tyranny comes from democracy
noticed wise old Plato

Demagogues duly arise
the people’s prejudicial fears they know

If Plato we’re living now
he’d be unsurprised by American racehate

Democracy abandons philosophy, he saw
the Ignorant then claim this replace Great

They freely chose
Demagoguery as Great

They end as they began
An Abyss of racehate

So I have to walk through  a group of protesters today holding signs that say Stop White Hate Racism Against White People Is Still Racism It's OK To Be White in order to buy my root beer float and drink it at the bar while I watch the Michigan State vs. Iowa State basketball game there are almost no nonwhite people in this little town and as I walk into the restaurant I say to the teenagers who work as servers and waitresses I'm not going to be hated for being white if I eat lunch here am I? No they reply I didn't think so I say election 2024 is building racehate is in the air so is white grievance so is American Ignorance

                   Shakyamuni Buddha

                   The original Woke man

Live dangerously, said Nietzsche
I understand a bit

My little boring life
The starshine and the pit

I do love to travel
Leave these United States

Bid farewell to the ignorance
The violence and racehate

Stockholm. Taipei. Bangkok. Kyoto. Dublin.
The truly great.

we are all so badly broken
even the rich and healthy and famous

i like Cornel West
as he speaks the Book of Amos

he's from Sacramento
where I lived as a child

today olives with pimento
alas, Trump's mob with racehate riled

the future looks frightening
but maybe Emerald Isled?

America began in racehate
Probably how it ends
Racist fascist ******* people
Wind and water Wends

Once I was a teacher
Cycled the Baltic Sea
Never could quite reach her
2023

Never could quite reach her
3044
4037
Inner Harbor, Baltimore

We disappear forever
Like we were never born
Rain in the lamplight
Johnny, blow your horn

    Cold and grey Chicago morn.

I have no desire to give lectures or sermons
No desire to give speeches
Politicians as celebrities
Followers like leeches

Religion mostly bad for me
But I like those minarets
Went to church with her just one time
Misty, but didn't forget

America is ignorance
Empire. Racehate. Nukes.
Russia is Putin
Violence against the Ukes

Pushkin's power in The Prophet
Fingers light as dream
Rabbi Nahman leaves Jerusalem
Finds the Silent Scream

                  Agonia

The conservatives flee the modern world
But they don't flee anaesthetic
America was born in racehate
And can never quite forget it

Had to take a science class
Chose geology
Honeymoon in Paris
And sunny Italy

Giordano Bruno
Burned at the stake
She and I in Istanbul
Nothin' but love to make

Florida is Ignorance
Which is why Desantis fits
Mr. Harold Crick
Keeps staring at her ****

                Oh, Ms. Pascal!

Flickering sunlight in Baltimore
Music and the twilight fade
Stayin' up all night
Wishing to get laid

But I live in solitude
Far from Angkor Wat
Play a little basketball
Miss my brother Scott

Fascism in America
But it's always been racehate
Dim sum in San Francisco
I wait at the Dragon Gate

Sons soon home from school
Vegetarian burritos
Postcards in the mail
Batman: Holy Toledo!

America began in genocide and racehate
Probably how it ends
In my solitude
I remember forgotten friends

I have not been to India
But India came to me
37 years
1973

Shiva the god of death
Michael Clayton calls
In my solitude
All Walls Fall

Was philosophy a waste of time?
Maybe, but that's alright
Good Will Hunting
Sor Juana's mystic flight

              Endless Night

20 years pass by
Endless American wars

20 years pass by
Racehate, bombs, and ******

I saw Jay again
Soon some basketball

The sadness will last forever
River Eden, Wetheral

Cool in the air now.
Fall.

Nothing went right after my mom died
Not for the country
Not for my family
But, thankfully, my children were born

Depression drains
Dreams of trains
Asian rains
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn

I thank Canada for basketball
Blame the USA
For wars, guns, racehate
And ****

Chicago
Lady of the Lake
Wendy
Early one frosty morn

          Hopeless and Forlorn

Amidst the guns and the wars
And the racehate and the ****

A better future struggling to be born.

I was given madness
Please not for my sons
I have need to write
Please give up your guns

America is Ignorance
Racehate, basketball
Desantis is Disgusting
Tea in Wetheral

I like Mario Cuomo
Old fashioned Catholic guilt
Not Hamlet on the Hudson
Qualyxian Quest the quilt

Afraid to be forgotten
Afraid to be discovered
Women are the mystery
Mystery recovered

              Emily!

Human beings are not intellectuals
Intellectuals are not human beings
She calls me from the airport
I drive all night to the hotel

American history is relentless war
Racehate
Ignorance
Buy and Sell, Buy and Sell

Santa Fe was different
Desert
But out West
I'm more North than South

               35 years later
            Finally in her mouth

Things could go very bad with America
Racehate and Apple pie
Wanna help my brother Scott
Before my time to die

Gave him I Walk the Line
Saw the Southern Cross
He gave me a nice black jacket
She gave me the wisdom of loss

I gave her her father's prayer
Don't know how this ends
Mike Dunlap is right
We parted the closest of friends

               Water Wends

The Americans are ignorance
Wrapped in violence
Within racehate

I walk in San Francisco
Dim sum near the Dragon Gate

        The Hour is getting late.

The American Animal
Again Absurd

The President
It’s excreted ****

White House awash
In racehate words

Decadence decays
Or haven’t you heard?

I don't believe in Western Civilization
I'm also South and East
I lived in the Nordic Lands
He said Ray Charles was a Beast

My sons live on Arapahoe
The Seminoles did resist
The Trail of Tears, racist fears
Flowers on her wrist

Chicago means stinky onion
The NeoCons did leave a stench
My friend is Judi Kemerait
Don't know Dame Judi Dench

America is racehate
Bad schools, nuclear war
I have to wonder, dear reader
Have we been here before?

           Forgotten lore

Sometimes I think it's me
Sometimes I know it's not
Dread annihilation
But gonna help my brother Scott

America is the racehate
But I've been to Angkor Wat
Shiva does his dance
Older than Pol ***

So I wait with patience
Strike when strike you may
John Brown's Body
Californ I A

Johnny, Pony, and Cherry
Down goes down to day
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Dylan eternitay

           Yea, verily. Yea.

Nothing really to believe in
But I make a bad nihilist
Too many wishes
Children to protect

I like Heraclitus
Thales says it's water
Bess, the Landlord's black eyed daughter
Racehate I reject

The Republican Party an Abyss
American schools so boring
The old man is snoring
To sleep perchance to dream

Nothing quite like music
O those 80s ladies!
Walk like an Egyptian
Heard somebody scream

           Bruuuuuuuuce!

So much ugliness in America
Guns, wars, racehate

A violent people abroad
At home they devastate

But the sky still stands beyond
A species maybe too

Dearest Emily
What would Melville do?

Probably see it through...

America began in genocide and racehate
Probably how it ends
In my solitude
I remember forgotten friends

I have not been to India
But India came to me
37 years
1973

Shiva the god of death
Michael Clayton calls
In my solitude
All Walls Fall

Was philosophy a waste of time?
Maybe, but that's alright
Good Will Hunting
Sor Juana's mystic flight

              Endless Night

The shaman is the wounded healer
Sick because his people are sick
Eliade on my shelf
Right next to Moby ****

I need her, but she's not here
So I struggle on
Horror in Chicago
Happiness Gamla Stan

America is racehate
Taco trucks, basketball
Satellite Beach, Florida
1985. Fall

Oxford is quite lovely
Dreaming spires, Gerard
Birds in my bushes now
Rabbits in my yard

                Facecard

The Americans are stupid
Their culture unreflective

Sports and **** and violence
Political invective

Racehate on the radio
And in the big White House

Guns for all the idiots
Others quiet as a mouse

Sasha Baron Cohen
Exposes the terrible truth

If there is any hope
It's with the restless youth

The battle for the soul of the country
Is America a Trumpfuck nation?

Will the Ignorant reelect?
Will the haters find elevation?

America was formed in genocide
Slavery and racehate.

Can it improve itself?
We'll see. The hour is getting late, late, late.

America is perpetual
Civil War

Same racehate now
As before

Only Melville
Is an open door

Ishmael
And Emily's Moor

******* Donald is for
The Confederate flag

But that racist symbol
Is a ***** old rag

All the King's Men
Knew the demagogic South

Lies and racehate
Pour from its dumb mouth

There's a Voodoo Child
Down in New Orleans

She's now casting spells
I wonder what she means?

Sweden, Finland, Norway
Tie for Number 1

U.S.A. is 57
What have the trumpfucks done?

Took a weekend ship
From Stockholm to Helsinki

Karaoke with my sons
The youngest small and dinky

I admit I was entranced
Baltic beauty beckons

The chaos of America
With racehate it must reckon

                    Tak!

Herman Melville believed
America is a mistake

Fatally corrupted by racehate
Abandon and forsake

Hopes of making it better
The prejudice is too great

It appears now he was right
At this late fateful date.

Perhaps I'll be unremembered
Or remembered and criticized

I tried to resist the racehate
I tried to resist the lies

I am not myself a saint
Though I'm drawn to them at times

And the musicians and the thinkers
Bob Dylan with mind rhymes

I'm a father from afar
A brother and a son

I still seek Ms. Meek, Sophia
Surely She's the One!

And I pray: Thy will be done.

If I could gift the Americans
I would take away their guns

Give them courage to walk without fear
And be truly Born to Run

Show poems to their chidren
Shakespeare and Moby ****

Remind them of Magic and Bird
The hick from French Lick

Let them see that racehate
Is their greatest folly

Let them learn Mr. Joyce and
Good Golly, Miss Molly!

The second hearse
Only could be American

Fedallah
Prophecy comes true

Racehate
Raging in the nation

Civil War
Coming home to you

There is no American exceptionalism
Not now or evermore

If you've read your Moby ****
You've seen that closing door

Human, all too human
Fools who walk the floor

Built up, brought down by racehate
And oppression of the poor

Thomas Jefferson
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Independence Day is coming
His racehate can no longer be denied

America began
In genocide and racehate

It continues as an Empire
But it is bogus and not great

Once I took a train
From Stockholm to Copenhagen

Soren Kierkegaard
You tonight I'm beggin'

Show me the Knight of Faith
In the midst of my despair

For I know One Dark Knight
And I want to do the dare

The sense of the American Abyss
Lies and racehate and ignorance
               Dread Ahead

George W. Bush
Murderer of the Middle East

Donald J. Trump
He released the racehate Beast

Farewell, ye mother *******
I'm headed for the Feast

The last shall be first
The Greatest are, in fact, the Least

Sand Creek massacre
Racehate manifest

Interview with Dylan
Still he is the best

Antelope Canyon
We take the beauty walk

The wind, the way, the water
No need at all to talk

Off to watch Blade Runner 2049
Later emails to the one true friend of mine

A little basketball tonight for my middle son
A few poems to write before my day is done

Maybe just one life, then the silence of the grave
But maybe transmigration.  Eternal souls to save?

Growing older means unknowing
Many of the teachers were fools

Whaling ships are better teachers
Than the oppressive official schools

Chinese hermits head to the mountains
Silent and solitary

I fled to Dublin
And heard tales of Irish fairies

Back now in the USA
Land of freedom; Land of greed

I hate the racehate, but love the music
Wisdom is our need

But, alas, money is America's creed.