Yes, tell us
of your Trump love,
your tough love;
shout it from the rooftops
while encouraging ******
in a mosque.

Tell us how poetic you are,
you the rearguard
of fascist *******
as worshippers are showered
with bullets from above.

You want to talk about cowards,
or standing with the Sioux
at Standing Rock?

Let me hear your hypocrisy
little miss sunshine,
just one more time.

And you, the defenders
of ignorance,
can kiss my po ***
along with the *******
wannabe poets
who hate the truth
when it shines.

My problem
isn't with the philo-
sophical side,
but lies more 
in the how
and the when and
the courage
required.

The ship is sinking
and the women and children
are still on board,
but the lifeboats have been taken
and the ******* Captain,
he ain't letting any more board.

One day soon
in this unknown country
where our dreams shout
and jump ship,
a train will come
and it will arrive full-steam
ahead, and full of resisters
looking to take the Captain's head.

Sometimes at night

asleep by the firelight

I dream about them

how they died

some are singing

and others saying what

they no longer see

walking fencelines

limping as if in pain

some of them handsome

and some mysterious

silent but not

for long they tell you

men scarcely know

how beautiful fire is

and old stories

they can't remember

unless you can

still look them in the eye.

We can weep, oh America
the name of our country
over and over
our democracy looted
while the new President
is congratulated
and his acolytes kiss ***
like a ruby on the King's ring
the Secretary of Education
can't read and the Secretary
of Energy with his poor memory
drinks from a glass of big oil
while the Secretary of Interior
says there can be no more bees
no butterflies, no more gardens
for us inferiors, there will be
no more dreaming, no poets
or anti-discrimination policies
against anything, no brooms
for sweeping, just last straws
and executive actions handed
down from the white mansion.

Night, that old sinkhole
of the soul, climbs
the dark stairs of despair
who knows what the moon
is thinking behind that one-eyed
stare clawing his way through
the pines outside my window
carrying bootblack in a blanket
when it's colder for shining shoes
that go with my black suit
and the red rose on the pillow
I burn before the morning.

Love is a word
like a sword
that has worn
out its scabbard,
a lonely *******,
or a red rose
that opens alone,
a dream that lingers
for too many seasons
and passes in the shadows,
furrows in the dust
on a bannister,
a rock in the garden
of lust,
an empty place
at a table,
a ring on a cobweb
in the rain,
a long hair on your bed,
a nail in a blank wall.