politics

An Impossible Disheartening Task

lillian4 Comments

I want to write an American sonnet today
without writing the orange guy’s name.
The pathological liar who mocked a disabled reporter,
bragged he could grab a woman’s pussy at will,
enabled and brags about the end of Roe vs Wade.
The one who was impeached and is an accused felon.
The guy who wants to axe the Affordable Care Act,
ending health care coverage for 45 million people;
hawks bibles and tee shirts and golden sneakers.
The self-serving bastard who denigrates Gold Star families,
and the war record of John McCain. Silences a porn star
and makes deals with the tabloid press.
The narcissist who incited an insurrection
and turned the once proud GOP into a cult.

I want to write an American sonnet today
but I can’t – because it’s too depressing.
I want this orange man to rot, collapse,
be tossed from the public’s eye.
I want sanity and real truth and empathy.
This is my addendum to the prompt,
I want hope to prevail.


Written for NaPoWriMo, day 27 where the prompt is
“to write an “American sonnet.…an American sonnet is shortish (generally 14 lines, but not necessarily!), discursive, and tends to end with a bang, but there’s no need to have a rhyme scheme or even a specific meter. “ Image is from Pixabay.com at least six years ago.

A Conversation Sometime in the Future . . .

lillian13 Comments

“I left the farm for the big city sixty-plus years ago. I embraced feminism and burned my bra. Then I met a guy and several months later I was shaving my legs and curling my eyelashes again! He was an English major so I became a romantic poetry sop. One night I even recited a line for him: ‘I want to be pretty for you. I have dropped two seeds of turnsole in the dark of both eyes.” I gravitated to him like sunflowers turning their heads to constantly feel the sun’s rays on their faces. Thank god I came to my senses and never looked back. Enough of this tangent. No more questions, Miss Parkander! Please call the Vice President and tell him he has to be at the Climate Accord meeting I’m hosting at Camp David. The Secretary of State as well.”

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Sanaa asks us to include the line “To be pretty for you I have dropped two seeds of turnsole in the dark of both eyes” from the poem Garden by Isabel Duarte-Gray in our piece of flash fiction that is 144 words or less in length. Turnsole is a type of plant, like a sunflower, that turns its head or stem to follow the movement of the sun. And my question for you is, when will the US have a female President….so many qualified women out there!

A haiku for this historic day . . .

lillian32 Comments

Coral flamboyance,
long legs and necks, all squawking.
Flamingo mosh pit.

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Lisa provides a choice of three specific prompts, all with reference to animals. I chose the option to write about an animal, considering its nature.

A group of flamingoes is called a flamboyance. There is a metaphorical allusion here….might be more clear if flamingoes were orange….or if while madly cackling and squawking they wore red baseball hats.

Pestilence can be eradicated . . .

lillian12 Comments

Tales told over and over
take hold in one’s memory.
Lies told over and over,
still lies.

Oft heard lies ferment.
Fester in one’s brain,
in one’s psyche.
Foment unrest, distrust.
Rattle rational thought
into rationalization.

Beware the frequent liar,
the pseudo Pied Piper.
Rats follow in legions.
Sewers clog with muck.
Rotten smells waft high,
putrify the air.

Rise up ye voices!
Shout facts! Blow forth truths
from the mountain top.
Topple the house of cards.

Written for Tuesday Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Lisa asks us to consider fermentation. We are to “write a poem that uses any of the definitions, examples, images, or applications of fermentation that inspires” our Muse.
Images from Pixabay.com

Two Aphorisms Created for Our Times

lillian9 Comments

I.
Life is a card game,
play your hand wisely.
Seems like we’re caught
in a never-ending bridge game.
Trump suit named,
trick after trick after trick played.
Anyone ready to change the game?

II.
When parade horses leave a trail of shit,
sweepers must follow.
Seems like we’re caught
in a never-ending parade
of show ponies
with far too few sweepers
willing to clean up the mess.


Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today, Ana returns to dVerse and asks us to consider Gnomic poetry which is the practice of moralizing in verse. We can start or end our poem with an aphorism; create our own aphorisms; or be inspired by a myth. We have many choices in how to approach the prompt but the “focal point” of our poem must be a moral or assert a philosophical position on life. And she tells us that just because we’re moralizing, doesn’t mean we must be serious. We can add a bit of humor or irony. Images from Pixabay.com

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead . . .

lillian20 Comments

“I’m melting, melting. Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world, destroy my beautiful wickedness.” Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz

I planned it. Me and Rudy.
It was all fixed.
The machines, the ballots.
All a disaster.

Millions believed me.
They didn’t drink bleach
but they believed I won
because I said so.

This commission.
These videos. These emails.
My people spilling it all.
Gutless.

This witch hunt . . .
closing in . . .
my battery is low
and it’s getting dark.

Laura provides a unique prompt for today’s Poetics at dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. She provides seven quotations of famous departing words. We must choose one and include it in a “deathbed poem of our imagination.”

The line provided by Laura: “My battery is low and it’s getting dark.” Mars rover ‘Opportunity’

The prompt got me thinking about Donald Trump and the January 6 Commission. May the vast amount of evidence presented be the demise of the Big Lie and expose the danger Donald Trump presents to democracy and the well-being of this country. May his power and cult-like status among otherwise sane people melt away, similar to what happened to the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz.

On the Occasion of Seven Republicans Voting Guilty

lillian3 Comments

I remember Mrs. Jester’s house.
Reddish paint, curtains always open.
Mostly I remember her apple tree
blossoms bountiful,
sturdy limbs to climb.

That house has not aged well.
Foundation cracked,
three-quarters sinking low.
Panes of glass missing,
cracked or in shards.

Apple tree now diseased,
fallen waste dead at base,
putrefied in stinking mold.
All branches save one,
diseased from within.

Seven fruit, avoiding pestilence,
catch a bracing breeze,
land far away from tree.
Far from decaying rot,
their goodness intact.

Children on a walkabout
give wide room that rotting tree,
but see the golden orbs
and recognize their worth.
They stuff their pockets full.

At home the fruit is buffed and cored,
cut in quarters and enjoyed.
Children, wise beyond their years,
save seeds to grow again.
The youth shall become the sowers
and goodness shall survive.

The Dawn Always Comes . . .

lillian46 Comments

Hearts take the hand. Trump failed.
Dummy hand hapless in play.

Donned in camouflage
revealed as the ill-literate.
Sees no value in a paradigm shift.
Pair a dimes? Chump change.
No interest in cents at all.
Narcissistic I-land, far off shore.

You are no sire,
no knight with Excalibur.
Rather bellicose bellyacher
night or day, wielding tweets
perched upon a thin wire,
manufacturing a storm.

Hailing, thundering, “MY RAIN”
even as it is about to end.
Drowning in the fetid swamp
created by your squalls.
Your reign shall cease
and the sun will shine again.

Linda is hosting OLN at dVerse, where we can post any poem of our choosing: no prompt. I decided to engage in a bit of word play and ended up with a political piece – perhaps a poem of witness again? Photo from pixabay.com