It smells like loneliness outside.
The smell of a hot dog on a grill after a storm,
mingled with propane and cigarettes.
The smell of solitary.

A string of “cold and broken hallelujahs”
no longer dulls the senses.
It’s senseless anyway.

I eat my brown rice in front of the sink
and I am reminded of the taste of Play-Doh.
It’s funny how loneliness creeps in on the wind,
the cars’ wheels in the rain,
the braking of the bus,
scuttling of squirrels...

Maybe a hot tea or toddy
(maybe something stronger)
will keep this autumn-ness at bay.

The following poem is a generalization, on that, we can likely agree,
but this is the way that most Trumpists appear, to many a person like me:*


Dear Trumpists, I am here to say I think I understand
just what you're really all about across the troubled land.
It really bugs you, does it not, when walking in your town,
to see so many people with a skin of black or brown?

To hear a foreign language when the immigrants converse.
To see them in a headscarf or a turban makes you curse.
Their differences, their ways of life, you see as disrespect
and you hate being asked to be "politically correct".

Then one day came a savior shining brighter than the sun.
His name was Donald Trump and you knew he was the one.
You knew you must support him 'cause in every speech he'd give,
he'd validate your hate and he'd fit with your narrative.

"The Mexicans are rapists", "The Muslims seek to ****",
"Black lives don't matter quite so much". Such thoughts gave you a thrill.
Sometimes he was outrageous. You could not trust every word,
but vote for him you did because you felt you had been heard.

Well, now your man's in power and it's no longer fun,
with half his staff revolting (and that's in more ways than one).
He hasn't drained the swamp, it's just become further bogged down,
with all his slimy yes-men there to praise the orange clown.

He comes across as ignorant and looking like a fool.
He's subject to fact-checking and resulting ridicule.
The press, it has a field day and comedians rejoice.
His opponents have united and have found a common voice.

Dear Trumpists, I do understand that this has made you mad,
but sense and reason don't support the notions that you've had.
So you rant on social media with foul, insulting fits,
like a bunch of whining, shouting, howling, idiotic twits.

So Trumpists, don't you realize, your chance has passed you see?
Oppression has been in decline since the end of slavery.
So here's a new idea that I'd really like to share:
You might try something different by showing that you care.

Why don't you go extend a hand to those that you attack.
They might provide you insight that you desperately lack.
Just open up your heart and head and throw away the hate,
and America once more could be a nation that is great.

•<>•
the addicted pleasure words granted to we privileged few,
like every enslaved soul to the mind, which I am, I am,
evening dreams, midnight thinkings, sunrise seeings,
how can I infect and thus protect the young to the liberty
to love the crafted content of our human essence to better
comprehend that a moment caught on tape of our shared
words is a holiday, a celebration for the ages,
scar of pleasure, a forehead Cain mark, scarlet letter of pride,
for this reliving of our stories retelling is the skipped beat
of our connection not born from practical reason,
but from truths we own equally and though reason says
mine, it is not, it is only to be yours when the sharing
resonates resonates resonates resonates resonates
and every molecule, becomes a human tuning fork
in concert, in pitch identical, in blood tainted with
the simplicity of we are all the same, only words, this will transmit

                                          July 4th, 2017
                                                •<>•

"If you spend enough time reading or writing, you find a voice, but you also find certain tastes. You find certain writers who when they write, it makes your own brain voice like a tuning fork, and you just resonate with them. And when that happens, reading those writers … becomes a source of unbelievable joy. It’s like eating candy for the soul."
And I sometimes have a hard time understanding how people who don’t have that in their lives make it through the day.
David Foster Wallace

They put me in charge of the churchyard,
And said, ‘mow between the graves,’
The weeds out there were atrocious
Grew in lumps, and clumps and waves,
They tangled up in the mower blades
And they shut the motor down,
So I had to use the garden shears
As I knelt upon the ground.

They covered some of the headstones, so
I had to rake them clear,
Spent half of my time sat reading them,
The date, the time of year,
The ground had given away on some,
Had fallen into a hole,
Wherever the coffin lids had caved
On some benighted soul.

The nights were coming on early so
I laboured into the dark,
Just by the light of a spirit lamp
That I’d borrowed from the park,
At length I came on a sunken grave
And I pulled the weeds aside,
To see the shape of a bony hand,
With the shock, I almost died.

The hand came up through the stoney earth
And it pointed to the sky,
With no flesh left on the fingers, yet
It seemed to question ‘Why?’
It still belonged to the corpse below
But had tried to get away,
Out of the dark of doom and gloom
And into the light of day.

The name on the grave was ‘Clarabelle’
And, ’She of the evil eye,
She hexed the cattle in Fingal’s Dell
And the swine, while passing by,
They hung her high on a willow tree
When she pointed at Belle Raye,
Who choked, then withered and sighed, was dead,
And all in a single day.’

The hand had twitched, I couldn’t resist
As I sat and watched it there,
I reached on out and I seized the wrist
And I felt some strange despair,
The hand was warm, and was then full-fleshed
As a shape rose from the ground,
That held me tight in the darkening light
With the hand that I had found.

I heard the rattle of death as she
Had tried to clear each lung,
Full of the body’s liquid waste
That had formed when she was hung.
I heard a croak, and the words she spoke
As she glared into my face,
‘I might be saved from my early grave,
But you’ll have to take my place.’

Whatever power it was she had
It dissolved and turned to sand,
The moment I pulled away from her
And I let go of her hand.
She didn’t speak, but let out a shriek
As she slid back in the grave,
So I’ll never know if she heard below:
‘You’re much too bad to save!’

David Lewis Paget