This tuesday April 25th in the year of the lord 2017
being in a good, good mood & wishing to send love
& solidarity to all innocent living beings upon this
fragile lonesome earth I hereby declare my complete
& undying love for the lowly but almost beyond magnificent
Praying Mantis,

that sweet  & oh so delicate creature,
that green being which rests so tranquil upon twig & branch
legs as hands, as in prayer, as pleading, attentive & so, so
quiet,

All Power to the small green creatures & all recognition of
their undeniable right to walk this earth in peace & joy as
any of us oh so arrogant two-legged blundering creatures
supposedly made in god's image,

I have seen god in the form of the Mantis, & sure enough
its beauty & light is beyond magnificent.

Beam that love now.

It's over, its done ...

American Christianity stumbles forward
toward a cruel topsy-turvy world where
help is weakness, compassion is cruelty
& divisive isolation is preferable to
welcome & concern.

American Christianity is a corpse that reeks,

a veritable Walking Dead of pink-tied
Conservatism that picks its leaders
based on a sort of simple country-boy
belief that a fat white man in a suit who
holds aloft his momma's old bible while
same the same time preaching division,
exclusiveness, hate & bigotry is somehow
the best Christian choice & God loves that
man so,

they do this,

they continue to do this,

this rural fundamental upside-down way
of seeing the worst man as the best man
just because he spouts for some phrases
& gets all blessed & such by richly dressed
ministers of the lord who anoint him as the
Chosen One, which is so far off the mark
as to leave one wondering who? who?
who are these representatives of God's
word on earth,

these shiny shoe lackeys, these fork-tongued
well-heeled sybarites closer to Lucifer's
world of consumption & the almighty dollar,

American Christianity should just call it
a day, just give over for awhile, take a
breather & read a book or two, for the
harm they cause to fall on the rest of
us through their ignorant vision is just
way, way too much for them to be able
to claim any affinity with Jesus
the humble Son of God.

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)

An aqua-marine dragonfly
hovers in the clarified
light of dusk,
I walk slowly
the risen earth pathway
through the vibrant
green fields
on the outskirts
of the village.

A bell tolls once,
arresting in silence
the moment of foot-fall,
making real
the careful route
along the trodden path
to my house.

Our Great & Wise Leader was just so busy
basking in his omnipotent all-knowingness
& radiating light that reached the four corners
of the world where millions were at this very
moment reflecting on the so, so many Time
covers he'd graced that our Huge Orange One
needed a nudge from his missus to snap him
out of his bigly reverie in which his coffers were
filling, & his bigness was getting bigger & his triumph
over all living beings was being chorused in the very
heavens above,

oh lord he was lost for awhile there as he forgot
to put his hand over his heart
during the anthem,

thanks Melania.

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.

"They too had a dream that
one day their sons, daughters,
grandsons, granddaughters ...
might pursue prosperity &
happiness in this land."

Well perhaps not Ben ...
perhaps while 10% of their
chained compatriots died around
them in the dark, ****-filled hull
of this heaving slave-ship they
may well have dreamt of home,
of family, of safety, warmth, of
the basic human right to dignity
& freedom & an ability to simply
walk through life going upon
one's business without the threat
of armed traders carting you off
to other lands ...
perhaps they dreamt of that,

& perhaps upon arrival & unloading
& a brutal harsh sunlight & a reckoning
of those you knew who'd died & been
thrown to the sharks & an examining
of teeth & body as a horse at trade
while upon a block as folks whiter
than you shouted out in strange
tongues & your wife & child were
elsewhere & your whole life was at
that moment in cruel & tragic collapse,
you might have thought of other things
rather than ...
Oh lord, yes, yes, one day I'm going
to be able to make a buck in this Land
of the Free and Home of the Brave ...

“That’s what America is about,” Carson said. “A land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less."

Ben Carson is a might confusing
because he is without a doubt
a brilliant brain surgeon
& yet,
& yet ...

according to him
he communes telepathically
with wild bears,
can calm armed-robbers,
stabbed his best friend,
& now sees slavery as
some sort of Welcome
To the Land of Liberty
All are Welcome Act.

Ben Carson is an idiot
because well ...
where to start,
well how's about millions
of folks forced to board
ships naked, afraid,
chained in rows,
as SLAVES,

& yes, half of all slave infants
died in the first year,
survivors lived on a basic
nutrition-free gruel,
there was diarrhea, dysentery,
whooping cough, blindness,
skin lesions &
convulsions,
& they were
SLAVES.

but to Dr. Ben Carson
these terrified, beaten,
chained, whipped,
SLAVES ...

were immigrants
just like you
and just like me.

Well ...
truth be told
that's not actually true
if we are realistic & honest,

it's an attempt by the weak
& the down-trodden
& the wronged
to find some sort of relief 
by saying to themselves
"Oh, the Lord
will judge ...
or ... you'll get what's coming"

when in fact there's is no reason
why the bad guy should get
any natural reckoning
is there?

there is no heaven & pearly gates,
no karmic law of justice & retribution,
read some Nietzsche if you need
philosophical reasoning to work
this out but really its plain as
day isn't it,

justice & accounting & all such
righting of wrongs are all up to
us simple skin & bone humans,

God doesn't judge,
& you don't get reborn
as a lowly grasshopper
you don't ...
sorry to say perhaps.

Justice is not thine oh lord,
vengeance & judgement
are ours & ours alone,
don't waste time waiting
for some unseen but inevitable
law of the universe.

Act!

Birtherism is not too subtle really,
you have a black man
with a foreign
sounding name
who’s President,
you keep on
& on
about it,

questioning his birth place,
his college records,
his allegiances,
his very right
to be where
he is.

It’s a deliberate thing,
its not hidden
at all
really,
& at its core,
its pure
& utter
racism.

Its questioning a
black mans place,
a black mans rights,
a black mans worth,

it was not subtle,
what Trump
did here
in this land,
when the first
African-American President,
so proudly
took his place.

The questioning
of a black man’s
place
is an evil,
and this!
this!

this is how
Donald J. Trump
first
made his name
in politics.

On the Bart today some young
African-American kids got on &
one girl had a Black Lives Matter
t-shirt on,

I wanted to say hello & very nice
shirt but of course I didn't for a
multitude of reasons but it
did leave me feeling alright with
the world for once,

that she'd worn this to school
& taken the effort to show to
the world her statement & her
solidarity this tuesday afternoon,

still caught up in the glow as
I write this to be honest.

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.

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.

'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.

Can we feel a fearful nausea as we sense the
gate to the pit of hell gently open & two blazing
red eyes gleam oh so malevolently as they gaze
out into the world for fresh victims,
but of course ...

Can we feel a hatred a deep that it seems out of all
proportion but actually when we ponder it at night
& see parades of washed-up, drowned, sodden
refugee children littering sandy shores,
but of course ...

Can we feel a loathing so profound when we realize
that what he's doing is really with all this is filling
his own coffers with mounds of gold while grinning
so awfully at the suckers he makes of us all,
but of course ...

Can we feel an anger so encompassing that at times
it seems to consume us in its vast inescapable darkness
as we see the old folks hunger, the sick get sicker, the
weak get weaker,
but of course ...

Can we desire some sort of cathartic & ****** revolution
where heads site agape & vacant on spikes & sweet sisters
of the revolution storm ramparts & free prisoners & then
round up their own amongst the swelling bloated rich
& the eternal enemies of the people,
but of course ...

Can we feel o.k. with these thoughts, these fantasies born
of an acute & abiding knowledge of how awful these times
are & promise to be & embrace them & shout them from
the rooftops & declare in all honesty,

******* you & swift be the justice, amen.

Mr. Gene Huber,
salutes a 6 foot cardboard
box painted like Trump
every single day
of his life on earth,

& gives sincere thanks
to the Lord Above
for this splendid gift
this heavenly avatar
descended amongst us.

Mr. Gene Huber
loves President Trump,
loves him deeply
veritably weeps upon
meeting him,
& Trump whispers
back that love,
all thankyou's &
laying-on-of-hands
like.

He believes all his President
declares as true,
won't consider
contradictions,
all evidence,
any supposed learned word.

Mr. Gene Huber believes
this snake-oil salesman
speaks for him,
will fight for him,
cares about him,
& nothing,
absolutely nothing,
this charlatan says
or has done,
or pretends to have done,
or is found out
not to have done,
makes one half-pence
of difference.

This an adulation in a
near religious sense,
this is the masses & Mao,
this is the people
& Benito,
the children & Moses.

This is every
flawed & human
guru & rabble-rouser
ever to walk this
green, green
earth.

This is a cipher,
a vessel for hopes,
dreams & simple answers,
a man who points
to an enemy
a target for your failures,
to explain your losses,
life's roadblocks,
declare without hesitation
the answers,
the way forward
to that glorious kingdom
to come.

Mr. Gene Huber
is only human,
after all,
& I guess
we feel for him,
but a man who salutes
a 6 foot cardboard image
frightens me
in more ways
than one,
of that
I have
no doubt.

George Best had it,
Wily Coyote tries so hard
that we have to
give it to him,

Gandhi for some reason
doesn't have it
special
though he is,

Geronimo has it,
as does Cochise,
Back Elk
& Sitting Bull,
actually Custer has
a little too,
despite all
his failings,

& the dude who jumped
from space,
has it,
oh yes he does,

& Woodpeckers have it
as do Kingfishers,
& Tigers have it,
for **** sure,
but then
so do
Lemurs,

Great Whites
just ooze it,
cannot argue
with that one,

San Francisco has it
L.A. doesn't,
Detroit did have it,
& deserves to
win it back,

***** has it,
though who can
know that
these days,
English food
definitely doesn't,
oh but Thai,
oh Thai
really does,

my son has it,
when he's
all done up
for a
school concert,
or actually
any old time
really,
cos I just
see to
in him.

Giulani ...

looking much like

a radiated & mutant tortoise

from the walking dead,

& the always golden-hearted

Judge Jeanine Pirro

casually chat

on Fox News

all chuckles & smiles

about Muslim bans

& refugees,

while youngsters

languish in camps,

die in cities,

get cold

in mountains.

Chuckle on
you two
chuckle on.

Come back Barack ...
oh my how we miss
you so,

I know you weren't perfect
in that Commander in Chief
bombing innocent folks overseas
sort of way,

but Sweet Jesus at least
you are not Trump,

you had some natural dignity
as a decent man with his heart
in the right place for most of
the time & you tried, at least
you tried to make things better
for all folks,

& you could shed a tear for the
children & you could take a joke
& you could chuckle with the
best of them & you did have
good dance moves & your
hair wasn't some sort of
freeze-dried candy floss
sort of thing,

& you didn't re-tweet Fascists,
& didn't scapegoat, & lie, & work
every single angle possible to
put a few more dollars in your
bank account,

& you had a keen intelligence for
important things such as the health
of your citizens & the world they live
in & you wouldn't say Islamic terrorism
because you knew it was a dangerous
& short-sighted & in the end truly awful
way to play into the hands of the enemy,

& you kneeled down to talk to kids in
mini-pope mobiles, & you had an honesty
& a calm reasoned approach that even
if that was too much at times at least
you didn't jump into the fire and wade
in the dark morass of prejudice & ignorance,

& you didn't appoint all your family to
powerful positions so they too could work
that dollar angle & you didn't promise
idiocies to gullible desperate idiots &
you at least weren't a ****** predator
& a two-bit snake-oil salesman who
worked a three-card monte with a
'University' so as to fleece the believers,

& you weren't called Donald Trump &
you were at least a Democrat & son of
a gun look at us now!

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.

In Nicaragua
Oliver North
murdered children and schoolteachers,
& he's now on T.V.
military adviser
or some-such,

In Afghanistan
Barack Obama dropped a bomb from a drone
killing dozens from a wedding party,
& he's still president
of some-such,

In Iraq
Bush and Cheney
slaughtered thousands,
one's still out
shooting ducks
or some-such,
one's still grinning
while painting dogs
and vacuous,
infantile
portraits,

In New York
Mr Eric Garner
stood out on the street
selling loose cigarettes
by one's or two's
& he was grappled
to the ground
& then
chocked
to death.

Young Donald is so very bigly hoping
that he can rest his fat golden *** in
the Queen's oh so golden carriage
when he visits those green, green lands
as he's used to sitting on golden stuff
& it makes him feel so very ...
special & important,

he's instructed his minions to pull strings
twist arms & just plain plead for this to be
allowed as he is just all pumped about the
idea of sticking his big orange head out of
the golden carriage so as he can wave to
the adoring multitudes,

it might even be better than the time they
allowed him to sit in that big, big truck &
toot that big, big horn ...

oh my is he excited.

Me ... I hope there's a riotous seething mob
that makes the storming of the bastille look
like a rowdy friday night at the pub,
but me,

I guess I'm just a dreamer.

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.

Oh yes ...
no its true,
******* & dancin' at Studio 54,
just like a jungle patrol with ever present
chance of immediate death
or dreadful injury
from claymore mines
or ****-smeared
bunji sticks,
or a bullet from nowhere
that shatters your head
and leaves your brains
all over
the man
behind you.

Oh yes ...
no really,
seducing an upcoming starlet
in his luxury pad,
well its just like
coming across
the charred
remains of
napalmed children,
weeping mothers
shell-shocked granmas,
no! ... it is!

Oh yes ...
seriously,
dining on rare steaks,
lobster & caviar
in his effort to
impress and
get a piece,
is just like
cold rations,
wet clothes,
leeches,
& festering
oozing wounds.

Oh yes ...
uh huh fa sure,
Trump's New York days
compare so well
to 58,000 U.S dead
and oh yes,
several million Vietnamese,
bombed,
shot,
obliterated,
incinerated.

Oh yes.
Donald J. Trump,
had it hard,
by God
he did.

Because in my day dreams
& in a heartbeat,
the Coke brothers
would be re-educated
digging deep wells
in Flint Michigan
till they found pure
clean water.

Kobe Bryant's wife
would have her
million dollar ring
expropriated & broken
down for drill bits
to use in the digging
of Flint wells by the
same Coke brothers.

All Kardashian holdings
everywhere & anyhow
would be seized by
the state & sold to the
foreign precious stone
market & the proceeds
used for funding
school book buys.

Trump Tower would be
occupied and stripped
of all its false veneer
while Barron's gold
baby carriage would
take pride of place
in The People's Museum
of The New Dawn &
groups of school children
would field trip to marvel
& learn.

Fox News executives
would be arrested along
with Limbaugh, Hannity
a multitude of talk-show
hosts as enemies-of-the-
people & re-educated
digging canals from the
high Rockies through to
San Luis Obispo to help
water the farms which
would now be unionized
& minimum waged & there'd
be taco trucks on every
corner for free workers
lunch & luxury campers
for naps from the burning
midday sun.

History lessons would
be for real this time,
buffalos would be
encouraged mightily
to breed and roam the
western lands where
Indian tribes would
return to pastures
of old & they'd house
themselves in teepees
hand-sewn by bankers
& hedge-fund managers
lodged in converted
L.A. mansions with armed
guards for the duration.

The NRA leadership
would be hog-tied &
immediately put to work
in foul prison conditions
producing ploughshares
from swords in blazing
merciless kilns & every
Sunday they'd be cuffed
& 'compassionate-leaved'
to the closest cemetery
where they'd visit the
graves of the fallen
children & granmas
taken by ricochets.

Prisons would use
psilocybin cure-alls,
golf-courses would turn
into adventure petting-
zoo play grounds,
Syrian children would
move into Hampton
mansions,

Detroit & West Virginia
would be declared
emergencies & the
entire overseas hidden
off-shore accounts of
the top 1% would fund
roads, bridges, schools,
doctors & nurses,
teachers, professors
& crossing guards.

Trump himself would
have to restore all the
gravestones in all the
Jewish cemeteries in
all the States,
& then,
& only then,
could he have
his lunch hour.

Because in a heartbeat
I could be far worse
than that & perhaps
in some ways it's a
good thing I'm not
the boss.

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.

A convoy of trucks crossing the desert ...
dust ...
& a constant passing
in the moonlight,

dead parrots in a flowing stream,
jewels ...
in the palm of the hand,

white women
wearing long dresses,
whales ...
in the deepest, deepest
part of the ocean,

smooth fingers
caressing her thigh ...
dark hair ...
twisting in the wind.

Amidst the forest
& fields of lush, lush green
the ladies dance
in their red,
their yellow
& their blue,
while the studious men
watch from afar ...

what dreams!

If Earth First are still with us anymore
& they have some sort of ultra-militant
underground band of dedicated & utterly
uncompromising soldiers ready to defend
their mother earth at the drop of a hat &
of course after some careful preparation
could they please just get on with it before
its too late & carry this man off to a dingy
basement where he can watch re-runs
of This Living Planet while in-between-times
peasant farmers & fishermen directly affected
by rising sea levels as we speak come before
him to tell their tales & weep.

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.

Flem went to Washington
riding the tattered coat-tails
of those high-falutin’
swamp-drainers,
who offered him work,
Treasury Department,
carried 51-50
Pence tie-breaking,
by golly yes.

Mink tagged along
surprising the clan
with his tact
& diplomacy
best behavior
and all …
Health &
Human Services
became his.

Ike wasn’t to be
left out,
just rollin’ on
in there,
all a tootin’
& a hollerin’
… Department
of the Interior,
by sheer force
of charm.

Launcelot,
oh Launcelot!
high hopes
had Launcelot,
but he settled
for Ambassador
to China,
loving the food,
& the old wall,
& all.
I.O. …
son *****
I.O. …
Well he gained
immediate traction,
and just
a bamboozled
his way to
Secretary of Agriculture,
mighty proud
he was too,

Eula,
poor Eula,
well along she rode
guarding the
pots and pans
and milk crates
stacked in the back
of the old jalopy,
& carefully took
a simple pride
in White House
decorating.

Flem had some boys
come around
first day
& made some
handshakes on the
best paintings,
so there was
plenty of
wall space
for Eula
to work with,

oh lord yes
the family
had arrived.

Mr Douglass is doing well
doing big things
in America today,
big things,
being noticed,
yes he is.

Ben took me with him
& I met some too,
Black folks
that is,
great people,
great people,
and Omarosa
and Paul
lovely folks,
lovely,
but the Press
is unfair,
unfair.

and African-Americans
love this country
and did big things,
& I like them,
I really do.

All this shallow
near incoherent
rambling
from a man
who questioned
the very legitimacy
of America's first
African-American
President,

questioned it day
after day

for two
toxic
& racist
& vicious
years.

If you will **** my soul,
I will lick your funky emotions.

Hey baby … what’s your thing?
What say we touch each other?
Oooh yeah … fly on … fly on …

Oh such sweet sounds,
such goodness
such …
uh huh … oooohhh yeah,
Lord ….

& the band plays …
boom boom boom boom ba boom

& the bass rolls on,
feel that baby?
let me kiss your mind.

& the ladies sing …
bah bah bah bah bah

& the drum snares on,
the ladies return,

oh Mommy what's a Funkadelic? ...
I do so love this song.

It helped me a lot
this dark
& just plain wicked day.

So he's back ...
George 'Second Iraq
Massacre' Bush,

& I was wondering if or when
it would actually happen
this rising from the foggy
miasma of retirement,

& you do question whether
there's a publicist or it
was discussed around
the family table,
"Well .. its been 8 years now,"
"Is it time yet?"

& apart from a truly puzzling
dancing & swaying appearance
at a black-suit memorial where
he grabbed Michelle's hand &
looked more like a 5 year old
at a birthday party,
well, he's been very quiet,

but of course we've also
been granted the opportunity
to view his oh so charming
paintings,

to see him at work in his studio,
producing dog portraits & simple
naive sincerely primitive famous
people faces akin to art-day at the
old-folks home or a pre-school
honors wall,

& it seems no one wanted his opinion
on anything at all these last years,
but now, oh now he's with us again,
all bashful & "aw shucks" when he's
asked by some obsequious host
about his fondness for Michelle,
& becoming near front-page news
after a mild rebuke of Trump,

& no doubt soon he'll be on Late Night
& such, where Jimmy Kimmel can rustle
his hair & be all smitten & oh so grateful
for the privilege of his company,
& perhaps when Kimmel does chuckle
so sweetly at their dazzling repartee
that night someone could shout out
from the audience ... "Remember the
War Dead",

for its seems America soon forgives
& forgets & its war criminals &
Oliver North & George W. Bush
are allowed to grin & pontificate
& nothing is remembered & isn't
he just aging so well & don't we
just hang on every word & oh
how he matters still.

Next week maybe Kissinger will
come on to entertain us awhile,
sandwiched between cute pet
tricks & some giggling 20 year old
Hollywood starlet hawking her
new blockbuster.

America forgets very, very quickly
doesn't it,
so so quickly.

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.

Tamla Motown,
my soccer team Tottenham
for so many sweet memories,
my old girlfriend Stella ... I know
I should have Stella,
I know,

tigers,
brown bears & the lowly centipede,
Charlie Chaplin, that old ****** son of a gun,
Laurel & Hardy, just because ...
Tarkovsky movies ... Toshiro Mifune,

anything with custard,
apple pie,
fresh bread,
Indian folks for the way they
shake their heads for yes,
Indian folks for their god
that charming Ganesh,
books,

Sci-fi movies ... lots of them anyway,
children laughing,
children playing,
& thus playgrounds,

serious folks who pay attention,
Anarchists ... of course,
my old grannie for her
attentions,
English food when it actually
works,

trees,
birds, bees,
old Chinese folks up at dawn
to collect cans,
& my Facebook friends,
take care you all now.

In God's American heaven
all the Krishnas,
Ivans & Nadias,
get to wait in line
like sorry-*** out-of-towners
hoping for a good night out,

while the Americans,
granted extra
special consideration
by right of birth
& all that is great
& mighty about
this unique land,

just get waved on through
by God's golden bouncers,
straight on in
like hot girls
& dazzling boys
at the club
of the
moment
in the dazzling
L.A. night.

In a sign of
the complete & utter
moral capitulation
to the designs of power
& the primacy of the old
stone cold ‘ends justify means’
the leader of the United States
Republican Party just this morn
came out in whole-hearted
personal actual phone-call support
of an accused ******* & someone who
was actually on a mall watch list
as a grown assed man …
Roy ‘Ten Commandments’ Moore.
….
& if this news doesn’t just get to you as
it should then you obviously
contain a heart of depthless
dense dark blackness
& find it oh so
easy to quite
simply ignore
the tears
of the assaulted,
an attempted ****,
& innocent
child victims of
this man’s vile pursuit
of pleasure, power
& evil gratification.
…
******* you Moore,
Trump & all who
enable …
That’s it.

Freshly bathed & shivering
in the cool weak sunlight
of the early morning
the boy returns
to his bed,

the quiet young couple
who sleep gently nearby,
prepare their first
sweet smoke
of the morning
as a string is drawn
back & forth inside
the chillum pipe
to clean it,

& then the hashish is warmed
so as to soften it before  
it's crumbled & mixed
with the tobacco from
a broken cigarette
kneaded in the
palm of the hand,

a small stone is placed inside
to anchor the mix yet
leave room for air
to flow & then
a damp rag is
wrapped around
the narrow end
to cool the smoke,

the woman holds the pipe
quite intricately it seems
to you at first but it's just
to create a space
so as to draw the
mix deep into
her lungs,

"Bom Siva Shankar"
intones the man as
she places her mouth
upon the joined hands
and draws that first
fiery draught
of purest black
Afghani hashish.

The chillum circulates
& the day has begun
as the youth of a
rejected Western World
envelop themselves
in the smell of dung
fires, incense, &
the Krishna chant
from the small
idol at the
corner
nearby.

Jimi moans and wails,
the door crashes
as dad arrives
all anger
& growls,

I look up
all a might stunned
beneath the grinning
& rolling,

oh dad
you made it,
& I love you
y'know.

my eyes
like dark voids ...
searchlights,

his face ...
bewildered.

Perhaps,
well perhaps
if you don't want
the US Press to investigate
& publish
& do their job,
you might consider
not calling them
****!

& perhaps
if you don't want,
your hidden Russian ties
looked into & broadcast all over,
you might,
just might,
not want to make
your subservience
& craven submission
to Putin
so plainly obvious
to all but the
complete deaf mutes
amongst us,

& perhaps,
just perhaps,
if you want
the Intelligence Services
on your side,
you might next time,
not stand in
front of a wall
honoring their dead,
& spend the time
bragging & lying
& honoring
your own
**** self,

& perhaps,
if you want
respect & 'a chance'
you might acknowledge
the complete ethical vacuum
that was your campaign,
& the complete lack of
simple human decency
that was your
trademark,
this last
year
and a half.

Hey Trump!
Yes you ...
You colossal donut you!

A fact is a fact
because it's a fact,
not because you
say it's a fact.

You may say:
"Nobody better ... "
but elephants don't
fly south in winter,

"The best, the very best ... "
but spiders cannot
navigate through
heavy seas,

"Immense numbers, immense .. "
but zebras will not
snuggle with lions.

"Honest man, so honest ... "
but igloos are not
built by three-toed
sloths,

"Mess, its a mess ... "
but Mitch McConnell
is not the most
handsome man alive,

"Fair, very fair .. "
but rich white guys
don't work hard
& pick tomato crops.

A fact,
is a fact,
yes it most
definitely is.

'73 ... '74
oh, 16 or so,
a news headline
in that conservative
of newspapers
The Daily Telegraph
engaged me,
'Hippy Camp in the Himalayas
Broken up by the Police'
or as close
as I recall,

& from that
moment on
my ambition
was clear,
my future
set,

Dad might
have preferred
college or
a decent job,
but heck
no ..
a hippy camp
in the Himalayas,

& as soon as
school was over
off I went
on the
Magic Bus
to find
a home.

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.

There’s 2 regular Trump apologists
out in the chattering classes these dark
depressing days Paris Dennard & the lighter
skinned & white-quiffed Jeffrey Lord, both are
utterly intolerable to spend too much time with
both accepting no, quite literally no wrong-doing,
on the part of their sweet master Trump,

Paris has his gig I guess as the black guy
brought on to be the black Republican who
will defend Trump so the folks back home
can say: “See” …
& he is a smartly dressed dude, plays it well
I guess but jeez your boss isn’t infallible Paris,

& Jeffrey lord, oh god Jeffrey Lord …
where to start, well he’s usually bringing in
comparisons & history points from early
20th century speeches & such, while
actually ignoring the real issue & so he’s
good at what he does I’ll give him that,

I heard that he wrote a column praising Trump
early in the election & Trump called him to wax
magnificent & boy was Jeffrey chuffed & all
& thus has been so dedicated & loyal,

& since then he’s pretzeled himself so far
over to kiss his own heels & ends up the
lone Trump voice in every single discussion,
& nothing, absolutely nothing is questioned
or fault acknowledged.

Its a tough job but someone’s got to do it I
guess, but god these folks disgust.

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?

I'd prefer my politicians
didn't belly laugh, chuckle
or gosh gee shucks after
proposing to deprive 24
million folks of health care
especially of course when
along with that they've
suggested huge tax benefits
for the already rich,

& I'd really prefer my politicians
to be like the president in
Uruguay who drove an old
jalopy & lived in a shack but
I guess I'm just too much of a
dreamer aren't I & for lords sake
how naive can I be?

"I don't care ...
I don't care ..."

Well I would to be honest ...

I'd miss them those long-hairs
with their bongos, flowers &
hula hoops, long skirts, velvet
jackets, bells & sweet scented ****
& smiles & trying just to be happy
& leaving you all behind with your
exploitation & misery & wars & death
& sullen brown slow decay,

I would care,

"if all the hippies
cut of  
all their hair"

I would.

Hendrix lives ... by sweet Jesus yes he does!

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.

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.

Having removed my shoes,
how different!
as I enter the temple.

                                                     By the bank of the river,
                                                     pointing to God,
                                                     - the washer-man.

The young prostitutes
laughing
as they bought new shoes.

                                                      Smo­king,  
                                                      with an old man,
                                                      I cannot pretend to be otherwise.

Just one fresh salad
would lead
to twenty-one days sickness.

                                                      ­ Night-time has fallen,
                                                       hundreds of thousands of bodies,
                                                       lying draped in the streets.

Tied to a coconut tree,
drying in the sun,
the tail of a manta ray.

                                                       Believing he was Kali,
                                                       he chopped off a head,
                                                       yet his smile was so gentle.

Twilight on the hotel verandah,
witnessing huge black fruit-bats,
cascading from the trees.

                                                       That cloudy afternoon,
                                                      ­ a boy & I chased a rat,
                                                       our shorts & sandals dancing.

From the fog by the bridge,
softly the transvestite would call,
each winter's moon.

                                                       As I wander the temple
                                                       swallows dart to & fro,
                                                       - the cool stone!