Tag Archives: Poetry

We got this!

Time to take our country back

Knock the Trump Train from the track

Wear a mask and get to work

Control the virus, end the jerk

Flick the fly from Pence’s head

Sweep them both into the shed

End the tweets and stop the lies

Clear the darkness from the skies

Let’s put an end to our disgrace

The divisive talk on god and race

Vote for competence, vote for peace

Fuck it, just vote for the guy

who lies the least

Create a wave that’s long and blue

Save democracy from you know who

Put an end to the Orange Schmoe

And pull that lever for BlueNami Joe!

The Agent of Rot

Rot has an agent –

an orange bartender

he pours lies

and half-truths

like drinks from blender

he pours shots of hate

with no sign of surrender

sending his patrons

on misguided benders

The agent of rot

knows who to seek

he prays on the fearful,

the dumb, and the meek

The agent of rot

is a master of evil

he burrows in ears

like a sick twisted weevil

his whisper-warm breath

takes a crap in your ear

he laughs in your face

and fucks from the rear

With broken promises and

malevolent behavior

the gullible get

screwed by this unsavory savior

The agent of rot

is the person who serves it

aim all of your rage

at the one who deserves it

The disdainful malevolent essence of rot

the smell of the stink

the slime on the snot

the grand wizard of

falsehoods

The tweeter of lies

The vindictive and petty

muncher of fries

Use your vote like a shiv

and twist it in deep

Don’t ever forgive

That fat orange creep!

American Native

Slaughtered and displaced

defiled, defaced and

stripped of their grace

A culture

sublime

swallowed by time

Bludgeoned by white vanity

Split open by Christianity

Ravaged and poked

Beaten and broke

Set fire and stoked

Promised the world

And granted a sliver

Died in the snow

And bled in the river

The deceit

and the lies

blackened

their skies

and the white man’s

words strangled

their cries

Then, a felonious bribe

To the rightful tribe,

relegated to the dusty

barren yet rusty

minimal subsistence,

 tin shack existence

In America

Baby teeth and bullets

I’m Calvin’s lonely cousin
the one without a friend
The darkly quiet moody kid
The one who couldn’t blend

I’m the smoker in the stairwell,
skipping school all day
the fall-between-the-crack-type-kid
the one who slips away


I’m the ink inside the headlines
the lead story on the news
The kid the network anchor says
was surely born to lose

I’m the details at eleven
a community in shock
I’m the often-bullied quirky kid
who lived just up the block

I’m a parent’s darkest nightmare
I’m my doctors deep concern
I’m the angst that no one seems to get
the match about to burn
I’m an issue in the social science
circles of the day
I’m the brush it underneath the rug
that never goes away

I see angels circling the sun
feathered wings and halos
golden and hand-spun
Frozen little angels
Circling the sun
bursting into rain drops
cleansing everyone

I’m the isolated Incel
The bullet in the gun
The angry white American
Who’s blaming everyone
I’m the cryptic manifesto
The video online
The AR-15 lover-boy
Who grew-up Columbine

I’m the one who gave up caring
I’m the anger and the rage
I’m the finger on the trigger
I’m the tiger in the cage

I’m the suicide by cop
On the stairway in my school
I’m the little boy with crooked teeth
That others ridiculed

I see angels circling the sun
feathered wings and halos
golden and hand-spun
Frozen little angels
Circling the sun
bursting into rain drops
cleansing everyone

Seeped in seventies

Darkly sarcastic

and sardonically wry

We hum and we dance

to American Pie

Rolling thunder over head

Kool-Aid, Keds, and Wonder Bread

Vietnam served us the blues

Cronkite was the nightly news

Worry traveled through the air

And stuck to faces everywhere

They shipped us to the VanHoff School

We learned about the golden rule

Over finger paints and duck-duck goose

and thermoses of apple juice

Mrs. V in her floral dress

sang “raise your hands”

and “clean your mess”

and

“before the day is done

try to touch the sun”

Jungle-gyms and trampolines

Wacky Packs

Mad Magazine

Baseball hats

and Spider bikes

Dad’s Gannset beer

Mom’s Lucky Strikes

Kick Ball, Fishing, Doorbell ditch

Watching reruns of Bewitched

Nixon, Agnew, and John Dean

Shaving cream on Halloween

Through whiffle ball

and kick the can

Johnny Carson

and Ed McMahon

Watergate was all around

in our sight

and in our sound

on the news

and in the paper

the Viet Cong

and foiled caper

It lurked and hovered

overhead

Pages written

and words were said

it wormed its way

into our head

that innocence

was finally dead

it’s all we heard

and all we read

in undercurrents

a subtext grew

a dye was cast

for me and you

we dipped our bread

into the stew

Enjoyed the dark side

of our view

and you were me

and I was you

The Ending Will Be . . .

It won’t be by fire

it won’t be by ice

not a slow-creeping glacier

or atomic device

The sun won’t implode

on apocalypse day

There won’t be four horsemen

riding our way

The Messiah won’t show

with a list in his hand

And no, heaven won’t have

one helluva band

And there won’t be any

fences to mend

or dastardly sins

we’re forced to defend

And the angel of death

will have no wings at all

she’ll be a viral and nasty

spiky red ball

aided by

an immoral fool,

who always felt

he was too cool for school

And the angel of death

will give him a task

“push lie after lie”

and don’t wear a mask”

Together they spread

Death far and wide

taking all of America

on a perilous ride

So, no

it won’t be by fire

and it won’t be by ice

not a slow creeping glacier

nr atomic device

our ending will be

too small to see

A man of no importance

A man of no importance

leans against the city’s sounds

telling every passerby

to lay their worry down

Every day at one o’clock

appears this weary warner

a bible in his bony hand

on the same street corner

A cautionary caller,

Throwing words into the wind

He warns us of our avarice

our decadence and sin

“A double-dose of Jesus Christ”

That’s what he says we need

“The grace of god the glory

Will free us from our greed!”

Most don’t even look up

Or glance in his direction

Ignoring his crusade against

The devil’s insurrection

Steadfastly undeterred

“There are souls in need of saving!”

Raining grace upon us

with his ranting and his raving

And every day at 5 o’clock

Amidst the non-compliance

He bows his head quite suddenly

Retreating into silence

And in this act of piety

Is when he’s noticed most of all

The man of no importance

Becomes important after all

Shadow beings

We are shadow beings

Mute witnesses to the pain

Dormant and unborn

Existing just outside your veins

A broken recollection

Forever misaligned

A crackling poor connection

from the corner of your mind

We’re the tiny primal platelets

That dance inside your blood

The prickly hairs

that stand up straight

The sound inside the thud

We’re the truer self

that you deny

trapped beneath your skin

your dark and dirty

devilish self

dripping wet with sin

We’re lighter than an eye lash

less visible than God

We’re the sexy ghosts that

dirty dance

upon your soul’s facade

And when your dead and buried

Decomposing in the dirt

We burrow through your belly

And steal the buttons from your shirt

The witch and the farm girl part deux

The symphonic scream of cicadas
hot wind whispers over the wheat
when out of the sky
in the blink of an eye
a witch, with a broom for seat

A ruthless Midwestern twister
a box full of fury and flow
on a ruby-red mission fixation
with an army of monkeys in tow

A bright-hearted girl from west Kansas
no boyfriends or lovers to call
struck dumb by the words of a wizard
who wasn’t a wizard at all

Fell asleep in a field full of poppies
woke with a head full of fear
approached the green castle with caution
but spoke like the tip of a spear

Tracing the stitch on her pillow
she imagines the blood in her veins
she chases the witch to the willow
till the beat of her heart starts to wane

She wakes to the wind in her navel
the bees fulminate in their hive
the blue mink is donning red sable
the white wolf is barely alive

Dot’s in a battle worth fighting
Dot’s in a fight she must win
With a gaggle of misfits and losers for friends
On a mission to get back to her kin

She skipped on the bricks that were yellow
she fought with the man made of straw
met a cat terrified of his shadow
found the hollow man’s heart in a drawer

She summoned the courage inside her
relied on the love in her heart
instilled faith in the minds of her comrades
and never gave up from the start

Trapped in a dreamscape of terror
with demons of doubt in her bed
overcame the evil that faced her
and woke up with a bump on her head

Dot’s in a battle worth fighting
Dot’s in a fight she must win
With a gaggle of misfits and losers for friends
On a mission to get back to her kin

Ashes to Ashes

When your mind
is melting
in worry’s kettle

And troubled thoughts
have yet to settle

When tears fall backwards
and you’re drowned in sorrow

And your days get buried
by tomorrow

When the pit gets ripped hard
from the plum

And your soul is stretched
tight on a drum

With smiles grinding to the gum
and nervous laughter from everyone

Just Whisper

Ashes-to-Ashes, dust-to-dust
from bang-to-boom and boom-to-bust
Let’s all pray for a blissful end,
Where death’s a belly dancing friend