POETRY FOR THE PEOPLE! Submit up to 3 poems about today's world in flux totaling no more than 150 lines each by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59pm, May 30th. Culmination reading will be held on Saturday, May 31st, 3 to 5 pm ON ZOOM ONLY (link to reading will be provided to every published poet).

Friday, May 30, 2025

Hedy Habra

Or Could There Ever Be Rainbows In Midst of a Storm?

After Syrian Migration by Helen Zughaib


Men and women

wearing rainbows 

ready to ride waves

as though they 

were clouds 

beneath 

a magic carpet


hands raised 

they look in the same

direction

there must be

a benevolent God

guiding the fragile skiff

to safety


only one face looks back

making sure

that instant is alive


oblivious to thirst

oblivious to hunger 

oblivious to sunburn 

oblivious to brine

dripping over scorched skin  


as long as the boat 

is floating they 

stick together 

forming the same 

rainbow defying 

the tall waves 

the angry scum 


only one face looks back

making sure 

the scene is recorded



First published by Riggwelter 




Or Little Do You Know How A Bird's Song Rises 


When I set out to paint a tree

a bird’s song rises 

from each branching stem 

sings its way 

into a refugee tent 

conjuring the warmth

of a mother's kiss

a song sinking into the mud

a song aching for cold hands

a song bleeding like sore soles

a song to erase the rising fumes

a song to protect from crumbling walls

a song for the comfort of an evening meal

a song bleached

a song deafened

a song for those fallen

a song for those in pain

a song ruffled by the wind

a song for those left behind 

a song muffled by baby’s cries

a song beating inside the chest

a song soothing an infant’s dry lips

a song leaking from swollen nipples 

a song bleached

a song deafened

a song for those fallen

a song for those in pain

a song lost in translation 

a song in a new alphabet 

a song to dig deep trenches 

a song calling for clean sheets 

a song to forget whistling bullets

a song to silence the voice of thunder

a song bleached

a song deafened

a song for those fallen 

a song for those in pain



First published by Slant: A Journal of Poetry

From Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023)




Or Can't You See How They All Stare At Us Even The Birds Resting On Their Hands? 

After The Immigrants' Boat by Marilene Sawaf 


Packed against one another clothed in dreams 

Upholding the flame of freedom for a mast 

See how multicolored fish leap out around the hull 

In quieted waters silvery fins quiver awaiting a net  


Upholding the flame of freedom for a mast

Past and future fit into the wooden vessel

In quieted waters silvery fins quiver awaiting a net

While they rest under the shade of pregnant trees


Past and future fit into the wooden vessel

They are wearing Sunday clothes yet to be sewn

While they rest under the shade of pregnant trees 

They sample ripened pomegranates and pink peaches 


They are wearing Sunday clothes yet to be sewn

After fighting maddened waves for so long

They sample ripened pomegranates and pink peaches

They've slipped through the eye of a needle


After fighting maddened waves for so long 

How sweet it is to be saved by the skin of one's teeth

They've slipped through the eye of a needle

Reaching a place where the wind is silent


How sweet it is to be saved by the skin of one's teeth

Future wraps itself around them in a colorful mantle

Reaching a place where the wind is silent

The cat slumbers as the restless dog rushes to the rooftop



First published by On The Seawall

From Or Did You Ever See The Other Side? (Press 53 2023)


Sherry Meehan

The Beginning


it was in the dead of summer

on a cliff bare as bone

watching waves' redundant dance

silent as stone

we left handprints quietly

on raw sunburnt skin that

made us run into the ocean

to find our relief in

rising water's endless motion

coming and going one upon the other

leaving us spent and out of breath

our arms stretched in reverence

like prayer in a pagan church

we turned our faces toward heaven

suspended between sky and earth

hearing sounds of ancient voices

singing in the surf.


Yan Sham-Shackleton

Tanka


A poem about today’s world

I must not say much 

I only hold a green card

Would like to stay for my son


Michelle Smith

He's Not My President


God help America

for it will become hell in a handbasket

under the United States of Amerikka.

under his felonious and fascist leadership.


Troubled, Tyrannical

Racist, Repugnant

Unintelligible

Misogynist

Pig


He is a buffoon.

In a navy blue size too small suit

rotund white shirt belly

and MAGA red necktie

dressed up for that

McDonald's Big Mac meal

don't forget that blond haystack

toupee hairdo.

It seems to be pasted on.

What a Looney tune!

The Commander- in -Thief

pontificates conversation

with that Big Apple accent

that one day I will again visit

all five Burroughs and take a bite.

Does he even know the three branches

of the government?

Can he even pass a U.S.

citizenship civics test?

With his narcissistic ways

to circumvent the

patriotic red, white, and blue

His winning is Trump's hangover

Amerikka under his leadership

will need more than a four leaf clover.

President 45-47 and MAGA part 2

Supporters are the sheep

and voted in

the worst Gemini on the planet.

Sheep don't complain when Trump

pens into law

a life

comfort

cause

change

you had and

"is now slaughtered,

especially the voting apathetic

that chose not to bother.


" Oh what a mighty web we weave in order to deceive."


Time and Trump will tell and

the USA shall see

the dystonian nations flag waving.

Red won the battle.

Blue will win the war.

Democrats are the donkey,

Republicans are the elephants,

but Trump is the true jackass!

For he is Not My President

and is a

Troubled, Tyrannical

Racist, Repugnant

Unintelligible

Misogynistic

Pig

!




World Flux


Art makes the world go round, 

At his ECF artecf.org, there's

a kaleidoscope of materials

Chris enjoys to crochet 

and paint. He too is a ceramist

freely his creations take shape. 

Food, flowers, and folks. 

Art is essential and 

is home sweet home. 

Poetry and prose writer is me.

Seasons, seashells, life experience 

takes me. With a stroke of a pen,

I am free.

Fueled by our imagination, 

neighborhood and travel ahead 

of him and me. Connections to others that 

we have never met our works at least 

have encouraged hope. 

To see our works and words is heartfelt 

and forever for the world to see. The government is responsible

 for the health of the NEA. 

Did you know the  organization 

and labor union of Washington D. C.

is 167 years old and it's dismantling 

under Trump will financially be bleeding dry?

Their funds and grants keep creation alive.

For he and Musk have turned 

a blind eye. He'll mow and destroy where 

the grass is greener on the other side.




Time Magazine on 4.30.25


Google posted that

Hispanics helped Trump

take back the White House 

and now their support is waning.

Instead of golden sun rays,

Will this mean in your life 

there will rainy? Oh what a

 mighty web we weave in

order to deceive. MAGA, in

Espanol means magical or

large not Make America 

Great Again. Was that not 

a prelude at the term of

#45? Trump fooled voters,

after all, he is a crafty felon.

He can make believe that 

 the sun will turn into a snow

blizzard. Instead of cheers

there are jeers. Oil snakeskin

salesman no doubt praying

to God that Medi-Caid, Medi-Cal,

and SNAP EBT will not be voted

out. Millions depend on the 

government assistance, legal

or undocumented and not a

handout.


Low income and below 

the poverty line exist.

exist. I've seen and DEI on

 Wilshire & Vermont

 a k a Koreatown

Selling their wares and 

 free grocery giveaways.

The elderly gray haired Asian

woman with tiredness in her

defined line face hawking 

dry beans and a no name of

California green bean can.

A Latina mother with two kids

with dry corn flakes, apples, 

and oranges. Are they fresh, 

rotten, or aged?

There's one on every corner.

One stop shopping near 

Chipotle and the Purple Line.

Varieties of bus pass holders,

lanyards, a Dodgers cap, and

Eucerin skin cream for $8.00

cheaper than CVS in 90019.


At Wells Fargo, cardboard boxes

shows the Chiquita blue writing 

banana box, aguacates, and fresa

more often than not. The hint of a

radio station en Espanol and the

 sun baking down on the sidewalk. 

The stench of a blond hair matted

hair man lying in wait. Will he hop 

on the #720 or #20 to downtown 

or Santa Monica Beach? Muttering 

to himself as he walks catti corner

southbound near Wild Wings Buffalo 

to take a leek, his bearded compadre 

in a pink hoodie is transgender, wearing 

a brunette wig, I thought I overheard,

"Let me take a peek."


Gia Civerolo


war: people vs. nature
*pomo haiku


The battlefield was


                quiet.  People cheered loudly!


                                The torn meadow cried.



*pomo:  post modern




acrostic people


“Patriotarcle Ignorance” is what I hear in streets, stages & bar corners

Each story I meet, hearts bloom with fairy lights fluttering stars strings

Opening blackness sprinkling silver on flesh & sky glimmering glitter

Peeking star eyes over and over again and again star hearts

Leaking laughs, heartache, empathy, breaking love

Eyes bright with light bleeding magic souls

 



ballad of a revolution


The revolution is televised by all the wrong sides

Lies slip out of slick, silver, snake tongues

Their cries through eternity “We must conquer & divide”

Betraying morality easily, breathe through their lungs


The history of the revolution is not recorded in books

People preaching, educating, protesting in the street

They placed a king who is really just a common crook

They took away choice making women seem obsolete


Jails filled with too many colors for lesser crimes

“I still believe people are good at heart.”  said Ann Frank

My heart broken my kid’s generation only knows decline

Revolution spark by one standing in front of a moving tank


Shout from high places, believe no one does it all alone

The revolution must come from very deep veins within

Now we must topple politics melting down all gold thrones

Have Faith walls will tumble and crumble just like Berlin


Thursday, May 29, 2025

Michael Lee Johnson


Turnips in Southern Tennessee Still


In Tennessee, the shadows of the southern

wooden structures stalled off the narrow

highway and came to an abrupt end.

Lost in the deep eyes of forest green,

closing in on night.

From the top of a Yellow Poplar

tree scares me looking down

at the hillbilly stills. Moonshine

and moonlight illuminate the fire stills.

Moonshine murders of the past,

dead bodies hidden behind blue walls.

Mobs lie in Chicago, bullet marks

on the right side lie dormant through plaster.

This confirms my belief that Jesus

only works part-time.

Let me look at this mirage

picture photo album.

One more time—

find the turnips in the still.

 




Steel Bars a Single Sheet 


I'm Steely Dan Seymour Butts,

South America, trust me on that.

I can't pull up my sheet inside

these steel bars anymore. 25 to life.

No man is God in the cold or the clouds.

Isolated poets grab words anywhere

they can find them in newspaper clippings,

ripped-out Bible verses are a sin.

No one pities people like me in prison.

Spiders hang from my cell ceiling—

dance the jitterbug, "In the Mood."

Jigger bug fleas on my unpainted

cement floors.

My butt is toilet paper brown, flush.

Toxic thoughts grind on my aging

face, body, and declining health.

In this dream, I reach

for a hacksaw that is not there.

End this night & so many more

suffer in just a snore.


 



In the Sun, They All-Pass


In the bright sun in the early morning

Gordon Lightfoot sings.

When everything comes back,

to shadow thin, thunderclaps—

and drips of rain.

The coffee pot is perking again.

Even though Gordon has passed.

I experience a mix of life.

A blender of the plurality of singulars

mounting movie moving frames

all returning to memory and mind.

The echoes of insanity, a whisper

schizophrenic, Poe’s haunting verses.

The romances of Leonard Cohen

are hidden in foreign hotel rooms,

lost keys, forgotten scenarios

and forgotten places.

All silence skedaddles

away from death stolen

those leftover tears of a lifetime—

now expired on earth—

seek through

pain abstain.


Andy Palasciano

Cocoon


In one of the offices we clean,

One of the cubicles has a man

With the title, “Fisheries Biologist.”

And one of his coworkers put the

Word “Extreme” in front of his title.

So he was an “Extreme Fisheries Biologist.”

But humans are extremophiles-

Organisms that live in extreme conditions.

Even though things are extreme now,

There have always been Flowers of Algernon.

There are seeds beneath the ground

In winter.

When fruit comes in the spring,

It is our own arrogance that

Has been faced in the winter and let go of,

No one else’s.

So we should not eat seeds,

And try not to blame,

In the spring,

We will be set free

And will be free indeed.


Scott Ferry

some days i don’t know what laughter is


after a poem From Sean Thomas Dougherty "For Gaza" with words from Alejandra Pizarnik


or why someone would make a donut

or a white-frilled cake with a name 

curled in fleshy letters


there are so many dark endings

in a maze that they should be the norm

why normalize twine and light and white sails?


i hold a gun in my dream and i shoot someone 

in the intestines as if it is mundane and now need 

to get rid of the blood and my fingerprints


after i read a friend’s poem i realize 

not saying anything about gaza is just as murderous 

my silence being the color of a coffin 


i have a voice and enough money 

for many thousands of donuts and birthday cakes

but i am saying nothing buying nothing


for fear of being called antisemitic 

as thousands of people die blasted apart 

their fleshy names scripted on the white streets


words that will no longer be on anyone’s lips

much less on any cake or paper 

we are told to burn these killings in our minds 


wash the intestines off the walls

wipe the human fingerprints off the triggers

and allow the fallen to be lost in that crumbling maze 


between martyred and desecrated between numb

and numb until entire families entire lineages 

are erased buried in hospitals and schools


and we hold the guns and we are disemboweled

and we lose our imprints as humans

and we are as faceless and mute as the dead


Monday, May 26, 2025

Carl Stilwell AKA CaLokie

My First Car and All that Jazz


At the age of 31, I bought my first car—

a fading blue ’53 Chevy which I called 

the Blue Blazer for $125


What a bargain!

When I saw Thelonious Monk on the cover of Time 

and heard he was featured at Shelley’s Manne Hole on 

North Cahuenga Blvd in Hollywood, me and Blue Blazer 

took off to hear him and his band perform


“Round Midnight” driving on Hollywood and Pasadena

Freeways, “Straight, No Chaser” “Reflections” of 

a “Blue Monk” “Epistrophy” did "Rhythm-A-Ning" me 

all the way home


Blue Blazer also took me to Shelley’s Manne Hole 

to hear and watch the Modern Jazz Quartet, Charles

Lloyd. Carmen McRae, Miles Davis and Bill Evans who 

was one of the pianists on the greatest jazz albums 

ever recorded, Miles’ maga-classic, Kind of Blue


One year after the riots or uprising

depending on your point of view

I attend the Watts Jazz Festival


In the afternoon under the junk sculpted tower of Simon Rodia, 

the drumming is like a flower power fiesta at a love-in

and DEEP in my heart I do believe that 

ONE DAY

WE

BLACK AND WHITE TOGETHER 

SHALL OVERCOME


But as Hugh Masekela trumpet fanfares West Coast 

sundown, majority of minority Euro-Americans leave festival 

and l am left  with a few other white skins engulfed 

in a Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness night  


War beat takes over drums

Flash backs to year ago unrest follow

“BURN, BABY, BURN.”

“GET WHITEY!”

“BLACK POWER!”


Suddenly blonde Euro in bare midriff stands up 

in spotlight and shakes blue jean booty to 

roar and laughter of jazz aficionado assembly 


A jazz brother needs a ride

and in my ’53 Chevy, I drive him to his ghetto home

My pale blue clunker could have broken down there

but it didn’t


And even if it did

as Miles Davis might have “kind of blued” with 

muted horn to Bill Evan’s piano introduction, 

“SO WHAT”


Hanh Chau

The Lost City


The night comes

in a dark shadow

through a scene

of a battlefield

enfold with a

shattered dream

comes a legacy

of a story to tell

the streets remain in a

silent echo on stage

whisper of wind

murmur in shed tears

in every breath of life

is at a state of crisis

with a convey message

by a death sentence

from the disaster war

bring a sense of fear

from the witness

of the atomic bomb

consume the soul

with despair

sending a chill down

to the spine

haunted by the

pass ghostly spirit

through the breeze

of dancing thick air

scattered mask fright

infuse the atmosphere

with terror

memory imprinted

with heartbreak

of a sorrow

in the lost land

that it calls home




In Peace, We Stand Together


In the shadow of night

beneath the struggle

surface hide

of heavyweight

from the burden state

Echo of pain

resonant in the siren

lost in an emotional wave

whisper wind found

submerge in a voice

trapped in agony

where silence resides

for freedom of right

seeking justice

Let the voice soar

from relentless fear

of conveying a message

guiding through words

in the spreading wings

to find strength

with love harmony

showcase from the

giving kindness through

the uplifting spirit

of guiding light

at the solace state

of solidarity stand

from unwavering

commitment and

continuous support

A generosity seed

bring to spread

the enlightenment of

inspirational goal

that forms peace

for a better place

to live

So, in peace,

We stand together 




The World


The world that

comes to display

is falling apart with

crisis of anger flame

filled the scenery

with a battle view

words have no

forms are falling

from the lips

to witness the

senseless act

remain in a silent tone

through a broken

heart and devastating mind

to confide in the untold story

from the tragic play

of suffering pain

with an awakening call

to remind us of the innocent loss

that peace needs to take place

With the call for unity

to define justice

to stop the chaos of all

Together we will rise to see

Prosperity comes to a place

From all the hatred go free

For the sake of humanity 

To maintain harmony


Thursday, May 22, 2025

Jack G Bowman

Flight of Anesthesia 


He swims in a collage of gasse high in the air is wrapped in misshapen tunic that covers and

flows outward 

his eyes open and close only half believing

pain brings him back to the

operation the medical professionals in their light blue paper garments

calling his name 

a hand touches his left shoulder 

brings him into the reason

for his visit 

he has survived 


Monday, May 19, 2025

Antoinette Vella Payne

Contagious Courage


Prehistoric people built sound

Soaring singing communities

In the age of dinosaurs


Shrieks &  slaps

Warnings to crescendo

Falling into unknown realms


Dangerous beautiful giants

Walked along side

All of them stepped into eternity


Grunt Growl Grow

Into a new colony of

Imagined dangers


To extinction to civilization

Prompting re-creation to

Unimagined human evolution


We stand at a new precipice

Brought about by fear

Illusions of dangerous freedoms


Controlled authoritarianism says

The People can’t handle love 

Inclusion  and  self determination


But we can

We will

We shall overcome their control


Brothers and sisters

Evolution of human 

Consciousness springs from this chaos


Together we resist

Together we change the course

We the people can




Some Woolley History    


Our woven wills taken by trillions

We the great care

Together we wear

Democracy


Our historical garment

Now a torn commitment

Mended in seventeen eight eight

Persevering more than a hundred years


Of freedom

A broken test by our own will

Raining authoritarian reign

Human of no being


Ruthless and stained

Signaled to a collective destiny

Mended by another will

That is and is not of choice


Washed through a steady optimism

That keeps taking sunny dreams

Tested torn and interwoven

As we remember history


Happening to that good hope

That right and important care 

Alternating from our own mothers

And the silencing of our forefathers




Sanity Calling


We are our own saviour

Mergers of cultural eth-ni-cities

America’s diversity and inclusion is real


Retreat from this American cartel

Take what matters most to you

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid


For the first time in my life

I have a stable income

What a joy to work


In real property sales

Without commission as my goal

Just do a good job because I can


Take back what matters most to you

Broken and thrashed public agencies

Detained immigrants shouting S.O.S.


Defied constitution & courts

Help was on its way to Gaza when

We supported humanitarian aide


American complicity in starving

Two million people found guilty

In war crimes, Palestinian children die


Stop dumbing down America

Leave public radio

And free press alone


Laws to curb climate upheaval

Scientists & lifesaving research

Unfunded


Stifled law firms

Far right religious christianity

Sexual singularity


LGBTQ my people’s freedom

International tariffed turmoil

USA leaders gain from inside trading


What’s your biggest heart ache

In the midst of this corruption?

Silence or intelligent action will prevail


Let us take a radical stance against

power, domination & meanness

Poetry’s portal to truth & kindness


Can shed abundant light 

on fascist states of affairs everywhere

Poets prerequisites for reason


Mike Turner

What Nation?


What makes a nation?


Is it the borders surrounding it?

Mythical lines on a grid map?

Invisible in the real world

Except for the fences and walls we erect

And the guards we post to keep people out


Is it the political force motivating it?

The ethereal “will of the people”?

Herded by the power elite

Shunted to their ends like lemmings to the cliff

The “haves” and “have nots;” a conspiracy of privilege 


Or is it rather the soul of compassion?

The desire, the drive, to improve the lot of all?

Freedom, Equality, Opportunity

Justice, Security and Inclusion

Talismans of what we as a united people stand for 


Let us tear down our walls

Set aside our factionalism 

Extend our hands and hearts

So that each may attain their fullest potential

Together forming the Nation of Humanity




Absence, Of Choice


Violence will not give us peace

Peace is the absence of violence


Lies will not give us truth

Truth is absence of lies


Threats will not give us security

Security is the absence of threats


Greed will not give us worth

Worth is the absence of greed


Bigotry will not give us equality

Equality is the absence of bigotry


Inequity will not give us justice

Justice is the absence of inequity


Oppression will not give us freedom

Freedom is the absence of oppression


Hate will not give us love

Love is the absence of hate


To absent from our world

Violence, lies, threats, greed, bigotry, inequity, oppression, hate

We need only live our lives

In peace, truth, security, worth, equality, justice, freedom and love


Absence, of choice

Let us so choose

Today




May We Know…


May we know Joy

To sustain us through sorrow

Beauty 

To see past ugliness

Laughter 

To endure tragedy

Calm

To quell anxiety

Hope

To ease despair

Faith

To leaven doubt

Courage

To overcome our fears

Unity

To banish division

And through it all

May we know Love

Given and received

To bind us in our common Humanity


Friday, May 16, 2025

Dig Wayne

Mist on the Hudson 


how many rivers does it take to make an ocean

how many boulders does it take to make a railroad 

how many clouds does it take to make a shadow 

how many bridges does it take to make a subtext 

how many fishing boats does it take to make a shanty 

how many wild flowers does it take to make a shroud 

how many ossinings does it take to make a sing sing 

how many smoking cars did it take to make a tumor 


Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Bruce Niedt


De Stijl (The Style)


It was the best of art,

it was the worst of art.

It was nature reduced to 

Its barest simplicity—


perpendiculars, straight lines,

intersecting, primary colors,

composition distilled

to its most basic elements.


It is the best of times, 

It is the worst of times,

depending on who you ask.

I suggest a new flag 


that resembles Mondrian’s 

Composition No. II,

with Red and Blue,

white with bold black lines


describing five quadrilaterals, 

a square and a rectangle filled in—

one red, one blue, 

corner to corner, no overlap,


to represent what we feel to be 

the thick borders of our beliefs,

the irreconcilable compartments

of our ideologies.




Portrait of Trump in the Colorado Statehouse


Of course, he complains about it —

he may have preferred the pumped-up superhero

from one of his digital trading cards.

But he has a point.

There’s the feathery hair, the flag lapel pin,

and the trademark long red tie,

but it’s too warm and fuzzy, too soft-focused,

like a blurred-edge pastel, and that makes

his portly image even more rounded.


Sir, with all due respect,

you could have done so much worse.

Shall we review your gallery of caricatures?

Or perhaps your mug shot, which looks like

a Gotham villain about to blow up City Hall?

There is one detail of the painting I like,

and that’s the mouth, an almost perfect

horizontal line, lipless, that one could call

Resting Despot Face. It’s a precious moment,

one in which you are not shouting, grimacing,

lying, pontificating, whining or insulting,

but perfectly neutral, silent, as though someone

has just told you to shut the hell up.




List for Surviving These Times: A Sonnet


One: Stop harping that this world’s gone to hell.

Two: Find a good cause. Join it. Send money.

Three: Mail a card to Congress. Say, “Get well!”

Four: Be nice. You catch more flies with honey…

Five: Try to get others to see your side.

Six: Paint a sign with a pithy slogan.

Seven: Join a march and protest with pride.

Eight: Start a podcast. (Not like Joe Rogan!)

Nine: Play some music that inspires you.

Ten: Take a break from social media.

Eleven: Lose the funk that mires you.

Twelve: Get facts. (Not just Wikipedia.)

Thirteen: Seek shelter. There might be a storm.

Fourteen: Build a fire. Keep yourself warm.



Monday, May 12, 2025

Joseph D. Milosch

Last Word on the Election


Yes, on the day after the election,

everything seemed to be slipping

to the brink. We are on the edge

of destruction, not by fire, water,

starvation, invasion by foreign powers,

COVID-19, plague, cancer,

heart failure, or stroke.


Yes, we seem to stand on the lip

of an abyss, and instead of finding

the beautiful architecture of the body

or love, we expose ourselves

to malicious behavior.

We hope everything will be all right

because we think others are better.


But in retrospect,

we should have prayed

to be spared that one quick moment

when what we suspected

about our country

but were unwilling to face

was revealed.



Hard Not to Fear the Weight of the Earth


It would have been better for this poet

to have been born in a doorless room

than to see his country reinstall segregation.

It would have been better

to squander his childhood in corners,

filled with dreams of roses

pinned in long silky hair —

better for him to chop his childhood memories

into slivers of wood and start

a fire beneath the white cylinder

used to heat water in the room

of his recuring dream —

the one with images of knotted ropes

dangling from cliff trees.


It would have been better to find himself

in another dream, wandering the streets

and writing his poems behind the faces,

painted on the undersides of bridges;

then to see the unmasking of

in-your-face hatred.


Today, no one can pretend

to be above it all anymore,

and our poems need trapdoors,

leading to underground tunnels —

identified by skeletons nailed upright

with mouths full of worms.

Today he writes of rivers and creeks,

because he can hardly bear to think

of the new fascism that is heavy

like the mountains, and makes

it hard not to fear the earth’s weight.


Did the Dao say, everywhere man

is dust and death, and his groaning

is wind in a seashell?’

It doesn’t matter for in this time

of the new red and black

there is no way to know

if his country will survive

or if the doors of poetry are closing.



A Dark Sky Over the White-Capped Pacific


I stopped at an overlook along the Oregon coast.

In the sky, puffins and cormorants dipped and darted.

Further out, the rain clouds ballooned.


The wind kept knocking the top off waves,

and I saw the sea struggling while birds

dived behind a rocky cliff.


I slept deeply that night, and beyond my room,

clouds hid the stars like a squadron following fog

across the border.


Rain on the roof became footsteps of sorrow

that entered my sleep and called itself by another name.

In my dream, the waves of memory rippled;


and a man didn’t dare show his face as he glided

in the shadows of a fence. Then, an elevator

opened its door invitingly,


and I crashed through charcoal depths, feeling someone

behind me. Who was bigger than my shadow, and

his face was a kaleidoscope of troops and their fears.


Some dreams fulfill desires, but the rush

of fascistic-patriotism fills the seas with blood.


Sunday, May 11, 2025

Rob Tannahill

To MAGA: Sincerely, The Radical Left


The MAGA movement

At heart

Is made up

Of chickenshits

Who know they were wrong

And can't admit it

So

Like pissed-off teenagers

They have to overcompensate

By running

That white-hot

Mouth-driven

Prefrontal lobe

All the way

To victory

Or the grave.


I saw

One of their podcasters

Misread a Jesse Welles song

I saw

One of their podcasters

Introduce

Masturbation to Prime Time

I saw

One of their podcasters

Celebrating Hitler

I saw

One of their podcasters

Arrested for SA

I saw--how can you not?


This doesn't

Bode well for you, Maga.


I saw

Their dog-murdering

Ice Queen

Used

By Chris Murphy

To mop

The floor

And I saw

Stephen Miller

Spray petrol

On the writ of habeas corpus


(he's looking for his lighter)


I see

That Jasmine Crockett

Seems aptly named

With her unflinching

definace in the face

Of Lauren Boebert's

Provincial indignance

And see

That Bernie is doing

What he's always done

This time, with AOC

She has long lusted

For your heads on a plate

And now

That you've been called out

On your obvious fascism

You're crying

About radical leftists

And their intolerance.


You!


The most foul-thinking

Plebs on the planet

Who used the internet

To flood the world with so much snark

It will take 50 years

For us to stop hating each other

Over bathrooms, cyclists

And baseball caps

And any number of other dingbatteries

That don't mean a damn thing

To the price of your bills

Like whether or not

Someone you'll never even meet

Is on food stamps

While Trump spends 10 billion

On planes that aren't even ours.


Our intolerance is

Of rising prices

Of trade wars

Of bigotry

Of genocide

Of dead kids

Of religious tyranny

Of nauseating lies

Of Neuralink

Of the police state

Of dystopia

Of cruelty

Of tribal irrationality

Of New Eugenics

Of the Little Horn

With his face and his false wound

Parading around like a man of God.

More like Randall Flagg

And the Economy's savior hasn't done squat

Except fire people,

Bully Canada,

And make it cool to beat protestors

But since we're angry

At this blanket slap in the face

Delivered happily--HAPPILY!

By the bourgeois

To everyone living in the production sphere

Which means you, too, MAGA

What once were snowflakes

Are now the New Intolerant

Radicals.


Perhaps just freer than you're ready


for--


You don't want a free country.

You want a space where it's cool for you to puff up your chest and wax blowhard for an ego-hit. You don't care about freedom, or any blood save for your own.


I posit

That you will never

Be able to admit

How foolish and naive you look

While your chosen ones

Crash helicopters

Fuck over the disenfranchised

And cut the bootstraps off

Everyone they admonished to do pullups

While they

Drunk text National Security

Secrets on a Sext App

And send upstanding citizens

To Gulag

Under the false pretense

Of a gang tattoo


(what I saw weren't gang tattoos)


They will never

Understand

That what we feel isn't intolerance

It's disgust

Which is exactly what they should be feeling

I would tell any one of them

It makes more sense to forgive you

Than fight you


Otherwise


And it will be on your hands

And in your court, MAGA


You may find

The times get quite shaking

When snowflakes become avalanches.


You were wrong, MAGA.

You didn't make anything great.

You made it shit.


Consider

All the blood you

Yes, even you

Mr. Proletarian Trump Voter

And the rest of the world would avoid

If you'd just admit

You fucked up--we've all done it!

And help us do away

With the swine who swindled you.


Kevin R Pennington

Manufactured Outrage


I.


The American Dream

used to mean something, 

or at least We the People

thought it did. It was 

a dream without kings

where anyone could 

have a good life 

if they worked 

their hands 

to the bone 

for the 

man.


II.


We stood tall

We acted like the World Police

We fought genocide

We kept the world safe for Democracy

We fought for freedom

We started wars for oil

We celebrated America


III.


This land is Our Land

and we reaffirm that

in public classrooms

with oaths said by rote

and patriotic melodies

sung at baseball games.


IV.


I write this

manufactured outrage

on social media.

I get a hundred likes,

but nothing changes.

The algorithm hides 

what I post so that

only my friends see it

and all I hear is 

echoes of alleged

truths. 


V.


We are so busy

being entertained

by technology

that our freedoms

evaporate like

water on a hot

summer day.


VI.


The homeless 

huddle on the streets

while Congressmen 

sit in ivory chambers,

passing laws that 

make it illegal 

to sleep beneath 

the stars.


VII.


We are being fucked over by 

a corrupt Supreme Court,

evil MAGA zealots, 

violent Proud Boys, 

an orange-skinned Dictator 

with an endless list of 

executive actions,

and his billionaire 

masters who orchestrate 

rigged elections.


VIII.


Elon Musk dismantles 

our government,

Nazi salutes our flag,

and holds a chainsaw

to the throats of the

American people.


IX.


No amount of Apple Pie

makes this bullshit OK.


X.


‘Merica, 

You had a heart attack 

in the middle of the night

from all the cigarettes, 

opiates, and caffeine.

Goddamn it, 

the Constitution 

is an amazing document

and America was beautiful,

but all dreams end

when you wake 

the fuck up.


Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Jennifer Rudick Zunikoff

WE WILL CLIMB POMEGRANATE TREES


Your story is

Inconvenient for me


That does not mean it is not true


My story is

Inconvenient for you


Even so, I am not lying


And what's more


I'll never believe G-d loves me 

more than G-d loves you


I'll never unknow that your child must

Thrive upon fresh air and clean water


Peace will never arrive. Instead


We will climb pomegranate trees

And call it down from heaven 


We will pluck olives and till fields

And feel old and grow gnarled


And be pure as white doves

We will slowly rock in our chairs 


And listen to each other's stories

And cry and laugh and cry


Thursday, May 1, 2025

Juliet Cook

The Egg Price Is Out of Control


He blames it on you for disrupting his convoluted flow

by not completely agreeing with him,

by not cracking and flushing your own ugly

broken shells down the drain until he decides

to pluck out the yolk, name it, batter it,

shove it wherever the hell he wants to.

 

Until then, you're a grotesque mini-chicken ejaculating gore.

Whorish bleeding as it gives birth to an even tinier chicken.

Innards aborting the itty bitty pieces of breast meat.

Distorting the doll house dining room table with oozing substances

from gross bodily orifices repeatedly gagging in his face.


Filthy bits of chicken feed are enlarging inside

the radiator while the lady stomps and smiles.

She sings about heaven and another head falls off,

lands in a giant vat filled with processed red food coloring.

Our heads sink down and drown inside a mangled portal.

Get stuck within massive monopolized membranes, soon to be human balut.




False God in a Festival of Destructive Rats 


You are a human rat

with a long narcissistic tail

streaked with feral cat shit.

Stained teeth cracking into

hollowed out rodent factories.

The next one who doesn't see it

your way will be eaten alive. Head

shoved inside your giant rat taco bell

seasoning mix. Thin bread ripped apart.


The latest firing behooves you and your

satanic hooves ablaze with hate.

Your definition of success is rat shit

crazy and not nearly as intelligent

as actual rats.  Your carpetbag rat

will rat out every so-called friend

and you will do anything to rat-a-tat-tat


your evil self into more power, money,

fame. Gain the latest rat-o-sphere of fake

rat followers.  Even though your system of poison

rat droppings is meant to infiltrate and destroy

everyone else's space, place, and freedom

as you spew rat diarrhea behind the back

then in everyone's faces. As you act more


like an angry shit-faced sex trafficker,

covering up every red light with shit.

What if it's the kind of sticky shit

that doesn't go all the way down the drain?

What if we shove your rat head in the toilet

and make you swallow your own shit?

Maybe we're all just a festival of rats


but the only false god complex carnival

leader I want to destroy is you.  

If you force yourself into the holes

in my wall, I will bite off your head,

spit it into a dirty bowl. Watch it ruin

the bathroom, the bedroom, the home,

the neighborhood, the state, the world.


Rich Ferguson

What I Said to the Genie in the Bottle Turned Therapist


I wanna throw caution to the wind, but there’s a hurricane outside. Wanna earthquake

proof my soul, but I’m already shaken. I wanna genuflect in the chapel of longed-for

happily ever afters, but my knees are broken. Wanna wipe the smirk off Hate’s face,

but don’t have a big enough wash rag. I wanna engage in rousing games of dodgeball

but the government keeps playing DOGE. Wanna turn bullets into birds, but don’t

have enough feathers. I want us to flourish in Indian summers of sweetness, but

we’ve become soul-stricken by too many winters of discontent. I wanna save the

world, but don’t know where to begin.


Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Marieta Maglas

Eruptions of Change


In the heart of the Earth, where flames

intertwine with rock, volcanoes awaken,

exhaling plumes of ash and gas, their

plume a transient veil obscuring the sun.

For a fleeting moment, they turn daylight

into twilight, casting shadows over fields,

tempering the sweltering breath of summer.

Yet beneath this transient tranquillity, carbon

murmurs— a subtle threat weaving through

the fabric of time. A paradox unfurls—

the smoke conceals the light, yet the heart

beneath, throbs heavier with each pulse of

the roar, the carbon dioxide, a specter of

our creation, trails behind us like a lingering

shadow, its presence a reminder, that every

eruption, every obstruction, merely shifts

the balance. As the seas shudder— life

releasing its burdens, the tight embrace

of death seeps back into the air, further

entangling us in a web not of our choosing.

Three centuries, a mere blink in time, but

what a weight we’ve forged, more than

thirty-five percent; each molecule,

a testament to the fires we have ignited,

to forests lost. Through photosynthesis,

the trees once sang a chorus, harmonized

with the sky, exchanging breaths, but now,

high above, the ozone withers, its veil thin

and torn, allowing the sun’s relentless gaze

to pierce deeply into our essence, as

chlorofluorocarbons rise, like smoke from

a waning flame. And still, the tectonic plates

churn, the reverberations of ancient forces

igniting eruptions; fire and ice locked in

a struggle, a delicate dance of balance,

fighting against the snowball chill, an echo

of a frozen world, highlighting our vulnerability,

the fragile threshold of warmth, where life

teeters on the brink. Unique Earth, adorned

with cycles, perpetual ebbs and flows of fate;

we stand, eyes wide open, witnesses to

transformation, seeking significance, in

the rising heat and shadowed illumination,

aware that even in stillness, the rhythms of

history continue, and the smoke—

a paradox, a resonance deep within us all,

serves as both a warning and an awakener.

In the quietude where tectonic murmurs

dwell, the earth exhales softly, signs of

ancient force, dragging carbon from

the abyss, lifting it like a painter’s brush,

etching history upon the canvas of existence.

Pangea fractured—a magnificent mosaic,

fragments cast adrift, longing for the embrace

of their lost kin. Each shard, a new continent

cradled by the ocean, cradling the promise of rain,

moisture weaving from clouds— an artist’s palette,

shades of existence and dust. But the air thickens,

equilibrium falters, as the unyielding waltz of

erosion unfolds, stones thinning under the gentle

burden of purpose, truth entwined with time.

Carbon, once inhaled, is now released—

beneath the shroud of ice and beneath

the sun’s gentle gaze. Glaciers stretch

their spectral fingers, veils of white whispering

albedo secrets, reflecting energy back,

to the cosmos as a mirror, while beneath,

the deserts fade, parched lips cracked,

thirsting for storms that have forgotten

how to dance on the land. Yet, the belly

of the earth swells— volcanoes awaken,

bellowing forth, carbon escaping in vast

clouds, a gas gun unleashed, filling

the vault with air, warmth, and light;

ensnaring rays in a delicate embrace,

the greenhouse effect's tender cradle.

As moisture rises, vaporous dreams collide

with the fiery breath of creation, forming

the acid rain, soft yet fierce, eroding

the stone-hearted giants that keep their

secrets tightly, the bicarbonate

flowing into the sea, gathering into

patterns of silent artistry. The ocean inhales

deeply, the waters cradle pirouetting ions,

inscribing tales in carbonate, fossils of

a life lost and rediscovered.

As the cycle spins, endlessly weaving

the tapestry of life under our feet, where

every element sings its role. So here

we stand today, reflections of this world,

each breath we take mirrors the cries of

the ages— the rise and fall, the ebb and

flow, the carbon cycle intertwined with

our existence, a reminder that we are

both the breath of earth and the echoes of time.




Evolution


In the soft embrace of twilight's glow,

we find ourselves gathered around a

holy table. The flickering candlelight

dances upon our features, and

the air is alive with the words

of those who once shared this space;

here, where the essence of

existence simmers. We lift our glasses—

crimson elixir, vibrant as the heart’s pulse,

as if the vine itself had woven the threads

of our stories into each precious drop.

Spirit flowing, awakening our senses,

reminding us of moments conceived

in the stillness of creation. Bread,

golden and warm, loaves cradled

like cherished promises; each crumb,

a testament to our bond—

binding us to one another and

to the echoing breath of God,

who shaped us from wet dust

and breathed life into our souls.

“Let us make man in our image,”

a sacred creation, a reminder that

without Him, words slip away,

dissipating like morning mist.

We risk becoming mere shadows,

monkeys in the fold, lost in a forest

of silence, reaching for meaning as

the symphony of existence dims

under the weight of our doubt.

Why did the serpent coil its tongue

around promises and lies? Kafka’s

metamorphosis, a reflection of our

innermost fears and a struggle; to be

caught between flesh and spirit. Together,

we contemplate our existence,

the musings of Darwin, the cycles of Mayan

wisdom, and all echoing uncertainties. Yet—

in this moment, in this gathering,

the presence of God shines forth—

a beacon in the haze. For what is faith

if not the light that nourishes our humanity?

We are reborn in love, our hearts stitched

together with compassion, striving to be

good, to be whole, led by the sacred words

gifted to us, intricately woven in the tapestry of

creation, urging us to awaken and

to dwell in the grace of God.


Saturday, April 26, 2025

Dean Okamura

 


Big Beautiful TACO 
(Trump Always Chickens Out)

 

        at a recent press conference … 


"They'll say,       oh, he was chicken. He was chicken." 


     "I say, it's called negotiation." 

     They asked me a "nasty question". 


"They'll say,       oh, he was chicken. He was chicken." 


     "They wouldn't be here without 

     my big beautiful tariff." 


"They'll say,       oh, he was chicken. He was chicken." 


      "That's unbelievable." 


The wild world calls 

serene, rising above the noise 

of men who crow and mock 

in echo chambers built to fail. 


     Trumpy Dumpty sat on his wall, 

     Crowed and chickened out before his fall, 

     All his spin doctors and all his men 

     Couldn't make TACO shell whole again.



* TACO: Coined by Financial Times journalist Robert Armstrong in a May 2 column 





Saturday, April 19, 2025

Peggy Castro


Mommy Dearest 


There was no other way 

The poison was too lethal 

The antidote had to be a similar poison 

Altered a bit 

In the crazed mind of my mother 

The product of a lunatic Finn

And a compromised Dane


Lethal from day one 

Yet just enough love to keep 

From delivering the final blow 


Spending the last 20 years of her life 

Able only to say I love you 

Which I rejected because it was 

So tainted with the poison 


Living among cockroaches 

In a slum apartment on the beach 

With a red geranium for company

Never complaining 

Seeing me through my

Own dance into darkness 

Through Alzheimer’s with her

Crippled body 

Refusing to let go

Even in a coma 

Until that final sunset 

In a private room 

At Huntington Hospital 

After seven days of my private farewell 


I pulled the plug 

A trusted minister’s arms around me 

A nurse standing by




Watching


I said I was going to take a vacation 

I lied

Old man and the sea I cried clutching my pearls 

Facing the cyber maniacs and their endless eyes 

My life in tatters 

Sharks having shredded my Great White Hope which turned out to be another shark 

All those years of my lonely and harsh efforts 

Reduced to a single eye embedded somewhere in my solitary room 

Watching 




It is here


that reptilian monster scuttling around in my brain

through millennia and past lives

he has broken free

and is now staring at me

eyeball to eyeball

what to do

what to do

the monster is screaming extinction

all I have are a couple of numbers from corporate law firms I used to work for

I understand they now represent the nightmare clown of our dreams whom they helped elect president

they also represent my sociopathic ex husband from San Salvador

Perhaps prayer…

Is god listening?


Thursday, April 17, 2025

Jackie Chou

"They will never write a poem"


I cringe at those words RFK said 

about autistic children 


So cold 

So distant

So ableist

So alienating 

with no empathy

or understanding 

whatsoever 


Nothing in those words said

I can relate to these children 

who will be our future 

despite their uniqueness 


Just him on his high podium 

putting these kids down 

autism to be shunned

instead of something to thrive with


What about Kodi Lee

severely autistic 

who had perfect pitch

and won America Got Talent?


Being a poet

the lines don't always come easy

neurodivergent or not

but I can't imagine 

never writing a poem

or being creative in any way

my entire life


With severe mental illness 

and psychotic episodes

I managed to graduate college 

with a 3.74 GPA 


How much more

will we endure the brutality

of this administration?

 

Monday, April 14, 2025

Duane L Herrmann

FRONT LINE DELIVERY


Battered army truck

pulls up, stops.

Driver, in protective gear,

jumps out, opens

truck back door,

keeps engine running.

Soldiers sprint up

from their trenches.

Driver passes boxes

that must have pizza

to soldiers delight

as they rush back

to safe trenches

and driver rushes off

before a mortar hits.

It's meal time for

fighters and defenders

of Ukraine!




HOW MANY WILL DIE?


People will die

the president-

dictator has so

decreed.

Some by hate-

filled violence,

to be normal now.

Others by disease,

because diseases

do not exist

when we hide them.

And collisions

in transportation,

because safety

“costs too much.”

Lives don't matter.


How long

will this go on?




TO STOP THE PLAGUE


Friends dying.

even family too,

all alone

far from those

they know and love:

Death

in covid time,

as any pandemic

when society

turned upside down.

Isolation is solution

to halt spread

of infection

if people would

but learn,

yet some persist

in being spreaders

and more die.


Friday, April 11, 2025

Peter Appleton

Lamentation 


The rising seas drove us from our farms as sure

As guns, the swallowing sands, the burning forests,

Storms and tides, everywhere failed crops, climbing prices

Desperate fighting over less than the year before

Each wave carrying away a little till home

Was a waterlogged memory, too heavy to hold

Save in old folks’ ramblings and young men’s disdain.

That we were warned is of no consequence or weight.

Blame the luxury of the distant and strong.

Guilt the pastime of the escaped, the rich and fed.

So this is how we sing our songs in a strange land –

Allusive, longing, fantastical, mouth to mouth,

Call and response in the fields as we work an earth

We won’t or can’t defend, or whispered secretly

At night so that our owners may not hear the words

Of how we learned to speak as children and our hope,

The cruelest master, that one day we may be free.

The politics to which we turned has let us down

False images and gold all made insubstantial

As we betrayed the promises that kept us whole,

Profane as the omniscient spark-dusted smoke eddies

In the dark, cold air above our poor, brave camp fires.



Armageddon


All the wars are crawling nearer with their songs

Creeping down their underground corridors

Asking for forgiveness, understanding, selling revenge

As justice, blood as hunger, and freedom as power.


To numb from these atrocities is natural as breath

As broken as water, as stiff as day old bread

protected in the language of action – bold, determined,

Right and all about defense at any cost.


All dreams of determination, all collateral damage

Minimized explained as camouflage and hidden reserves

Not just our enemies oh no but yours as well

We intervene for your progress and safeguarding.


Mutated by munitions, ordered by abstract authority

These faithful are at the end justified by their destruction.



Rebellion


Dry thunder cracks the dark, late summer night

To mock sizzling predictions with wild light.

We sit outside and let the cold wind wash

Away the fearful and the weak - they squash

Beneath umbrellas, smart trees grown for shade.

Like refugees from civil wars, they fade

Into the margins while we foolhardy stake

Our cool ignoring warnings. No mistake,

We all are due the deluge when it cracks -

Rank water, blood and shame upon our backs,

No cover in the flashlit running streets,

No safety in the burning struck retreats.

For first we took the rivers and the trees

And then we trashed the mountains and the seas

And now the tempest’s come to call account

Who’s left to speak for us as losses mount?

The wars are being fought in our small names

The floods and droughts the forests lost in flames

The young protest more than a kiss away

The storm has risen on my street today.


Thursday, April 10, 2025

Richard Spisak

What is it


What is it tumbles there, down deep in his brain.

Now it seems we’re at war with the ancient dusty rusty nation of Spain.

What is it, that brings us once again, near his ornery sad refrain?

Now we’re at em we’re at war, which one is it? Oh yeah, SPAIN?


WHO else has set his little heart “a fire”, Is it the Maldives that provokes his ire?

Was he losing there at golf once? That has this stewing the mad lad,

deeply frowning in his cups?


Was it Paraguay that caused his wrath and ire,

that sent him screaming there frenzied,

unaware high atop his tower?

How is it, he already forgot tonight,

we’ve bombed the little darlings

not once but twice, just in the last hour!


Now they’ve gone done it, now he’s really mad

He once got Sand in his slippers when he visited Samarkand.

He’s ordered out our navy, Sent them out to attack.

But they’ll have to first find a near by ocean.

There might be an extra one, but maybe its way out back.


The Galapagos Islands were on last weeks list.

He thought he saw one of the antique turtles,

lean back and Shake a fist.

And a Malay village, once raised his ire. He saw their miss universe entry,

his little tiny heart is all on fire. He asked them to send her to Mara Large-OH.

And you know, that plucky little country, told’m right then where to go!


Last Tuesday he told us Antarctica will be next.

He thought it insulted him, well so, oh what the heck.

He build a ski resort there, for Don Jr. Ivana and Eric,

he send’m there in irons, if they give him another panic.


He heard of the Ancient Egyptian god BAST.

It was too much for him, this pussy cat must be dispatched it shall not last!

Just another whim. Once he saw a gopher at his Dorals 18th hole,

he had the whole thing set afire. So he had’m drop a hydrogen bomb

there just to ease his ire. Rent’ll be reduced for a while in the neighborhood-

it was left a flaming radioactive zone, which wasn’t entirely good.


A mongoose was once shown to him sometime in a zoo,

he thought he remembered the damn thing was from Michigan,

maybe just outside Kalamazoo?

So he had the whole place leveled late last Friday night,

it was an unannounced episode- he watched it all on TV,

for entertainment, his programming’s spot on, he really gets it right


Marco brings the Nachos you can count on him,

Christie Noem brings hot dogs, when they let her in.

Robbie Kennedy favors Tequila, you have to share the worm,

but the CDC & the FDA are shut down, so the details cannot be confirmed.


Canada is our now, our fifty first and second state,

Quebec insisted on separate statehood, with second class citizenship,

will all that Fracking-Franco-Phon Freight.

Guadeloupe and Madagascar are fifty-Three and four.


Yeah so now no one’s left, who’s gonna argue,

we are, what we are. Same as old as NEW.

And Gaza was liberated, it’s earned its fifty fifth star,

it’s the only one with six points like a shiny golden Czar!


Some called it a bit off-putting, this new kind of foreign aid,

instead of milk and cookies he sends’m a big ticking grenade.

Our Armies never prouder a parade each and every week,

he keep cost of care in check, by the way, some killjoys have their own opinion

they have called it bleak.


We no longer care for wounded, if your hurt, you’re on your own,

but there’s a plan in the works, to ISSUE ALL THE WOUNDED,

a Super Smart “MUSK AI PHONE” It allows for one phone call,

for just five minutes tops, they could’ve made it longer,

but that’s for winners not for FLOPS!




Turning in your neighbors


Not harsh enough, then starch them cuffs.

I sort of liked their sofa, Liked their cars and stuff.

Turn’m in by lunch time, then grab their fav’rite chair

They’ll be cleared out by eleven,

they’ll just be cluttering up the jail.


Repudiating humanism, this is a mechanistic age,

With compulsory church attendance,

public prayers’ now all the rage.

Everyone wears their AI Watcher,

Best don’t leave home without it. Nacho.


Even at the bedtime be no more a whisperer,

you better shout about it! MISTER!

Keep your batteries all charged up

Yeah sure its only a misdemeanor, never doubt it. Just Shut up!


but if your caught without it, oh my dear you’ll learn.

Just what its like, when your ears and finger tips

 will most assuredly feel the burn.

When your street block captain, checks your record out online.

If your watch refused to shine,

 you will be emailed brother, one gigantic healthy fine.


No more lawn boys at the neighbors, all the gardening done for white folks,

will be done by prison labor.  All those teachers and professors,

 No longer high falutin men of letters. No more colleges or universities

 they’ll no more think they are our betters.


We emptied them all, we ain’t got, no more need.

The doctors all work for insurance, so if your poor

you’ll need endurance. The whole things run on GREED.


I’ve turned in all my neighbors they were a suspicious lot.

And when they left, we gathered up, all the things they bought.


We’ve got great employment surges,

although it’s centered in a very selected favorite churches.

Everyone must sign up, for compulsory attendance.

No more private morality, and then on the other hand,

you’ll never more be friendless.


When the CHURCHY-state rightward lurches,

 you’ll see attendance kept in churches.

When the church enforcers at the door hands out the new Commandments.

You better hope, he still signs your churchy list attendance.


So many hours of prayer each day.

You’ll need to get your card stamped by a neighbor anyway.

You’ll have to buy the leaders picture. Its mandatory, you don’t say.


Or else you’ll get a lecture. They’ll check on their next visit the very next day.

They’ll be downloading your prayer history, how fervent are your studies

of the latest revision, of the sacred trumptacious mysteries,

the latest definition of religion.


After they rounded up the brown ones,

And all the political media clown ones.

The Dems were next, then them rhinos they’s all hexed

Into the gulags, all them proud profound ones,

may just have their collars stretched.


Those college professors were gathered ,

to stand before the STATE confessors.

Each class room has its Bible Belt and should you

without your homework caught, that position’ll be a stressor.

Unless you offer a hefty bribe it’ll be a while

‘fore you wander safely back to your tribe.


Schools now renounce formal learning,

didn’t you smell all them books a burning.

Not much left for the discerning student,

when carrying books for study, isn’t prudent.

Best to be an athlete now, all them art and music classes are

long lost and over, boy and how!


Idiocracy is the new ideal,

No more transgender surgery (it was never real)

No more punishment for perjury.

No more stool pigeons with the big reveal.

All the January-Six prisoners have been knighted

Now all them choral horror hoodlums are delighted.


Once a year they climb the dome

to remind us all that DONNIE’S Home.




The gospel of incompetence


The gospel of incompetence by which I swear.

I Thank the Goddess and the potent, mighty, ruling class

never quite despite all they might, gets us there.


I believe it is incompetence, that mostly protects our lives

From the bloody plans of warriors that despite their fervor never quite solidify

or even seem to jibe.


Were the bosses equal to their villainous plans

that they pursue the live long day yet never make their stand.

No better than chattering howler monkeys climbing and mobbing about in the zoo

in pursuit of their would-be banana money.


And all the filthy predators who would pursue, the victims of their loathsome conniving,

Hey, who’d know better than you? And all the skeezy plotters with their filthy plans

may they ever sever, as they trip over themselves, with their voluminous list 

of irrational insubstantial demands.


And all the rag-tag shaggy criminals, who post to social media to play at sinister.

So while gorging on their own special glory, to gain ground in WIKIPEDIA. They march

headlong into the tendentious arms of Peter Lorrre, and so may they thus,

 to the proper coppers, so they’ll explain their magnificent glory,

with no bottle stoppers. And that's their story.


I thank the goddess for the dumb-ones, with all their stupid stun guns, 

set to dumb or maybe number.

They might as well dispatch themselves, for all their futile ways 

beside all their beguiling merely amount to mist and dust.


And all the bomb-makers and vain-self-glorious risk takers

and all the indulgent movie makers. They scarce it seems, even amuse themselves.

Yet, there they set their plans amidst the dusty rust on the middle shelves

Sweetly swells the lovely melodies of the Ringing Bells.


 


Homeland Defense


between the kings of saudi oil

who shell and exxon dare not despoil

and those of wall street's fiscal toil

where betting gainst the working man

guarantee a stocks demand.


And desert prince with genrous eye holds court in tents

where gas station cards, shell pay the rent


Does the oily hand of GEE H's show?

old cia man still in control?


Pass the id cards but not a fake'n.

This way from true americons shake em


You face will now be pre-recorded.

And all your flights will now be boarded

arm the pilots, stewardesses too.

Next to the pillow and the barf bags fun

all passengers now will be given guns.


Ah for a shoot out in the airy blue,

oh what just a day can do.


I picture the stewie, tray in her hand,

confronted by a wanted man,

toss the tray into his face,

spins on her arm,

and kicks him trace.


He rolls across the cart, to a boy scout troop

who truss him up and steal his boots.


His arms behind his back now tied,

the bounce him to the choirs' side.

Who pummel, pillage, then retire,

and all those who were watching, were inspired.


Then a group of civitan, ask for a few fingers of his hand.

But the brownie troop wants his bushy beard.

You shoulda heard, just what I hear'd.


Then an old monk, jesuit, gives him twice a goodly kick

and the secretary gets him with her bic.


Though the pilot and the co-pilot were vying for priority

they submit their decision, to the vote of the majority


Some wanted to toss him, right out the door

but a cloister of nuns still wanted some fun.

They dragged him back to the airplanes tail, then the rugby team ran him back to the goal


Up to the galley, where they banged his head, 

two or three times, on the oven's lid.

A group of congressional aides in first class,

pulled out every hair from his ass.


A covey of comedians dove right in,

a left and a right to his nose and his chin.

A group of traders down from Duluth,

pushed him and mashed him into the roof.


Some ceiling tiles and an overhead bin, 

broke when they tried to stuff him in.


But let this be remembered, and never for-gate,

don't ever wait till your library books late.

 

Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Terry McCarty

THE 2025-2026 KENNEDY CENTER SEASON 


Just announced today; here are some of next season’s highlights:

GODSPELL starring Kid Rock

JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR with Billy Ray Cyrus and Morgan Wallen

alternating as Jesus and Judas

HOLOGRAM JOHN WAYNE performing his 1970s spoken word album AMERICA WHY I LOVE HER

Snoop Dogg performing Swamp Dogg’s 

I’M NOT SELLING OUT, I’M BUYING IN

BILLY GRAHAM’S WORLD WIDE PICTURES FILM FESTIVAL 

with Franklin Graham

Jewel in a new revue titled TRUMP WILL SAVE YOUR SOUL

POLITICALLY INCORRECT KENNEDY CENTER AWARDS 

And more, much more to come as we turn the clock as far back as possible!




LIVING IN WEIRD TIMES


conservative media cheer corporations and billionaires 

as they stand for no one but themselves 

giving thumbs up to cowardly appeasement 

looking the other way from Nazi salutes

ready to stand back and stand by

putting best spin on the nation’s crumble

as America bleeds out one tariff at a time 


how do you like your mob boss, Mr. Murdoch




LOS ANGELES/ALTADENA FIRES FOUND POEM


choppers coming through one after another

relentless attack from the sky makes a difference 

we wish more sky support happened Tuesday 

 

 the 405 remains open

 heed the evacuation orders

 people are prepared for this moment

 we are in an unprecedented time



 (above crafted from KCAL and Spectrum 1 newscasts)


jf giraffe 🦒

UNHAPPY SPECIES (Haiku) 


Elephants are sad

Symbol of the GOP

Hate the connection

 



VICIOUS POLITICIANS (Haiku) 


Countless rules broken

Cruelty never pauses

So much pointless hate




DISAPPEARING (Haiku) 


Our freedoms are lost

Can they be found again or 

point of no return?




Monday, April 7, 2025

Chad Parenteau

Trump Spills


“Trump Dubs Himself 'Fertilization President' At Women's History Month Event”

––Newsweek, March 26, 2025


A month

of women

in time

for spring.


Women

will be

fertile

as soil.


Women

you will

blow all

our seeds


all over

this now

fertile land

of ours.


Want you

with us

inside

of you.


In and

out we

go where

we please.


Every man

has right

to enter

and grow


cunt trees

and leave

and then

return.


Not one

injection

ever

invasion.


I’ve had

children

many

children.


Never

enough

support

protection.


Human

shields

against

the world.


Nothing

better

than a

smile.


Smile from

one who

has to

like you.


Let me

be in

side all

of you.


Carry

me to

third and

final term.


Belinda Subraman

Project 2025


Believers feel holy

in a warped religion

of whiteness

without love.


Propaganda of greatness:

an egomaniac’s face on money

an addition to Mt. Rushmore.


As stocks fall 

and tariffs rise

a billionaire with a chainsaw

cuts our jobs.


Pregnancy means babies

and nothing else.

Many will die

but we need soldiers.


A conspiracy theorist chooses staff.

War plans are made over personal phones.

The government encourages

the unvaccinated to spread disease.

Insanity is a norm not a plea.


The plan aims

to take countries

we say we need.


We aim for more war

global realignment

an axis of greed.

Unlike WW2

the prison camps 

mainly vanish immigrants

instead of Jews.


Government claims to want peace

floats a white flag

purposely misunderstood.


Believers feel holy

in a warped religion

of whiteness

without love.


Hedy Habra

Or Could There Ever Be Rainbows In Midst of a Storm? After Syrian Migration by Helen Zughaib Men and women wearing rainbows  ready to ri...