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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
"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?
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.
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.
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.
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)
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?
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.
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.
CONSPIROBSCENE
conspiracy theories may be insane
but conspiracy theories maybe explain
that conspiracy theories maybe exist
because they're not theories but active practice
going on right behind all those theories to blind
making sure you don't see what you're not to believe
don’t shout who killed the Kennedys
because it was not you and it was not me
it wasn’t Mick Jagger, the KGB
or Lucifer or the devil makes three
it was fear, it was hatred and greediness
it was all the dis-ease with that givingness
with the love and the freedom
and the sharing of wealth
with the ease we feel lying, all warm in our beds
with an old lover snoring beside us and, yes
with the ease we feel breathing in scents of a cedar
or when it’s so quiet we can’t even break up
the silence with thoughts of all our mistakes
with the ease that the fear and the hatred and greed
can never achieve, what can it achieve?
just unsteady control, an illusive security
in a faltering power that stands in for eternity
conspiracy theories may be insane
but conspiracy theories maybe explain
that conspiracy theories maybe exist
because they're not theories but active practice
going on right behind all those theories to blind
making sure you don't see what you're not to believe
people who believe that NASA is hiding the flatness of the Earth
can’t believe that Republicans conspire to suppress the black vote
people who believe that COVID-19 is just a media hoax
can’t believe that crazy Christians sabotage public education
people who believe that Denver’s airport is really headquarters for ET lizard lord's Illuminati
can’t believe that a military-industrial complex drives US foreign policy
conspiracy theories may be insane
but conspiracy theories maybe explain
that conspiracy theories maybe exist
because they're not theories but active practice
going on right behind all those theories to blind
making sure you don't see what you're not to believe
don’t believe me, it’ll just make you mad
or so scared that you'll just soil your underpants
better by far to just do that ostrich
put your head in the sand, escape to some dream
far far better than this nightmare reality
pretend that everything’s okay
pretend you don’t hear the whistling of bombs
pretend there’s no big bark dog with its big bad bite
no cats in the kitchen, not playing with mice
no nursery rhymes, no mournful howls
no reason to rock this boat
conspiracy theories may be insane
but conspiracy theories maybe explain
that conspiracy theories maybe exist
because they're not theories but active practice
going on right behind all those theories to blind
making sure you don't see what you're not to believe
but if you should see what you're not to believe
just keep your mouth closed and try to behave
because no one who counts cares for you and your life
because nothing you do won't just cause you more strife
at least that's what the theorists would have you believe
they know should you start practicing they'd get the heave
so remember as you take your very last breath
someone made a good living preparing your death
conspiracy theories may be insane
but conspiracy theories maybe explain
that conspiracy theories maybe exist
because they're not theories but active practice
going on right behind all those theories to blind
making sure you don't see what you're not to believe
DEJA VIEW (HAIKU)
Historic, toxic.
Rose colored glasses for sale.
Heavy price to pay.
ALL RULES FLY
Pencils don’t need to have an eraser.
Elephants don’t need a trunk full of old maps, but it certainly can’t hurt.
Laughter fits into the palm of your hand like an animal made of play dough.
Alphabet soup is rising in the pan of the world’s kiss.
Argyle goes great with everything.
Bow ties can be worn whenever the moon is full or whenever.
People can wear fuchsia from head to toenail.
The sun has its tongue in the earth’s cheek.
Shining is the only rule.
NOT YET
My Allen Watts tapes are rewound.
So are my Michael Ventura tapes
and Helen Caldicott too.
I wrap my ears and heart around
Pacifica for nourishment.
I’m thinking of painting my car yellow
and turning it into a bus.
I defend mother earth.
I’ll arm wrestle for father sky.
I boycott lots and lots of stuff.
I giggled at a crystal in the window
of a new age bookstore.
I play a guitar made of tofu.
I sang happy birthday to a river.
I gave my teeth goddess names.
I visualized wisdom.
Did you hug an organic farm today?
Has your guru asked
for your charge card yet?
I changed all the currency
to pictures of floods, pictures of war,
drawings of overdoses,
people with their backs turned.
Money ought to reflect the society
it has bought.
I took to the road
Stood in front of the Pentagon and asked
Trick or trick or trick or trick.
For Halloween I saw how people sank
as they dunked for survival.
New apples in the garden of toxic waste.
I changed the national anthem to
My Country Tis of Thy People You’re Dying
by Buffy St. Marie.
I painted a shadow around the White House.
I saw leaders fall into quicksand
of their ego.
I saw followers breakdown
then rise with the taste
of their own strength.
I saw people give the peace sign
and then use those two fingers
as a guillotine to cut up hope
in an embracing heart.
I saw hip.
I saw trendy.
I saw Emperor’s New Clothes
on all the racks.
I saw hypocrisy.
I heard people call ignorance a treat
as they said to me
you trick us
you scare us
you’re a witch
please shut up.
I said every day is halloween.
And they said
you’re fat
you don’t know
you are nothing
you are nothing
you are nothing but a crazy woman
you rant and tangent.
And I said what do you see?
And it was as if the earth
quit breathing to see what
all its children would mumble.
And the telephones that dialed evangelists.
And the telephones that dialed 976.
And the telephones that dialed dianetics
fell to a collective snug fit
on the receiver.
And people with homes ran outside
and the homeless looked paranoid
and then facing each other
saw the differences vanish.
And people said this is something!
The paintbrushes we use may be different.
The thickness of paint may be different.
How far back we stand to see a painting may be different.
But each empty canvas has remarkably
similar space.
It’s in knowing humans and flowers
dance together like lovers
as do birds and gazelles.
The businessman said “my peace of mind
cannot be traded for green sandpaper
with bloody presidential mindsets on it
no more.
business as usual is unusual, unnatural and unwise.”
People shivered and used their
alarm clocks to not be afraid of time.
And people said “come on let’s go”
nobody asked where.
They all just intuitively split to Washington
and saw the White House curled in a ball.
goosebumps of fear scarring the door.
paint peeling.
And the people said
“let’s kill the bastards.”
And someone said
“that takes us one step closer to being them.
let’s just stare as out come those skinless robots running
to the weapon store for one last shot of testosterone.”
And the people were split
The non-violent and the almost non-violent
weren’t on speaking terms
but someone said we can’t kill the dead
and we can’t bring back the dead.
Someone said that’s right
Another one said right on
Someone looked confused
Someone sang The People United Will Never Be Defeated
Someone drummed and sang the American Indian Movement song
Someone sang Mary Had A Little Lamb
Someone sang We Shall Overcome
Someone sang And The Times They Are A Changin’
Someone said how long do you think
this will last?
I said it will last as long as it lasts.
Un-heard
The authorities imprisoned the most renowned poet in the land. They made him stand in a vast open field. Then they brought thousands of his most ardent followers and arranged them in a great ring around him—just far enough, by mere inches in fact, that his loudest shouts could not reach them. And then they made the poet scream his poems at the top of his lungs.
All around, the thousands heard nothing. They only saw, faintly in the distance, the shouting, unheard poet.
Daily Efficiencies
In the name of efficiency, the Regime decreed the elimination of one day of the week. Which day of the week was not announced, however. Instead, various groups of people got conflicting notifications about which day was cancelled. The eliminated days were usually directly inconvenient for the specific recipients. Also, the erratic nullifications created irresolvable conflicts at workplaces and within families which struggled in vain to align individual schedules. Massive confusion and paralysis in all aspects of life soon followed. Meanwhile, as was its secret intention, the Regime hoarded the confiscated days, using them as private hideaways to escape consequences and indulge in exclusive luxuries.
Ready
Could that carefully-coiffed blonde-haired deputy, with his tight, neat uniform, hiding behind the tree, holding his weapon (unnecessarily) up and ready, afraid to approach the front door of the young couple in a verbal domestic dispute -- while the neighbors stand around outside, nonchalantly -- finally joining a partner when it's time to lead away the cuffed and scrawny (likely innocent) boyfriend, could he, could he join the forces of authoritarian oppression? Oh yes. He's been ready for that moment his entire life.
Knowledge And Power
If only we’d known, they said
when the inmates of Belsen
were first seen
in their
deliberately
ill-fitting
striped pyjamas
dying from starvation,
dying from torture
dying from cold,
dying from illness,
dying
dying
dying.
If only we’d known, they said
when the extermination camps
were discovered,
the gas chambers,
the slave labour camps
where inmates were
killed
by over-work,
killed
by malnutrition
killed
by disease.
Exterminated.
If only we had known, they said,
there would have been no appeasement,
no ‘peace in our time’ self-protection,
no treaties for self-preservation,
no deals done in self-defence.
With the knowledge
intervention would have happened
genocide been prevented
if only we’d known.
Well this time we knew.
This time
we knew from the beginning.
This time
we knew from before the beginning,
from long before the beginning
about the intimidation,
the arbitrary arrests,
homes demolished,
the camps filled
with innocents
left to die
from starvation,
illness or cold
or killed by torture.
Citizens bombed to death.
Nothing left but rubble.
No one left in the rubble.
And so we acted
to send arms
the perpetrators.
First published in Culture Cult Genocidal Anthology, March 2025
Nothing
In those streets
of men and boys,
in that country
for men and boys,
she feels like a person with no face,
her face space covered,
her identity occupied
by a swirling mist of confusion
like nothingness being born.
Sometimes
she wishes for a blank space
that she could fill herself
with a Magritte apple
or even a woman
even herself
un-blanked
and visible.
Now, in those streets
of men and boys,
in that country
for men and boys,
she feels like a person with no voice,
Magritte’s apple is choking her,
muting her
so even in her home she whispers
her songs and curses.
Only in her head does she shout
that something will come of nothing,
that something must come of nothing.
First published in New Verse News, August 28 2024
RIP John Donne
No man is an island wrote Donne
centuries ago.
He understood the predicament
understood
that man, or woman
is one part
of a whole
which is one part
of something larger
and so on
into mind-blowing infinity.
No man, or woman can stand alone
and reach their potential
in isolation
or when isolated
on some small island
however grandiose
the delusion.
An island alone cannot thrive,
except here in Britain of course,
so it was once said by some.
And now,
what now
when it stands
triangulated
in the centre
of three egos,
Trump, Putin
and Zelensky.
Stuck in the middle
of such super egos,
TPZ Keir Starmer.
First published in New Verse News, March 3 2025
A PROTEST POEM ABOUT PROTEST POEMS
(in 9 parts)
1.
Mainly because they don't work.
They have the shelf-life of a mayfly.
If a protest poem in the last 60 years
had been effective,
my 23 year-old daughter
would know who Nixon was.
2.
There is an expression in stand-up comedy, "Playing to the band."
It means addressing an audience already sympathetic to your viewpoint.
A multitude of sub-genres exist for the protest poet:
The MFA protest poem read at the local bookstore
which usually begins with the poet watching the news in the breakfast nook
and having to confront the atrocities of the world and their own privilege,
being sure to employ the Seven Types of Ambiguity,
while folks sit in folding chairs and nibble on wine & brie.
Sometimes they shed a tear and get
the stone-ground whole grain crackers soggy.
The slam poet whole rapid-fire agitprop delivered
to an audience of fellow travelers has to get at least
a dozen mini-ovations in 3 minutes in order to advance
to the finals and maybe get in a Nike ad or a movie
like Saul Williams, who lives in Paris now.
The viral poets who get a million hits because
their protest poem somehow involves a Marvel comics superhero
and be all like "Wow, I'm CHANGING THE WORLD!"
Publishers used to give them book deals
until they discovered the hard way
no one who reads something for free on their phone
is gonna shell out $15.95
Gutter-snipe street poets who gather in low dives and
chant diatribes of nihilistic rage and despair and bleak jokes
only to forget what they read the next morning.
I like this last group the best, but they are being driven out
of our big cities by the economic Darwinism
that is making them choose between beer and rent.
3.
This manifesto does not apply to protest songs.
Protest songs have a beat that people can march to.
Even Pete Seeger singing all 843 verses of "We Shall Overcome",
mind-numbingly boring as it is,
covers a lot of ground in 4/4 time.
Mao would have been proud.
4.
In 2003, the late Sam Hamill (Buddha rest his soul)
started an organization called "Poets Against the War"
which hosted events nationwide where local bards
read their poems protesting the Iraq War.
A couplle year back on Facebook, Sam, in ailing health,
was bemoaning the fact that he couldn't find
a suitable institution (Yale, the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress,
Turlock Community College) willing to house
a complete archive of these works for time memorial, which by that time
consisted of--wait for it--20,000 POEMS.
Seriously? In our desperate desire to preserve at least a fraction
of our culture for future generations before the coming apocalypse,
one would think it might be necessary to prioritize.
I pity the archaeologist from across the galaxy (probably an intern)
whose job it is to plow through all these in an effort
to find out where our civilization went wrong.
"So, QUISP 7-1128, how do you conjecture
this ancient race went extinct?"
"Well, sir, apparently they were ALL POETS."
5.
The actual print anthology of "Poets Against the War", however,
(for those with long memories) was pared down to 150 entries.
Does anyone besides the poets who are in it and
their closest immediate loved ones even have a copy of this?
And some of those folks must have died, because
I see stray copies in used bookstores, where they will
no doubt sit until the wrecking ball converts
their brick & mortar home to new condos.
6.
Not that this phenomenon is limited to protest poetry.
It's true of every bloody anthology ever published,
with the exception of frigging "When I Grow Old, I Shall Wear Purple."
Pro-tip: the only reason to be in a poetry anthology
is for the off-chance that some Really Famous Poet is in it,
so you can say "I'm in a book with *insert name here*
and thus give the false impression that
you are somebody, too.
7.
On the other hand, Sam Hammill's book of translations
""Only Companion: Japanese Poems of Love and Longing"
will last as long as English is spoken.
8.
Is "The Second Coming" a protest poem?
If so, I'll have to rethink the entire issue.
9.
In conclusion, although now we can all agree that
protest poems suck and are the work of whiny milksops,
poems about actual revolutions are WAY COOL.
William Blake's "The French Revolution",
Mayakovsky's odes to his Bolshevik comrades,
Diane di Prima's "Revolutionary Letters",
Johnny Horton's "The Battle of New Orleans"--
These aren't just poems, they're
Instruction Manuals for Whoop-Ass.
Because the only thing these people understand
is the WHIP.
Or, in the words of Teddy Roosevelt,
"Free versely, and carry a big stick.
And HIT the bastards with it,
and KEEP hitting them until
they beg for mercy.
And then, hit them some more..."
A Week of Back and Forth in 2025
On Monday they cancelled health watch outright
Yet the seagulls feasted on our seaside leftovers
On Tuesday they just closed libraries everywhere
Yet dogs read our minds and fetched all day long
On Wednesday they scared many seniors to death
Yet our red-tailed hawks soared as ever they had
On Thursday they insulted veterans of all services
Yet army ants had a veritable field day next door
On Friday they conducted another historic massacre
Yet the palm-tree parrots managed to preach loudly
On Saturday they golfed and laughed at everyone else
While every zoo animal nationwide howled in protest
On Sunday they desecrated all notions of real worship
While winged angels did hover to warn of retribution
Her Evening
She had a premonition
So she quickly jotted down responses
to the probing questions that were on their way to her
Then she culled them and separated the chaff
and just for a laugh she revealed three:
ruling class values are good, for them;
billboard mentality may be taking over;
that goal of equality may have to wait.
New Angles
I don't want to wake up at dawn nor to get up early,
not even during the duration of the whole morning.
Thus, noon will be the designated time to commence.
Breakfast time has passed, so first up it will be lunch.
Then I can begin to confront the troubles facing me,
first of which is the overwhelming hypocrisy of the
ruling class that claims to be in favor of democracy,
when the opposite is so clearly the actual real case.
Like Garbage
Yesterday was another
filthy day. You could say
it was like garbage day.
Anything worthwhile
was discarded or left to
rot with a stroke of a pen.
The man in charge fired
a man who voted for him
and a woman who voted for him as well;
they became like garbage too.
Nothing to See Here
Nothing to see here.
The trees have been cleared away
for limitless greed.
No birds in their nests.
No pine cones where they used to be.
It was built to park cars.
Day and night cars would come in and out.
Death to the trees I call this place.
It all seems so final.
There is no hiding from progress.
A fucking parking lot.
A street heavy with traffic.
It took many hands and heavy machinery
to clear out all the trees.
Earth and Sky
Earth and sky
without war
how I would like to see that.
Tell the warmongers you are not available.
Tell them it is not your nature
to allow your dark side out.
Tell them their war “is not for me.”
Your ancestors know the war well.
Do not let them drag you out to kill.
There is nothing to be won.
Become like the stone
and sit still.
Stay away from the sea
and the dangers of warships.
The sea is for fishing, surfing, and seeing.
Do not let weak minds take you to war.
Let earth and sky be at peace.
