He feigns strength, gilds his world golden. His name. His visage. His way. Trumpian mythology built lie by lie, threat by threat. Its depth unimaginable, bottomless pit of greed, racism. So self-consumed is he, blind to his wax wings melting. Truth’s flame is invincible
Written for Quadrille Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today De asks us to include the word “myth” or a form of the word in a poem of exactly 44 words sans title.
Reference is made to mythology’s Icarus whose wings were made of wax…which led to his demise when he flew too close to the sun.
how did we get to this place where journalists are called piggy and stupid and the one before is called sleepy joe while the one now who was also before the one before nods off in televised meetings but wakes up demanding cabinet members sling odes of praise while hiding their genuflecting knees below the conference table refusing to speak against indulgences given to insurrectionists as others under his spell fund masked men not Zorro types accosting individuals who by the way are not eating your pets rather paying taxes to raise their children who are US citizens being good neighbors attending church working jobs that need bodies who show up and care
we need Martin and Jesse John Lewis and Barbara Jordon to be here again we need their spirited tenacity to rile up cowardly sycophants to grow backbones and finally say enough is enough
meanwhile he’s playing feral tom cat lifting his leg all over DC leaving his mark so future felines and species of any kind will know he was here in his gilded age of narcissism adding his name atop JFKs and on towers and arch de trumps even as he paints the Reflecting Pond blue in the image of Mar-a-Lago’s swimming pool which as he explained with posters as visual aids is taller than any of the tallest buildings in the world never mind it’s a pool of water lying prone on the ground not a building actually standing tall reaching to the sky
he’s become an AI Master in the wee hours evidenced by his creations something no other president has or ever will be see Donald the pilot dropping shit bombs everywhere while JD warns Leo to be careful talking about theology his boss created himself in the image of Christ and it goes on and on and on like a run-on sentence with no stops no resets no commas just implicitly felt exclamation marks slung everywhere until we the people add our own exclamation mark and say NO in November
let the reckoning come
Written for Tuesday’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Melissa asks us to write a poem with no punctuation. Image by Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay
We have an Uncle Fester, almost eighty, his behaviors are causing concern. Sends out weird pictures of himself. One day he’s a fighter pilot dropping feces bombs, the next day he’s Jesus Christ.
Someone made a whopper mistake, gifted Uncle Fester a label-maker. He slapped his name everywhere. We’re talking street corner signs, the neighborhood center, and the cemetery too.
Shocked my aunt by gilding his den then bull-dozers suddenly appeared, tore down their living room! Shocked beyond words she asked him why. “We need a ballroom” he said. “For what?” she screamed, “You don’t even dance!”
Sits up all hours of the night posting, posting, posting. Posted eleven times in forty-two minutes, then fell asleep at inopportune times. Brings up a contest he lost six years ago. Claims he won though facts say he lost. Brings it up over and over and over again.
Hoists f-bombs at neighbors and friends. Can’t stay on topic when he talks, wanders off with grandiose lies. According to him, he’s the absolute best at everything there ever was. We hear it over and over and over again. So what do you think? Is there cause for concern?
Hmmmmm……do you think Uncle Fester sounds like Donald Trump? My apologies to the “real” Uncle Fester! He’s a character in the fictional Addams Family. Image is of Jackie Coogan playing the role. Image is in public domain.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Sanaa is hosting Open Link Night AND will host a LIVE session with audio and video on Satuday, May 9th from 10 to 11 AM EST. All are welcome to join. A link is provided on Thursday’s OLN page here.
fire suddenly flares up in our new frying pan. Must everything in this country be so combustible? Just put a lid on the rhetoric and smother the heat.
NAPOWRIMO Day 28. Prompt: write a poem that follows this pattern: three sentences, six lines: statement, question, conclusion. AI image made on Bing Create.
In his dodder of thyme, the current head DC gardener continues to uproot and rip out Justicia,Honesty, and roses of all kind. As if they were the weeds. In their place he sows and propagates Crown Imperial, Wormswood, Snakesfoot, King-cups and Creeping Cereus.
This prickly pear of a man is in no way a humble plant. More like a mouse-eared-chickweed forever noshing on Fool’s Parsley, basking under the shade of his pruned Judas Trees.
Outside his sphere, weeping willows flail in dire need of gentle balm. They must find a new sage, soon. Both Burpee and the Farmer’s Almanac warn the upcoming planting season will be a crucial one.
NAPOWRIMO Day 19. Today’s prompt: Using Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers, write a poem in which you muse on your selections of flowers names and meanings from her extensive list.
*** All of the flowers and plants I’ve used from her book, are italicized in the poem. I’ve kept the capitalization only on those that are actually used in the poem as the plant/flower itself. Reference is paid to the Old Farmer’s Almanac and the Burpee Seed Catalogue.
IMAGE of the Jacqueline Kennedy Rose Garden at the White House, courtesy of the National Park Service website.
directions to self, and you, if you wish. Stop imbibing Trumpian news. Take only one small sip per day. Think revel instead of wallow. Revel in sunshine, a best seller book. Walk outside breathing in fresh air, plan for someone’s birthday surprise. Arrange day trips away from news. If you ruminate, Trump wins. Do your small part pf course. One political post per day. Donate to a cause. But do not allow him to fester in your brain, to loose fistulas of lies that chafe, clouding your eyes to the joys nearby. Take care of your mental health. That is of prime importance in these days of . . . well, I don’t know what they are of. But that’s the point. It’s our task to define them. To decide how we change them. How we live and love in them. And God knows, we must.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe! Today Dora asks us to write a poem using an imperative….a demand of sorts.
Photo from a spring walk last year along the Charles River. A habitual dog walker often takes a rest at this bench….always makes me smile. We need more smiles these days.
One, two, what can we do? Three, four, can’t bear any more. Five, six, need a fix. Seven, eight, it’s not too late. Jump ahead to twenty-five, that amendment’s power drive. Then go back to the standard rhyme, he exits out in rhythmic time. Nine, ten, a thankful amen.
NAPOWRIMO Day 7. Prompt for the day: Write a poem that can be a “song: something to clap, snap or jump around to.” I’ve changed the words here to the childhood rhyme, “One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, shut the door. etc”
If you don’t want to read a political statement in explanation of the poem above, stop reading here.
Today, the President of the United States is playing the “proverbial game of chicken” with an unstable and violent regime. “A whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz by 8 PM EST. Note: the Strait of Hormuz was open until the US and Israel bombed Iran. Listen to President Trump’s recent public appearances: IE standing beside the giant Easter Bunny at the annual Easter Egg Roll, talking about Iran, how great his military is; telling children they can sell the pictures he colors with them because he’s signing them and his autograph is worth a lot of money. But they couldn’t sell anything from President Biden because he had people follow him around with an autopen. Look at his Truth Social posts in the last few days: laced with expletives. The man is more than unhinged. He is seriously mentally ill. He is not competent or fit to be in the office of the Presidency.
It is time to evoke the 25th amendement and remove him from office. At the very least, his family should stage a serious intervention meeting with him; as should members of Congress. Handle it discreetly and quietly if they wish. If he won’t resign, invoke the 25th amendement. We can not allow this man to continue in this powerful position.
Words spilled on a page, sentenced to death. Alphabet stews bleeding false truths.
Democracy verbified. Present tense slanted to the future, diagrammatical correction needed
Guide to collective nouns. Bloat: hippopotamuses Murder: crows Bed: sloths Shiver: sharks Scourge: mosquitoes And
Petrified: today’s Republican Congress. Sound muted. Cacophony of silence. This is the saddest story I have ever heard.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Punam provides us with a number of opening lines from various books and writings. We are to take one of the opening lines provided, and make it the closing line of our poem. We must use the line as is..no addition or subtraction of words. The line I’ve chosen to use is “This is the saddest story I have ever heard,” from The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford. Image by John from Pixabay
How did we get to this place? When did ice become so much more than a cube you put in a glass? When did it become routine for a president to continually lie? For masked agents to roam our streets, break into homes without a warrant? I mean, I know people don’t agree on everything. We’ve had two political parties since the mid-1800s. But when did the abyss become so long and so deep, that Congress members no longer work across the aisle? I don’t have a plan to strengthen immigration policies. But I do know “strengthen” does not mean assaulting people based on skin color and accents, or gassing peaceful protestors. Close to being an octogenarian, I’ve held signs aloft at demonstrations. I often raise my pen to paper, exercising my poetic “license” to challenge the status quo. It’s what I can and must do. I will not tread water in this whirl pool. Tell me, what are you doing to change the tide?
Photo taken at a demonstration in Boston Commons.
Written in the style of Mary Oliver, one of my favorite poets. I’ve used the last four lines of her poem, The Summer Day, for inspiration.
“Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
I believe Mary Oliver, if she were alive today, would be asking the same question I ask at the end of my poem. In that way, and attempting to employ her style in my poem (although I’m certainly no Mary Oliver!), I try to honor her. Here is her poem:
The Summer Day
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean — the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down — who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
People are different. Color, ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, language, citizenship, culture.
Gather them all in one place, in concentric circles facing each other, holding hands. Each circle defined by a trait.
Note: circles have no beginning or end. He who joined first disappears. She who joined last disappears. All are integral to their circle.
Herein lies a truth of geometric principle. Concentric circles differ in radii but have the same center point. And what is that same center point?
As Maya Angelou famously wrote, “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.” The center point is our humanity.
Sadly however, truth is not constructed reality when the builder is a demolitionist.
Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets across the globe. Today I am hosting: go to https://dversepoets.com to see the prompt this poem is motivated by.
lillian the home poet 