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If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain’d

10/14/2017

A poem by John Keats, born on 31 October 1795, died 23 February 1821

If by dull rhymes our English must be chain’d,
   And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fetter’d, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain’d,
   Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain’d
   By ear industrious, and attention meet:
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
   Than Midas of his coinage, let us be
   Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
   She will be bound with garlands of her own.

Trump, Pence, and the Republicans

10/13/2017

The leader of the hypocrites,
His adjutant, and all their crew
Revel in dudgeonaceous snits
Approaching apoplectic fits
When football players (black in hue)
Take to the knee before the anthem
And say their “owners” ought to can them.

“It’s disrespectful to the flag,
The anthem, and to soldiers too,
Each negro like a scalawag
With lots of money in the bag,
Millionaire athletes these men who
Protest police brutality
And killings with impunity.”

Yet when was kneeling disrespect?
A man before his would-be bride?
Parishioners who genuflect
At church, and pray the Lord protect?
However that they may deride
The hypocrites cannot portray
A peaceful kneel some other way.

Their leader himself disregards
Respectful protocols, to chat,
While that same flag is lowered, yard’s
Stillness suffused with the retards
Of bugle’s blowing—notes whereat
A plaintive awe wells in each breast
Save that of those who chat or jest.

The leader and his adjutant,
With all their horde of acolytes,
Indulge voracious spewing rant
Despite selves disbelieving cant
As they have raised to fevered heights
Against their opposition: they
Act differently from what they say.

The “First White President” Compared Pejoratively to a Fictional Black Man

10/13/2017

As people die in Puerto Rico,
Not due to the catastrophe,
But presidential apathy,
The conscience asks with Ludovico,

“Are his wits safe?” referring to
The president of such disdain,
Also: “Is he not light of brain?”
More plainly: Is he loose a screw?

The Chief Executive, this cad,
President of the USA,
In duty’s dereliction way
Surpasses any that we’ve had.

Yet, born to wealth and coddled ease
He was far from an average fellow
Without the virtues of Othello,
His madness matched by villainies.

How sad to see a glorious state
Reduced so low, meanly debased,
High aspiration left to waste
Under the rubric “making great.”

Doleful they be, the citizens
Who fostered and enabled such
Dishonest disregard—too much
To not bear bitter recompense.

Yet Lodovico sees and hears,
And testifies to the unfitness
Regnant of which he bears men witness,
Even as we—hopes lost to fears.

The Saboteur-in-Chief

10/12/2017

The presidential saboteur
Cannot gain his objective
Through legislative victory
So opts to be destructive—

Far from enforcing law instead
He hastens its demise
Through means subversive, even as
He covers them with lies.

Agreements that were ratified,
Treaties, he tears apart,
Domestically, healthcare to kill
Dismantles without heart.

Regardless of the consequence
He sets his little bombs,
A terrorist, for all to see,
The while reciting Psalms.

It’s “easy to tear down a thing”
Was written once before,
But with the Saboteur-in-Chief
There is no end to war.

A foolish and vain populace
Allowed it to persist—
Catastrophe, calamity—
Without slapping a wrist.

Let history take note to see
When lying hypocrites
In joined cabal assert their way
Honor—like justice—flits.

Words to the Presidential Leech

10/11/2017

My life was poised for all of this
And I would not the moment miss—

Today the presidential leech
Beseeches: Kill freedom of speech.

You whited sepulchre! You moron,
To whom all empathy is foreign,

The heart and soul of humankind
Lies in the choice to speak one’s mind

So I will never still my tongue
Till you repent, or else are hung,

Or, failing that, the victory yours
My words being stifled at the source.

A man is not afraid to die
When he denounces villainy,

And—all the world has understood—
Your rotten substance was not good.

Now Be the Time

10/11/2017

Now is the time, I do aver
For this “white” culture to defer
To that called “black,”
Though “white” and “black” provide a trope
That proffers or withholds a hope:
It must be taken back.

Foundation built upon a lie
The time has come for it to die
Of slow starvation,
Denied the prejudice and rage
Which in themselves erect a cage
Imprisoning a nation.

The Europeans came, and with
“Manifest Destiny” their myth,
Proclaimed emergence
Of a new Christian nation—they
Slaughtered all persons in their way
Or pushed them to the margins.

“Race,” a distortion built on hate,
Allowed their crimes to propagate,
However now
Iniquities born of the past
Must be undone; new life recast
With new ways to avow.

How the Flag Becomes a Rag

10/11/2017

Old Glory, as we call the flag,
Becomes a kind of tattered rag
For polishing the silver up
With which the wealthy like to sup.

Indeed, the glory of the past
Was too good to be true, or last,
And so, within their greedy clutch
They sullied it with every touch.

The agents of its transformation
Were men like Pence, abomination
Who let the Bill of Rights be tore
To make against dissent cheap score,

And men like Gorsuch, hypocrite
Pretending law the root of it
Consigning men to servitude—
Such agents neither just nor good.

No, Pence and Gorsuch, silver foxes,
Too shallow to be paradoxes,
Think as the Party says to think
While boasting skins of whitest pink.

The flag, and what it signified,
The freedoms for which soldiers died,
Peace, justice and equality
(Besmirched by men’s mendacity)

Become as fuel to feed the fire
Like oil rags tossed upon the pyre—
Subjects reduced from citizens
Per men like Gorsuch and like Pence.

Donald Trump Worries About His IQ (Intelligence Quotient)

10/10/2017

What’s known about your IQ
Would fit into a haiku:
They both are very small.
So also your net worth:
Of info there’s a dearth—
Do you pay tax at all?

However I must write
An epic infinite
To count the myriad ways
Both friends and foes dislike you—
It’s not about your IQ—
You glutton for vain praise.

A moron and a dotard
Not fit to be a goatherd
You strut and primp all day
In pomp and circumstance,
Your jumbled brain askance—
Your IQ MIA.

Donald J. Trump Prototype Double Dactyl

10/10/2017

Twitter-dum tweeter-dee
Donald J. Trumplestein
Built by the Party he
Threatens to break,

Denigrates everything
Anti-Republican:
“Truth’s liberal bias is
Generally fake.”

Presidential Nursery

10/10/2017

"It's a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning."
—Senator Bob Corker

The president’s a basket case
They have to keep their eyes on,
To shelter from his own disgrace
That looms on the horizon.

An imbecile, a two-face fool,
Revenge-besotted revanchist,
Believing ignorance is cool
Who likes to shake a sissy fist.

Ah, Donald Trump, proud emperor
In his own whitewashed mind,
A cheap sadistic simperer
Not wrongfully maligned:

One modus operandi drives
His every deed and provocation,
As he piles up superlatives
Devoid substantiation.

How to seem better than Obama—
Alas, he never can:
He had a shitty dad and momma
And has a shitty clan.

Obama had finesse and charm,
Obama had the better words,
But Donald stirs up the alarm,
With nannies to police his turds.

<<Previous

If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain’d

Trump, Pence, and the Republicans

The “First White President” Compared Pejoratively to a Fictional Black Man

The Saboteur-in-Chief

Words to the Presidential Leech

Now Be the Time

How the Flag Becomes a Rag

Donald Trump Worries About His IQ (Intelligence Quotient)

Donald J. Trump Prototype Double Dactyl

Presidential Nursery

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