A pair of slacks, a pair of shoes, a shirt
A watch to count the weary meeting hours
Coffee with comrades in the old church hall
And all of these are very good indeed

But like old shoes, old pals, the scenes of youth
We must someday let them all go, and pass
Peacefully, one prays, through the spray and foam
And sail until dawn to that farthest Shore

Where only the NCOs must dress right, dress
And the coffee’s always fresh in the company mess


(But will the smoking lamp will be lit?)

Number Forty Two: “You're trying to undermine my rehabilitation. Disrupt my social progress!”

Number Six: “Strange talk for a poet.”

-The Prisoner, “A Change of Mind”



Installing a poem to factory specs
Setting iambic feet into concrete
And lifting adverbs to the tops of verbs
Through the use of heavy machinery

Metaphors must be government-inspected
For solidarity with the collective
And images most closely interrogated
For their relevance to the latest cause

The Good, the True, and the Beautiful

As cleared by United Auto Workers Local 2110
So you’d better like it; youknowwhatI’msayin’

An Open Letter to Really Important People
                     The Old Dime Box, Texas Statement
           A Manifesto Made Manifest in Manifesting Manifestingness

We post this serious looking document
Bloated with long vocabulary words
Sodden with weak dependent clauses
Marshaled in numbered ranks, down, down they go

To the GossipNet all serious like
And everyone has to pay attention to us
Because it’s AN OPEN LETTER, y’know -
You may sign it if you’ve got letters behind your name

Signatories:

Apostle-Disciple Magic Dawn, DD., Non-Binary, Author of Green Polar Bears I Am, Co-Equal-Director of the Anti-Oppressionist Theatre Against the Occupation, Agent of the Revolution, Auteur, Guest on The Wheel of Fortune and Parent of Two AMAZING children of indeterminate Gender with Their AWESOME and AMAZING Life-Partner Sven-Marie.

Massive Ferguson, M.Ed., Poet, Rector of Admissions, The University of Where the Old Circuit City Use to Be

Poncy Tworbst, M.A., PUBLISHED Author, Seeker, Inspirational Singer-Songwriter, PUBLISHED

Heather-Mistee La’ Thwitte-Tworbst, Ph.D., Director of Library Resources at Saint Margaret ****** Homeschool Resource Authority Collective, Inc., Certified Ordained Consecrated Priest in The Worldwide Church of Me-ness and Pastor of the World-Famous Weddings ‘R’ Us Chapel of Rainbow Dreams in Magdalena, New Mexico

Lawrence Hall, HSG, Thinker of Thinky-Ness and, Like, Stuff, Endowed Chair he found at Goodwill, His Mark: X

(Sean Ian Johann Johnson, MBA, J.D., Chief Photocopier Operator at Donald Trump University and Fashion Editor at Gun, God, and Guts Magazine, was not able to sign today; he is sharing a cell with other White House staff and patiently awaiting The Day of Greatness.)

There are no days free of panic attacks -
A fierce determination to recusancy
Is no defense against the men of peace
Clenching their fists and screaming out their love

There are no nights free of panic attacks -
A fierce determination to needful sleep
Is no defense against unhappy dreams
Judicial accusations of the memory

But even panic is no defense against
One’s fierce determination to write the truth

Where, then, do I apply for bribery?
Russians are everywhere here, we are told
So why aren’t those nefarious oligarchs
Flinging dollars and dachas at poor me?

And the Chinese, poking and hacking about
(My last water bill was in Mandarin)
Have yet to pad my secret bank account
Or park a Porsche on my patio

But if they will…

I want to spy for the cool FBI
And party away with the CIA

Two snakes in battle on a summer day
Writhing and twisting on a sandy road
Grappling desperately like taxing authorities
Fighting over a poor worker’s paycheck

Or like fierce coffee-break theologians
In anger ripping a scripture apart
Each clutching a ****** fragment to himself
But careful not to upset the 501C

And in the end, one snake swallows the other
Keeping him closer than a beloved brother

The physician is a good man, wise and fair
But, ouch! - HIS FINGER DOES NOT BELONG THERE!