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A coronation, watched by our entire great nation,
Some with trepidation, others boisterous jubilation.
Trump feted, his fawning family silhouetted,
Basking in his light, his confidence and might.

This Grand Old Party, it's followers vociferous and hearty,
Anointing their chosen man, to rule their ever-growing clan;
No harm to love a cause, giving thought and sometimes pause,
To what this passion brings, the words the siren sings.

Whereas strong leadership is good, it can be tainted just like food,
For democracy renounced, cannot then easily be found.
Let’s be careful what we wish, lest it be a poisoned dish,
Our founders crafted choice, beyond just
one resounding voice;

Autocracy is not a word, that in our Lexicon is heard,
We must vigilance ensure, for our country's story to endure.
Unity the dream, but like salmon in a raging stream,
Needs fortitude and grit, knowing when to fight and for the greater good, submit.
To help us reflect
Lawrence Hall Jul 10
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Their Ephemeral Temples Look Much the Same

Their ephemeral temples look much the same
In a semi-circle the faithful sit or stand
And turn their eager faces to an altar flood-lit
To be magicked by their leaders and gods

They wave their arms in ecstasy and awe
While lantern-slides of flags and martyred heroes
Ripple as electronic waves beamed into their eyes
Commanding free obedience through spontaneous scripts

At dawn

Contractors will tear away the plywood and paint
Take down the plastic statues and columns
The recordings of programmed emotions
And heave them into the beds of rented trucks

Preaching or politics, or some other game:
Their ephemeral temples look much the same
I play by the rules day in and day out,
Showing my class, wielding my clout.
I take the hard blows time and again,
Knowing my patience shan't be in vain.

Joe's on the ropes, all by himself,
Waiting around to be dumped on the shelf,
Restraint is my friend, as I pull back and watch,
Those flailing wild jabs I so easily dodge.

There's one rule to fighting, it's Biding your time,
Showing him up, using his dime,
Keeping ones cool, letting him dance,
Then all in one motion - destructively prance.

There's rhyme to the reason for the 12
Rounds to be,
So everyone knows, all clearly can see,
The prowess of one, the demise of the other,
An abject defeat, no spin as a buffer.

The guys just a has been yet I'm giving him grace,
Watching him flail, not setting the pace,
The fun's in the waiting, a matter of time,
For him to fall over, his crown to be mine.
To make us think
Ken Pepiton Jul 7
Party line. Crazy conversation from a true believer,
left me feeling kinda prickly, so I got this high,
and looked back on all I was told to watch out...
Amen,
Indeed, at the mental sylabble, said meaningfully,
as mental activity, per se, aspiring to inspire, you,

dear reader,
the imaginary other,
on the other side of all I think we see,

when we look, this way, back through
this medium we mindtouch through,
thought through rough or furbished,

with a will to make a thing, a way
is often made known, as if we think a way

say, what if,
say wonder, the verb, we use, we know,
we make believe we can see it so,

just so, right,
as when we know
which hand to use, you know,

we swing our sensitivities, around
wondering how long one alone
would need to read all that has been

told known, put into the cloud as evidence,
any willing mind, taken to core as good manners,
and profitable methods to bore less as chores,
using knowledge originally intended unknowable,
by creator's perogative, declared, there'll be,

something, hellish, yes, where does that idea
reside, that sure knowledge, that we are all ******,

unless, yes, more or less, a few, feel the call to know,
eh,
why or how, eh

daily ordering of our domicile,
daily letting this mind be in thee, or me,
depending on the way the integral tale is told.
What ties ligament to bone?
In some situations,
there you are, thinking why you think at all,
and as you do, you think you did, so what.

Now, what, if we have wondered, now what
is what we got, for that effort, if you ever wondered

how the whole situation,
the cloud containing all the vastest data banks,
news draw interesting times from, for your attention,

click, and repeat, recall, the history of me, since
my first IBM readable responces on all 500 hats,
Red Ryder B.B. gun hangs on my wall, still yet,
child mind slips, slides us past the pressure,
feel the evolved will, to pass the scribal exams,
1954 baseline Achievment Test data, grade one,
first task, make thy own rural pen,
wait, now, make thy own smooth surface,
invent a reader for the marks to mean a thing…

- see, the kind of minds we have for use,
- literally all the learning proven conservable
- is at our fingertips, if you can read this now,
- some actual agency granted this technology

to flourish in families, for centuries, before we all
had access to this wave of wisdom, a dominion of ways,
perspectives on precepts used to shelter

ways to use sticky mud,
ways to use dry straw,
ways to use hot sun to dry fruits,

too far back to feel survival skills
sufficient to believe, life uses luck,
and words we both can use,
we believe we
have being in this atmosphere,
on the planet, third from that ordinary star,
only planet known beyond any doubt, where

what we are quantized particles at identifiable
points in the history of all that we, the information,
we, the persons involved at the evidence retrieval,

- the ceremony,
- ya'll come, we gather to retell our children,
- this is what we were when America was great,

We had the whole world in our pocket, Ike knew,
you know he knew, the monstors men can imagine,

when it comes to winning wars, primary purpose
along a chosen duty path to high value human status,

like a king, power,
under the highest commonly conceived,

authority. The writing on the wall.

Secret sacred excremental waste, ah,
***** plaistered walls in that awe-ful Irish gaol.

We all saw it, on telly, as true as Donald Trump…
we all see the *****, and we all hear those who eat it,
swearing it does smack of the promises to the righteous.

Made by a couple of Cromwellian Prime Servants.
The Blessed Few are duty bound to rule the disorder,

form a line, dollop of self con, fiduciary response, set
nil, no clue, nothing funny, Donald Trump is loveable,

easily as cuddly as Harvey Weinstein, party goers say.
I think one who donates money to either candidate is working from an agenda.
And I disagree with all the excuses they use for themselves/ we must have better choices for the role.
Zywa Jul 3
He's unconsciously

incompetent, but he's nice --


when he has a beer.
Column "Boeren zijn de baas" ("Farmers are boss", 2024, Marcel van Roosmalen), in the NRC of July 1st, 2024 (about local politicians)

Collections "Specialities"
We close the curtains on a world less sure,
than yesterday, and all the days that went before
evening comes, and with it falls the night
unyeilding darkness drinks the light
and in its presence fades the sight
of garden gate and fence and lawn
in an anxious world which waits for dawn
The world is a worrying place
Trefild Jul 1
Whatever civil stuff there is to oppose evil, in terms of removing an agent of evil from a position of significant power, it's nigh on ineffective. Partly because people, being ones putting all that civil stuff into practice, are corruptible. Imagine someone [further - TP (that person)] in a position of power being accused of some wrongdoing. Yes, if TP's an expendable part of a corrupt system they belong to, they may end up in prison. But what if TP isn't & have more than enough money for a bribe & connections big enough to end up with the case against them being dropped or not even initiated (in other words, untouchable)? And let's say a wrongdoing committed by TP is grave (just like a place deserved by villains such as autocrats to be put in). Such as sentencing a dissident to prison, thus making them a political prisoner, or usage of physical tortures, or even being a leader of an authoritarian regime waging an unjustified aggressive war, what's then? What are remaining options? Evil understands only the language of force & threats. And in comics, there's a type of individuals to punish such agents of evil: VIGILANTES.

Yes, vigilantes operate above the law, but they're above the law either when the rule of law is broken, or in cases when there isn't enough evidence to put a criminal into prison. And by vigilantes, I don't mean the "civil" type like the Batman bringing criminals to justice by neutralizing them unlethally so they can be handed over to law enforcement agents (though, it's worth noting that the Dark Knight strikes terror into criminals, at least into ones operating where he operates). I mean the type like Jason "Red Hood" Todd, Francis "Punisher" Castle, or V disposing of agents of evil as if they were weeds, which they are. Some may deem such individuals as criminals, if more precisely, murderers, but to me & ones like-minded, they're, first of all, society purgers. Necessary antiheroes, if you will.

It's understandable why there's no or nigh on zero such individuals in the real world. For there's little of those having nothing or nigh on nothing to lose & even less of those belonging to this type & being/willing to become expert assassins at the same time. As for professional killers present in the world, as far as I understand, most of them work for the underworld & have no or little principles. I wish there's a whole squad of those vigilantes/society purgers in the world targetting the most powerful ones among agents of authoritarian regimes & members of the underworld. For all those power-corrupted ******* understand only the language of force & threats, as it seems to me, &, as Rorschach from "Watchmen" said, evil must be punished. Of course, the problem is not that there are corrupt people committing wrongdoings, the problem is that there are corrupt ideas hosted by these or other people. But since there's no way to destroy an idea, especially in today's digitalized world, all there's that can be done is to make so that wrongdoing hosts of corrupt ideas are either stripped of power somehow, or isolated from the rest of society, if realization of either one is possible. If not, then liquidation of those hosts.

As Vladimir Makarov from "Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III" (2023) said, the wicked prosper, they always will. The harsh reality is that this world's so terrible it could use having antiheroic vigilantes being lesser evil to fight villains being greater one.

Don't get it wrong, I neither support nor mean to glorify violence. My only intention is to justify usage of it towards wrongdoers in positions of power, in particular, towards, as I've said, the most powerful ones among agents of authoritarian regimes & members of the underworld.
This world needs more bold & principled individuals like vigilantes to fight the corrupted powers that be.

VIVA LA REVOLUCION
Robert Ippaso Jun 29
Mumbling, stumbling, inaudible rambling,
The pity, the pain all but Biden now feel,
A spent man bereft, resorting to grumbling,
The fishing line out for opponents to reel.

How did we now reach this insufferable place,
Where a once wily Joe spun his fine web,
Enticing, enveloping with street gotten grace,
His mock Irish banter making folks fall in step.

The ravage of age, that indiscriminate scythe,
Lacking compassion, blind in its grasp,
Cutting down poppy's both lowly and high,
Never once stopping to ponder or ask.

So it falls to the man, with loving advice,
To know when to pen those few final chapters,
Leave it too late and it's a roll of the dice,
A legacy lost and good name in tatters.

Blind pride a sheer folly at most times in life,
Obscuring the path that shows us the way,
The one to traverse with safety not strife,
Avoiding its grasp, not falling its prey.

Country the goal before lowly ambition,
Wisdom and service the call for each day,
This is America's greatest tradition
The foundation from which no leader should sway.
To make us think
Traveler Jun 23
No one can keep up
with the evil deeds
done in our names.
Traveler 🧳 Tim
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