If William Owens caught sight
of the monstrous tugging at
the heart strings of the Chief
Theatric Officer Trump & the
so cheap & cynical little
throw-away line of "The
Bible teaches us ..."

& saying Owen was likely
happy in heaven because
the chamber "broke a record"
for the length of its ovation,

would he be happy to see
his death & his mother's
desperate suffering used
by a shallow vain opportunist
as backdrop to his coming
out as so presidential?

& whilst orchestrating grief
for the folks at home but then
"They lost Ryan" is thrown
out there because heaven
forbid Trump could take
any responsibility for this
soldiers death,

heaven forbid.

"I think if this country gets any kinder or gentler,
it’s literally going to cease to exist."

Trump chatting it up with
******* gave us that sweet
gem of philosophical &
political wisdom,

Oh kindness ..
that communist conspiracy
cooked up by that bearded longhair
Leon Trotsky & close to a bacillus
that threatens the goodness
of the nation & thus simply
treating each other nicely
becomes the equivalent
of Red Guard fanaticism,

as if niceness was a Leninist
conspiracy & looking out for
strangers was an underhand
ruse & the first station on the
way to the Siberian Gulag
& children informing on
their mama & papa,

as if gentleness was a sin
close to ****** & a defect
solved by drastic measures
somewhat akin to re-education
camps in the steamy jungle
morning,

as if looking out for one
another came with a
guaranteed negative
for the giver & thus
wasn't at all a good
deal & heck isn't a
thing I'd sign off
on thats for ****
sure,

as if brotherly love & simple
common solidarity in the
face of life's trials & harsh
tribulations was anathema
to the 'real' man who sure
as heck won't give an inch
if he thinks the other dudes
gettin' one over on him,

as if compassion was an
elitist liberal virtue & caring
for one another was mirrored
by the Manson Family & sure
by golly gee we're not taking
that road you must be kidding
seriously now,

as if love was not a Christian virtue
& as if trust revealed you as a
taken rube & as if letting your
guard down & giving a ****
meant Satan had taken hold
in your heart & you were now
a direct threat to all we hold
near & dear & sacred.

Just be nice ...
Its not so much to ask.

Old folks weep with joy
as bright lanterns  
burn in windows,
marching bands play
all parading through
riotous city streets,
all gaiety, happiness
& laughter,

bold children alongside
in sweet & delirious
dancing shuffle,
all red, green & gold
ribbons & flags
of deliberate
& riotous color,

flowers will adorn,
roses in bright bunches,
yellow daffodils from
fields so bright,
carnations, lilies & marigolds,
incandescent magnolias,
star-bright & fragrant
blooms & blossoms
of gathered offerings
& joyous gift,

lone wolves will pack
& cry into the nighttime
vibrating wilderness,
great eagles will gather
above great tall trees
screaming aloud
their existence
this blessed
morn,

sons & daughters
will proclaim the day,
all finery, jeweled & golden,
arms dancing aloft
strong, handsome &
proudly adorned
this sweet
sweet eve.

Come the day,
Oh Come the day.

Donald found it quite the final & totally
last straw that little children were being
gassed & slaughtered horribly in Syria
& so sent over some missiles at $1 million
a pop but before doing so let the Russkies
& Assad know they were coming & even
then deliberately managed to avoid actually
hitting the runways which if you were not
aware are actually a vital component of a
runway & so today said airport is back in
operation,

so Donald was so deeply moved by dying
children that he put aside his refugee ban
& his muslim ban & his overseas aid cuts
& his previous dismissal of Obama's attempts
to act & sent off a few missiles but first let
the bad guys know they were coming.

Donald is moved,
oh yes indeed
so moved.

For a brief ...
so, so brief ...

a tiny sliver
of a moment
this early
Monday
morn,

young Gianni Rage
considered a,
how shall I put it ...
less ruthless,
less uncompromising,
less just plain truthful,
critique of our
oh so esteemed
Great Leader,

but then that
faint & distant murmur
at the far, far edge of his heart
was quickly silenced,
as he recalled
dying Syrian children,
emboldened White Supremacists,
fearful crop-workers,
deeply nervous Muslims,
irremediably insulted
black folks,

& his pen became
his sword once
more & all
was right
once again
with the world.

Gianni Rage is a wordsmith on FB, pay a visit why not.

Breitabart was permitted entry of course, you know
'Expel All Muslims' Breitbart, & CNN NYT, & LAT were all
held back by some panting freshly-minted Republican staffer & had
to wait all shocked & chagrined at the closed door as one blank dead
eyed maniacally grinning young newly promoted Lieutenant Miller and
one bull-heavy Bannon strutted like obscene vulture marionettes in their favourite special-wear searingly shiny knee-high Wehrmacht boots which had just been licked mirror clean & furiously polished with their very sweat by a heaving gaggle of simpering craven Republican lackeys who had come comically dancing & prancing when summoned from the floor of the so-called People's House with a "yes sir, no sir ... what can I do next sir" to grease the skids on the Fascist Express with the their very blood & the tears of the innocents gathered so fresh that very dawn with no stops till the sun rises on your New World.
.... oh yes indeed.

Do we really think they care?
Trump voters that is,
about shady Russian ties to dark oligarchs
& billion ruble deals,
conflicts of interest,
ties made in China,
family business entanglements?

day after day of golf,
Mar A Largo Winter White House hustle,
enormous Secret Service bills as the
Trumps are scattered here, there
and it seems everywhere,

dicey handshakes,
White Supremacists in the White House,
the American Constitution,
Legal niceties such as checks
& balances,
day after day
lies about this,
& lies about that?

hypocrisies & shallow
empty throw-aways
at the African American
Museum,
Sean 'Fool me two times' Spicer,
media bans,
EPA anti-science,
utterly insane
nuclear pronouncements?

a huge, very huge
military budget,
some backtracking
on the wall,
word salad Muslim ban
justifications?

an overweight, ignorant
orange-faced hustler
just counting those
dollar bills as
he rakes
them in?

Do we really think
they care?

I think not because
well first off
at least now there isn't
a black, Kenyan, Islamist
Marxist running things,

we can all be so thankful
for that,

& all the other stuff
just seems by the way
in comparison.

Of course it’s a Muslim Ban when Muslim
countries are affected & 1.5 billion folks
perceive it to be so, & you'd recently called
Giulani to ask "Muslim Ban, how can I do it?"

& of course it’s mocking the disabled
when you pull your arms to your waist
& wave your wrists & use a shaky
trembling voice while looking skyward,

& of course when you talked about the “Second
Amendment People” taking out Hillary Clinton
if she won you were talking an assassination
threat, the words are there aren’t they,

& of course it was unforgivable & beyond,
just beyond the pale where you tried to
deflect the criticism of the grieving Khan
family by insulting the silent mother from
your glorious podium,

& of course when you quipped “It’s freezing
& snowing in New York, we need global warming”
you were laying bare the intellectual wasteland
that is your mind & the threadbare grasp on vital
realities that is your worldview,

& of course when you talked of “fairly credible
sources” telling you of "Obama’s birth certificate
being a fraud" you were simply making **** up
in your fraudulent salesman mode but this time
were in way too deep by promoting this vicious
ethically void racist *******,

& of course when you said “you can never be too
greedy” you mean it with your gold crapper in
your gold bathroom, & your gold stroller, for your
golden progeny, & your huge this, & so big that,

& of course when you said of 9/11 that in Jersey
“thousands of people were cheering” you were
lying your *** off & appealing to the basest
elements of human nature of anger, revenge
& blame,

& of course when you declined to condemn David
Duke & the KKK you knew exactly what you were doing
as you put forth the trembling hand of friendship to American
White Supremacists so’s you'd let them know you were one
of them & they could count on you & please vote for me, you
were planting that evil & sordid flag weren’t you,

& of course you are unfit to govern, lack a basic intelligence,
decency, spirituality, a grasp of fundamental principles of right
& wrong, & are a con-man, a spiv, a snake-oil salesman, all
these … of course you are … & we’re stuck with you.

He's all smirking with his
secrets that he knows &
we don't but he's going
to bless us with their
presence as if the ****
he's all Wikileaking
wasn't already guessed
at & yes, thanks Assange
for helping elect Trump
you Libetarian-crypto-fascist
you,

with your all-knowing
Liberal airs that have just
helped make the world
worse in actual objective
fact,

well the CIA watch us all!
heck thats news to me,
not as if I didn't know
that as a 14 year old in
England 46 years ago.

& so when you sit in your
comfy chair in your
Embassy exile please
remember that I cannot
for the life of me fathom
how helping elect Trump
is in any way a good thing,

to hell with you Julian Assange,
you pompous self-important
rat.

The pure core of The Donald,
that is when he's stripped down
to his essential essence much like
the very last doll in the Russian doll
set-up where one reveals another is
colored green & has pictures of
Washington, Hamilton, & Jackson
includes a religious proclamation
together with some esoteric Masonic
or such magic pyramid with an all-seeing
floating eye & an eagle grasping vegetation
in its claws as curious almost tantric circles
overhead & Latin sayings abound all tattooed
& water-marked to stop counterfeiters
& numbered & in series & signatures
& bold, bold numbers ...

the core of The Donald is denominated & in
the very greenest of greens.

Matthew about
oh ... 2 or so,
side by side
banging away
with our hammers,
mine standard,
his a small
plastic thing,
from a
Bob The Builder kit.

I miss the head,
cuss a little,
a minute later,
I hear him
muttering
as he works
& I stop
to listen,

"****, ****, **** .."
is the whispered
sound,
oh he's learning
what workmen
do.

It is called 'The Painting'
& begins with a line
containing the word
black,

which made me think of charcoal,
which then led to the drawings
composed by students
when I modeled
in art school,

& then the poem goes on
to speak of
'a delicate lock of blond hair'

& I picture the fair-haired girl
who I never spoke to
but whose shy & inviting smile
haunts me now,

& I wonder how it might have been,
our friendship.

The Dalai Lama may not approve
with my pinching the Pure Diamond
phrase which is of course usually
in reference to some Buddhist moment
of utter clarity & profound insight,

but that's as close as I can get in reference
to Our Illustrious Leader and his need to sit
on a golden crapper in his opulent & dazzling
suite overlooking Manhattan & oh so high in
the blue, blue sky,

because when I hear of Meals on Wheels cuts
& After School Program loss in West Virginia
& the myriad other ways counters have
found to save a few bucks at the same time
as they reduce taxes on the very rich,

the fact that he does sit on a golden crapper
becomes perhaps a lightning rod for all that
is wrong with Republican ideology & its talk
of cost effect & proven results in regard to
a simple feeding of a hungry person,

its not rocket science or flying to the moon
its a simple social program that helps older
folks & small children get through the day

& a government that talks of building a billion
dollar wall, building more planes & warships
led by a man who desires a golden crapper,

just plain fills me with a Pure Diamond Loathing.

After denigrating the Khan family,
dishonoring John McCain,
delaying donation cheques,
gathering dignified Veterans
as a so useful backdrop
to prove his genuine
love of the people,

this draft-dodging golf playing
lover of 'our brave soldiers'
brings the house down
has mothers weeping
& receives the mighty
acclaim as being "Now,
Now A President!"
even from that rational
critic Van Jones
Of CNN,
one speech tugging at pride,
nation & desperate loss
& he's now the president?
this is all it took,
this cynical
lying theatric,

one crafty move in Congress
can't make up for a history
of bigotry & hate
oh no
Trump
it cannot!

I carry the void
in my pocket,
its always
right there
that I know,

once I thought
I'd lost it
after getting
so very, very
loaded at a lovely
nearby  bar,

but making tea
the next day
I found it
right back
where it
usually
is,

even the laundry
seems not to
phase it,

it just seems
to jump &
bounce around
& then cleverly
a clean shirt
later, well ha!
there it is.

Real good parties
seem to affect it,
I dig around
& dig around,
yet cannot,
cannot find it,
it might just be
a short-term memory
thing though,

because later,
well, heck,
there it is,
and so
I wonder
oh my
was it there
all the time?

Mama's on her iPhone
checking out
'Worst Places to Live in America'
heck
I guess anywhere's
better
than here.

The youngster's all a tiz
& teary because
his new bracelet making
thingy is actually
a real drag
to work with,

& me,
I'm all a glaze-eyed
looking at my bank account
& its negative
$35,

oh,
& did I mention
there's now a hole
in my boot
to match
my socks,

ha!

Meals on Wheels feeds needy
old folks & house-bounds,
its not some sort of luxury blue-apron
celebrity-chef at your door in minutes
creme-de-brule & lobster fricasee,

its basic nutritious food that many needy
folks depend on to help them get through
each day,

but Trump & his Republicans have decided this
is, what, a luxury that promotes dependency,
an unnecessary largesse on the part of a near
socialist dictatorship,

that bringing food to the needy is just way, way
too beyond the financial abilities of the mighty
U.S of A,

but of course there's a billion dollar wall to be built
to hold back brown people,
there's more tanks, bigger ships, fancier airplanes,
oh & what ... Mar-A-Lago golf trips to pay for,

& security for every Trump spawn out there
rock & rollin' their way around the world making
money & just a makin' more money,

& once more I say unto you,
the fact this man feels the need to ****
in a golden crapper fills me with such a
sincere & deep loathing that at times I can
barely sleep.

Feed the Needy!

A Great America they want
not that quaint Amusement Park
in rural Illinois,
but an Old America
a Previous America
an America
to be over
& done with,
to be honest.

A scared America
a haunted America
an America with
all the colors
washed out,
sun-dried,
bleached,
truth be told,
a White
America.

Republicans.
Are they human?
Do they breath
the same air
as we do?
are they born of woman
or ooze & shimmer forth
from some dark
pitiless depth
that is leagues
upon leagues
under the earth?

Republicans, do they eat
as you and I?
Need sustenance,
liquid nourishment,
shoes on their feet,
shirts for their
backs?
and how do they sleep?
standing in closets?
passive in coffins?
prone in tombs?
on their backs
hands across chest,
as Knights of old
in the ancient
countries?

Do they walk like me?
Ponder fragile things?
Feel love for the
tender daisy?
Weep tears in the morning sun?
Wet their toes walking
in the dew?

Smile as the sun sets
oh so gently
crimson red
& blazing
in the west?

Are they human?
These folk I walk this earth with,
share the air,
the wind,
the rain.

Republicans, are they human?

'An inquiry examining institutional *** abuse in Australia has heard 7% of the nation's Catholic priests allegedly abused children between 1950 and 2010.'

Can the bricks from all the churches
create orphanages,

can the cloth from all the robes
warm the freezing,

can the wine from all the altars
cheer the helpless,

can the jewels from all the crosses
fund the starving,

can the gold from all the goblets
ease the suffering,

can the wood from all the pulpits
house the homeless,

can the glass from all the windows
frame the darkness,

can the bones from all the priests
fertilize the fields,

can the pain from all the suffering
be acknowledged,

can the tears from all the children
be as witness,

can the crimes of all the clergy
be always remembered,

can the church in all its guilt
be just obliterated.

Young Donald got some
play-time yesterday when
some big grown men
stopped by & let him
sit in the drivers seat
of their big, big truck,
& he even got to toot
the big, big horn,

oh was Donald pleased,

but they cut short the
visit as he was getting
a little too rambunctious
& the big men had to
go back to working
for a living,

Donald needed a little
quiet time in the White
House & some milk &
cookies to calm down,

but oh what an exciting
time he had didn't he!

and the rain pours down
and the people are wretched,
the odds,
oh, the odds!

and a far trumpet announces
and they come
in their elegant cloaks,
their helmets,
their sandals,

each with a bow,
a quiver
of arrows,
and their leader
is regal,
blonde hair
combed tumbling
back,

& We have come
to help the
world of Men
he says
with a smile,

this Elric-like
warrior,
this so, so
appreciated
defender,
who later
will fall
all staggering
from blows,

& with a stamp
of their feet
they all about turn,
androgynous,
similar,
passive,

& they line
the walls
quiet
in the pouring rain,
& the hell beasts
attack
& their arrows
fly & fly
again,

but eventually
all will die
but
they have chosen
their side,

did what they
could ...
acted.

Kind of the same passion as the last priest hung
by the guts of the last capitalist only a touch less
ruthless & surely with a bare-breasted damsel
waving a black flag so high,

kind of a storming of the Tower by the raging mob
of whom a few have fallen 'neath the clubs & guns
of security but like warrior ants crossing a flowing stream
merely give themselves for the all to gain entrance,

kind of a pillaging of said tower with luxury furnishings
all sashaying upon gaudy, liquid thighs, gold this & gold
that all crowbarred & levered just right on out of there
to turn up all in bits & pieces at the 42nd St. Pawn Store,

kind of loading of the treadmill with those false narrative
propagandists for an old-fashioned milling of the poor
folks flour, grinding of the pulp, & a pounding of the fiber
for a deserved clothing of the cold & fragile,

kind of a revolution of justice, elemental & deeply satisfying,
of an ideal revenge, a reckoning, a pitiless, near merciless settling
of accounts with the poisoners, the exploiters, the fork-tongued
liars, the cheats, the merchants of a slow, silent death,

kind of a joyous, rapturous end-of-the-war drinking & embracing
moment of pure contentment & sense that actually all is well
in the world & that good does eventually overcome & that the
meek shall inherit one day & that come what may in the end
there will be an ecstatic blossoming roar of sweet & ultimate
victory.

If you wish the sympathy
of the broad masses, you
must tell them the crudest
& most stupid things,

& it is quite a special secret
pleasure how the people
around us fail to realize
what is really
happening to them,

& make the lie big,
make it simple,
keep saying it,
and eventually
they will
believe it.

& all propaganda must be
popular and its intellectual
level must be adjusted to
the most limited intelligence
amongst those it is
addressed to,

& history comes around
& many of the tried &
trusted methods for
running things just
keep on making
that eternal return
don't they.

America ... your soul is green. your fingers mint currency, your feet forge false ingots, your eyes see empty horizons, your legs march towards false dawns ...

America ... you've got your cheap tv, you've captured joy & containment, you've cornered the market, you've found all lost prophets, you've made sure of the final episodes ...

America ... you surely contain me, you ever so definitely horrify me, you each & every day lessen me, you overwhelm me, you reduce me ...

America ... the world becomes you, the people love you, the children envy you, the papas imitate you, the mamas just hope you ...

America ... your dollar excludes me, your banks deny me, your corporations just overlook me, your industries may soon destroy me ...

America ... your future awaits you, your poor folk haunt you, your rich folk dazzle you, your news just smokes & mirrors you, your understanding ... is beyond me.

America ...your closets are never too full, your wallets call you, your purses cry out to you, your credit cards whisper to you, & in secret your dollar bills make love to you ...

America ... your karma dooms you, your Kissinger is not funny, your Reagan dines with Satan, your preachers preach with poison, your Christians destroy you ...

America ... can you hear me? you don't answer my calls, do I have the wrong number? are you just plain avoiding me?

America ... you think I'm kidding? you think you can out-wait me? you think I'm all mouth & no trousers? you think your days aren't numbered? ...

America ... I'm tired of waiting, I'm now on a mission, I'll recruit my soldiers, I'll destroy your temples, I'll overturn your tables, I'll tell the end of your stories, I'll just plain overcome you ...

America ... you think I'm joking?


(With a nod to young Allen of course)

'Trump pledges to unite 'divided country' after African-American history museum visit.'

Oh rich
so, so rich,
the kind of headline
shattering the morning
calm and leading you to
one more cup of tea because
once again this President just
about takes the biscuit.

You need reminding,
shall I remind you all,
"Why doesn't he show
his birth certificate?"
oh yes, there's a start,
"Now somebody told me
where it says Religion ...
it might have Muslim."
oh yes
there's that too.

"An 'extremely credible source' has
called my office and told me that
@BarackObama's birth certificate
is a fraud."
There! ... No more is needed to highlight
the deep, deep racism
this ignorant, lying,
self-serving, divisive man
peddled from dawn till dusk
from the year 2012 through 2016,
taking from the first Black President
of these here States
the very legitimacy
he then stood
upon.

This man!
This man visits the African-American
History Museum & ladles his out deeply
hypocritical nonsense about
unity & respect.

The African-American History Museum!

We're told Trump supporters
too are a varied hew of rainbow
shades & various kinds of light
& dark,

but Trump Rallies & protests
& adorations are almost utterly
completely without a doubt
white folks.

White folks with head-scarves & t-shirts,
the plump middle-aged,
some bitter young boys,
'Build that Wall' & 'Deport" signs
carried by stocky menacing
biker lookalikes
with wrap-around shades.

lots of blondes,
chubby rural mamas,
Confederates, Supremacists,
the lady from the bank,
Mrs. Blow from San Antonio,

White folks ...
they just a keep a comin'
carryin' those signs,
wearing that awful red hat,
waving very small
US flags
in their hopeful
loyal & foolish
hands.

Independents have it hard as
its tough to choose between
a democrat and a raving
fascist idiot I know that I do &
the nights they must have
spent tossing & turning over
this near unfathomable
question of Trump or Clinton
as President elicits the deepest
sympathy on my part for this
near unanswerable dilemma
of Trump or a Democrat & I see
I do, how tough it is to be an
Independent these days, just
so very, very hard.

There's more honesty
in the dance
of the
Hare Krishna's
than in the
whole recorded
unexpurgated
output
of that shallow
vicious
son of a gun
Rush Limbaugh.

There's more honesty
in the Indian practice
of cleaning
your ***
with water
than there is
in the fearful
paranoid
lunacies
of that *******
Wayne Lapierre.

There's more honesty
in the corridors
of the insane asylum
just west
of town
than from the chattering
smart suited
short-skirted
well combed
anchors
of that
infamous TV station
for 68 year old
and upward
aging
white men.

There's more honesty
in the chirrup
of a cricket
or the crows
caw
than in the
dismal distractions
of this
chattering culture,
which daily
deceive
&
distract
us,

oh yes.

Bring me his head,
that flaming
orange ball
that orbits
around itself,

bring me his head,
for his short
stubby fingers
won't suffice,

bring me his head,
with its face
so grotesque,
its ears full
of cotton
its eyes
tight shut,

bring me his head,
and just leave it
on the porch
if I'm out,
no signature
required.

The Great Orange Clown
has a golden crapper
quite why
who knows?

& this fact alone,
this alone,
makes me hate him,
hate him
with such a deep
& unrelenting passion,

that I don't,
really don't know,
if the next
four years,
are even
anywhere
near
tolerable.

Meals on Wheels
costs about $7 a day
& an administration
that would deprive its
elderly, home-bound
& perhaps blind citizens
of simple sustenance
because they say “there’s
no proven results” or
a “waste of your money”
has to my mind lost
all sense of basic moral
decency & deserves
no less than our complete
scorn & utter contempt.

Can I say it any louder!

& a president who can
sit down to his steak
dinner with prawn hors
d'oeuvres having signed
off on such a callous &
inhumane proposal while
mentally ticking off the
money he's put in the bank
today should be removed
from office by any means
necessary & ideally
today.

Can I say it any clearer!

It's as black
as Lucifer's cauldron,
on dark Sabbath nights,

a pitiless profound silence,
a pit of atrocious vacuous horror,
a midnight chasm full fathoms deep,

where thoughts echo endlessly
to eventually flutter like
an errant vulture's soft down,
into that inky blackness
that is the centre
of his soul.

Which is why he needs
monogrammed towels
in his golden bathroom,
for those days
when he just
cannot recall
exactly who
or what
he is.

Broken ...
vital parts not working
too well,
running o.k. to keep going
but missing ...
just missing ...
a certain something,

everyone else has it,
being born you should
have it,
wheeled straight out
into the world
all shiny & new
& its there,
its there,

but damage affects,
wears down natural
turning of cogs &
wheels,
what should be normal
turns to left
or right,
smooth-running
& all & such,

broken ...
& in the end
some just cannot,
come what may,
try how hard,
be fixed,

returned to vitality
& the identity
of those first innocent
& natural days.

Broken.