Turning on my TV
and hearing news
that there had been a shooting
at the Islamic Center of San Diego
caused my heart to grieve immensely
and my breathing
didn’t come easily
as the first thoughts
that came to my mind
were of my many visits there
and how I would be met
with a “Hello, my good brother”
kind of greeting at the door
by a friendly guard
who I heard had been killed
along with two other members of the center’s staff
and I nearly crumbled