The frost covers the windows on several cars and ice covers the brown grass. The North wind whips and blows sending a chill down your spine. The days get shorter and the nights last a little bit longer each day. I am forced to wrap up in layers of clothing so I can stay warm. The good news is that people can no longer be sure who I am or what I really look like. The judgmental looks do not follow me as I walk down the street. People are forced to stay inside a lot and I can actually walk outside alone. I can finally clear my head of the clutter and suspicions and be completely empty. While I may freeze a bit, the idea of being free from the gaze and the opinions of others makes it worth while. So while many prefer the spring time or the summer sun, I find that winter is not so bad.

To: Career politicians and insiders
From: The great unwashed rabble beneath your feet

Over the next few years, and into the foreseeable future,
Your past and present performance
Will be scrupulously reviewed
With an eye toward
Eliminating hangers-on and dead weight.
No cow is sacred
When so many are starving.
The heiress apparent to the retiring CEO
has been shown the door;
the head of sales now the head of state.
There will be regular meetings
With the new HR director.
Those of you who've been with us
For a while will know him well.
His name is Howard Beale.

The last of the bread bakes silently in the oven,
  as feelings stir warmly inside my heart

The smell and the aroma, an invitation to greatness,
  as the temperature rises—announcing I’m done

Loaves cook in the silence of a sweeter deliverance,
  letters rising as words, their meaning devours

The invitations to the meal have all been sent out,
and responded to

The cook may go home, the feast now leavened,
  has begun

(Telluride Colorado: 10:00 p.m. Sheridan Hotel, May, 1996, rewritten August, 2011)

I hear her throttle roar
there is a speed demon that devoted her car
but flex her punch in the midnight air
round the town on her boulevard tonight
her Firebird streamed her heat like a cigar
and headers in a chassis smelting lore

God please help us all,
our future president says,

"I will build a Great Wall,
and nobody builds walls,
better than me,
believe me-
and I'll build them very inexpensively,
I will build a great, great wall,
on our Southern border,
I will make Mexico pay for that wall
-mark my words."
                  - Donald Trump

If you look on the internet
is literally loaded
with stuff that he has said,
documented proof,
unbelievable FACTS
undisputed ones,

Let's examine this statement,
just for a second,

Is HE going to build a Great Wall?
I personally doubt it,
I doubt he's going to be building anything
since he refuses to even pay painters
their due wages,
for work they did on the Trump Towers,
why? Some AD-HOMINEM,
argument no doubt,

And what is going to make this
WALL great?
that's going to make our country great again?
more walls?
Rebuild the ones we tore down for  good reason?
Take us back to the dark ages?
Because we will no longer
accept the tired
the weak and the huddled masses,
because,
he wants us to live in a state of fear?

And nobody builds walls better than me? He really slaughters the King's English,
that aside, me?
Me, me, me, me, me-
personally speaking,
I wish people understood his
Misogynistic, egotistical, narcissistic behavior better,
I have studied behavior,
unfortunately,
and I find so many things he says,
so deeply troubling,
at a cellular level,
like a psychic attack,

He says inexpensively?
Who is he kidding?
What kind of costs are we talkin'?
from whom "The" Donald?
Even the fact that he calls himself-
"The Donald" is pretty telling, no?

Why on our Southern border?
This is the only point that we're,
weak?
If you think race was an issue,
well it really is now,
& those undocumented Mexicans,
here in Vermont,
who live close by,
maybe I should warn them?

As Canadian immigration sites crash,
as people riot in the streets,

No, it's definately personal.
I'm not leaving,
I'm not giving up,
I'm not giving up my right to bear arms
either, as folks here in my
neck of the woods,
brace themselves ,
literally and figuratively,
for Civil unrest
& war even,

Muslims are shocked,
just keep reading,

And he leaves that opening
where he says wall(s),
being plural,
speaking for one,
going all the way around
the United States,
maybe,
obstructionist politics,
Republican EVERYTHING
Senate & Congress,
equals no balance of power,

And it's really scary,
how angry he is,
and how is he exactly going to make,
the Mexicans pay?

By making us all pay.

Sorry, but I can't accept this
it goes against everything I believe in,
that WE stand for,
I am not giving up on that vision,
I may accept the outcome
for now,
but I refuse to be defeated,
this is NOT defeat,

No,
I fight on,
for everyone,
I rail against the tide turning,
we should REFUSE to drown,
to be kept behind a great wall,
as he said he would NOT
be willing to accept defeat either.

Cherie Nolan © 2016