It’s clear that
All that is happening
In that predatory mind
Is a miserable plan
To curry favor,
Establish dominance.

The need to be loved,
While overlooking the
Unpleasant flaws of
Reality, paramount,
Only self-adulation
Featured on the menu.

Manipulating the limbs
Of cold mannequins,
Unfeeling eyes staring
Blankly, no connection
To actuality, only
Temporary gratification.
​

​One fine day,
Seemingly out of
Nowhere,
He came into town and,
With a few brief
Words, reminded people
Of what was really
Important in life,
And had every single
Person running home
To make amends or
Hug a loved one,
Help someone in need,
Their better nature
Confirmed.
The stranger vanished
As mysteriously as
He had appeared,
And the people
Went back to doing
What they had
Always done.

​He was looking forward
To seeing her and,
When he arrived at the function,
Found her with someone else.

He tried to put on a
Brave face, inside,
Everything was melting,
Rapidly collapsing.

Years later, the bruise
Is still tender when he
Thinks of the night that
Didn’t go as planned.

​Still young, I learned that postures tended
to come with inheritance, to dominate sway
in my neighborhood, as unstated traditions.
 
Generations would gather as if in a church,
nonsectarian, from St. Louis and its environs
assured that their own and prior family souls
would guide our childhoods toward modesty.
 
My dad wore dungarees, as did we three sons;
kept us out of poverty; no dark suit, no fedora;
pushed a bladed mower across our spiky grass
we charitably (with minor posture) called “lawn.”
 
Never in a holy sanctuary, I promised some deity
(purely intuited without a formal metaphysics),
but usual to my home at the Gateway to the West
to make my first Atlantic Ocean trip adventurous
rather than reverent, fun with no duty.  But waves
buffeted me, their constancy expected, but not
my weak obedience to a dominant, unknown sea,
their utter power hurtling a shark, dead yes, but
not a lifeless corpse, rolled at me teeth first still
intent to consume humanity by starting with me,
ripping my gushing flesh, to bleed me pure white.
 
These memories displaced posture.  No longer 20,
no longer 70, I prefer a peaceful demise, perhaps
without chartreuse liqueur and flowers, but frisky
kittens rolling across my fingers and nibbling my
cold hands, my casket dignified by carpenter's eye.
 
Perhaps friends would surround me, likely to enjoy
the late summer sun rays as, ostensibly, I disappear.

​I hoped to deflect an impertinent remark.
 
The best rebuttal I thought of on the spot,
a thing clever, yet decisive?  Forensic fact
admissible in court wraps us totally now,
hooks our noses toward unsavory sniffs.
 
And so I temporarily diverted the probe.
Of course at issue was defense of poetry.
Indefensible, I often hear it proclaimed.
 
My work suffuses modern or recent history,
but at only 71 my knowledge may be slight:
finer points of understanding passed away
with compromise, so decisive cleverness
presupposes spin with foxes in their dens;
 
I heard a poet proudly riddle about a truth,
critical inexactitude, with fiendish pride:
I asked him, remembering a phase, would
he repudiate anarchy?  He doubted my call.
 
Then I doubted my call, retreated to details
of fundamental earthiness, play in the dirt;
play in snow; play in a stream sans salmon;
play in surf fearing undertow.  What more?
 
Then I coined the word associational poem.
Facing that question, I shook another week
before regaining courage to challenge words.
                                                      
To the initiated, all this goes without saying,
so with the rest of my poem I seek initiation.
 
The pearl sits in dew on a lotus blossom.
The chief eunuch stands guard over a harem.
Which, at that place, would go without saying.

​I am sorry to tell you
that of all men here
you are least privileged.
 
This is a practical result
of all men being equal.
Of course, you ask why?
 
You ask if this is my joke.
I assure you this is history.
 
No sir, resolution is not near.
 
I do not presume revolution.
 
Well, I write poetry.  Privileged?
Not in the way you may assume
and perhaps even less than you.
 
Yes, I have studied our history.
Yes, there is an ugly consistency.
Yes, do not look beyond greed,
nor hatred of our fellow equals.
 
No, there is no logic to hatred.
No, greed is apparently unbounded.
No, for some there is no restraint
on freedom; government is feckless.
 
Therefore, those who believe
that superiority ought to rule,
are privileged to assert prerogative.

​The movie angels said it couldn't rain all the time
but Mother Nature seemed to have different thoughts
as clouds still blanketed the sodden earth.
 
Spring visions of blossoming apple and cherry trees
were blotted out by breeze blown curtains;
fresh raindrops were once again beginning.
The tender green shoots of weeds in sidewalk cracks shook.
 
Skirting worms who crawled along the cement
I ran onward, my footfalls slapping puddles,
soaking legs with sprays of dirty water.
 
Forward I ran, accompanied by mists and deluge,
until sweat was indistinguishable from droplets
upon my saturated black running shirt.
 
The movie angels said it couldn't rain all the time
and Mother Nature seemed to have read their thoughts.
Suddenly clouds split, revealing sun's rays upon sodden earth.
Onward I ran, shirtless, smiling upon a steaming landscape.

​A green tree stands in the corner
with synthetic branches fluffed,
waiting for lights and bulbs
to be hung by a child's hand
and plugged in by mom and dad.
 
With synthetic branches fluffed,
shaped, and bent, the illusion
is complete. No Charlie Brown affair,
but a living breathing testament;
soon it will be Christmas day!
 
Waiting for lights and bulbs,
the old tree snoozes patiently.
We slowly built a mountain,
wrapped gifts at his feet;
colorful boxes and bags.
 
To be hung by a child's hand
are golden stars and angels,
mini sleighs and snowflakes,
resting in soft tissue cocoons.
They have slumbered all year.
 
"And plugged in by mom and dad?
Are you serious, I am almost 12!"
How quick our precious little girl
has grown over the few months
the green tree waited in the corner.

​Silk flowers last a lifetime,
as do my many memories,
as midnight's hour chimes.
 
I wish childhood lasted forever,
unfortunately we pack up youth.
I will always remember you however.
 
The cloth bouquet at my nose,
makes me remember your beauty,
fresh like the dew upon a rose.

​My love for you was left in a blue folder
upon a coffee table next to your sofa-sick bed
under two boxes of Oreo's and a carton of 2 percent milk
that had ridden in the front seat of my car
until just the right time, awaiting feet-sweeping
and soul baring.
I dance with my toes in the fire of emotion.
 
I penned a sonnet or maybe open-ended
and unrhymed heart-pained words
in an outpouring of haphazard and confused emotions.
I didn't know if you would read, or hear or feel,
so I kissed your blanket-warmed brow
and silently stole away.
I dance with my toes in the fire of emotion.
 
Would I live or love another day
or forever hunger for your words
and gentle kisses?
I seem to have spent a lifetime, lifeless,
and a smattering of love affairs, loveless.
Am I to deny friends
and end up friendless
because I lust for yet another taboo?
I dance with my toes in the fire of emotion.
 
My heart is again broken yet seamless,
a poem like bit of fluff torn from the sleeve
of my existence where it continually resides.
I wish the frost at your core would thaw,
melting ice dripping, dripping dripping,
a maddening sound of spring coming,
destroying the hell of winter once and for all.
I dance with my toes in the fire of emotion.
 
 
 
I am waiting the crash of symbols
or the tolling of a bell
as the litmus test of your feelings;
bearing a chad-edged and lined paper
written with a number two pencil;
I love you. Do you love me?
Check yes or NO,
and so it goes:
My love for you was left in a blue folder
upon a coffee table next to your sofa-sick bed.
 
 

​Like a warrior home from his last battle,
I piled dented shield and dulled sword
in an old dusty and locked room,
where only memories and loneliness rattle.
"I will fight no more, forever," upon my lips.
 
To love no more was once my master plan.
Scars upon my heart would heal in time.
There were no more dragons to slay,
no more maidens to steal across the land.
I will love no more, forever," upon my lips.
 
I lay alone in the dark shadow of a lover's moon
destined to remain a lonely, unbeaten warrior .
Oft offered heart slowly hardened, calcified,
"Maybe it will stop beating, and none too soon.
I will know pain no more, forever," upon my lips.
 
One day into my life a young beauty wandered,
peering, through the long unused keyhole
that lead into my carefully secured soul.
Slowly, as awakened from a dream, I pondered,
"I wonder if this is the end of forever," upon my lips.
 
I lifted door bars and disengaged rusted latches
slowly, carefully widening the oak-hewn door
that had been my heart's savior and salvation.
Could this be one of Cupid's unexpected matches;
"I will love you forever," upon our lips.

​Keith Burkholder has been published in Creative Juices, Sol Magazine, Trellis Magazine, Foliate Oak Literary Journal, New Delta Review, Poetry Quarterly, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Birmingham Arts Journal.  He has a bachelor's degree in statistics with a minor in mathematics from SUNY at Buffalo (UB).

​Now dead to the world,
He was not well-known,
But it was a tragic way to end his life,
He was only thirty-five years old,
A true Samaritan in every sense of the word,
What will happen next in life?
Could he reincarnate from the dead?
No one really knows about this,
For now his life was ended in a lynching,
He died a tragic way,
This can happen to anyone,
Of any age,
One moment here,
The next he is gone,
For this is suicide,
Let time pass and let your life be complete,
For death is eternal and this is just the way life is for us all.

​Think about this for a moment,
We are all forced into things,
Education,
Religion,
Relatives,
And other activities,
Do you even care about high school?
Ok, maybe if you earned awards,
To be recognized for something,
But in essence, do you care about you former classmates?
Do you even care if they are alive?
That is what Facebook is for,
People go on there,
They broadcast their lives,
Do you even care?
Most of us don't,
That is more than okay,
We have pasts,
There is the present,
Then the future,
Be good to yourself,
And try to be to others,
Tomorrow is a new day,
Let it be good to you as it arrives.

CLINGING

Shrouded in leaves and bark
its branches on the ground
made her look up

Against the concrete wall
she remembered
it stood
still

The lunch break all but over
the metal would be back soon
to finish the job

She touched what was left
raised her hand to her hair
and with the vision of herself
growing up as it grew tall
she pulled at a strand
just big enough
winced
groaned
and held it up high

'It doesn't hurt,' she said
as passers-by walked on
​

Microplastics and CO2
Desertification and smog
Landfills and algal blooms
Flooding and deforestation
Mudslides and sand mining
Fertiliser runoff and oil spills
Fracking and feedback loops
Coral bleaching and droughts
Melting glaciers and tar sands
Heat waves and degraded soils
Toxic waste and failing harvests
Biodiversity loss and oil pipelines
Hurricanes and depleted aquifers
Light pollution and rising sea levels
Ocean acidification and tipping points
Albedo effect and collapsing fish stocks
Saltwater intrusion and extinction events
Thawing permafrost and radiative forcing
Methane clathrates and shrinking ice caps
Resource depletion and urban heat islands
Ecocide and anthropogenic climate change
Power structures, short-termism, and greed
This is why I'm weeping
​

​Say they came and rescued you when you
had it all worked out thought through torn
down all loose ends tied no
leftovers and no one stood
to suffer more
than you would otherwise.

Say they looked at you with that warm
pity as if they knew better as
if nothing was about to come
crashing down and you knew they
would do it again if you did it again.

Say you wanted them to fail and never
again
stop you midway through or any
one else for that matter.

Take another shot at it for the
pain they caused you sue them re-
purpose yourself while there is time.

What do you say?

​You’d expect a specter to haunt by pewter moonlight.
Yet today I roam the September sunlit halls of what remains. 
 
Six brick stories. A hundred thousand stories more within,
so much smoldering antiseptic smoke escaping holes
 
where windows and doors once latched.
Ivy and spiders where nurses once made rounds.
 
Late summer light radiates through wrecked angles into silent corridors.
Rusted wheelchair. Water fountain. Shred of curtain beaten by breeze.
 
Amid the ruin, an empty nursery where
chattering family and church folk would
 
wave and coo to unaware newborns as they wailed alive.
Rows of bassinets now cracked, in shadow, lined up like a lost little infantry.
 
I am the only ghost here. 
Still, through broken rafters comes the hum of a familiar lullaby.
 
A flock erupts into cracks of sky.

 

​Some inner sanctums waft with mildewed pews and
bittersweet phosphorous of spoiled rose perfume.
 
But here, the fabric softener blooms from
freshly laundered corduroy and Fruit of the Loom.
 
Five-drawered dresser stuffed with size 10
socks; shelf ablaze with Judy Blume.
 
The chamber’s papered walls peel back from plaster,
sloughing like the skin of a long-gone resident whose
 
god died, too—maybe buried in the backyard garden
beside other rodents someone loved enough to name.
 
A toy box entombs creatures that await the
son’s return, but he isn’t coming back for them, not soon.
 
Instead, his stereo sings praise to adolescent idolatry,
its abominable Madonna knows exactly what to coo.

 

​After a sculpture by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse’s Le Messie 
And Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together.
                                                                                                                          Genesis 22:6-8
 

​I.
Albert, it’s winter in a many-mansioned house in Massachusetts
as I meander room to room past precious art,
each pair of double doors pinned open, mummified
wings to tombs dressed in flowers, faces, cathedrals,
rituals of the living and the dead.
Amid the collection, a maquette of your Messiah—the same one whose
full marble grandeur punctuates a Paris church.
But here and now, its cold illumination pierces only me.
 
II.
A mother, seated, draped in robes,
bows her head and lifts an infant over her head.
I think she may be merely one of countless Marys
who’ve offered up their innocent babes to heaven--
to the church and all its promises and threats.
Even now, the boy’s head hangs, his arms uncurl,
his feet like two pups huddling, awaiting a Roman spike.
No child chooses such surrender, such
sacrifice—tossed in a volcano to spare the crops.
 
III.
The mother, so somber, the soft egg of the boy’s head, so round--
Albert, you touched your tools to his tiny mouth,
made him from the clay and stone, never intending to
breathe life into him. And did you imagine what a boy king
might know of his own fate? How the weight of the world could
come to rest upon such helpless shoulders, themselves captive
to a mother’s muscled hands?
 
IV.
Show me something new: a mother releasing her son
not to empty sky, but to a cradle in a nursery of soft quilts,
music boxes, crackers and milk. She tucks her baby in, then
retires to a rocking chair beside a window
to hum a lullaby undisturbed by all the ancient stars
beyond the glass, or by the barren, distant moon, its marble
light an illusion of radiance.
All the while, her child’s sparrow-tender breaths keep time.
No crown of thorns will ever perforate his head.

 

​And on the eighth day, Adam
died, and there was no one left
who remembered the animals’
names. And so I wandered
the wilderness far from Eden,
over low dunes and wet meadows,
woodlands alive with wordless song,
seashores bursting with grey arcs
of anonymous fish. And as I wandered,
I pulled from my little satchel
a pencil and a blank spiral book,
pointed to each creature, each monster,
each stalk and vine, and spoke their names
into existence, though there was no
witness to this new sacrament but me,
the only man,
with all my ribs and
beating heart beneath
the only god,
the only serpent,
the only living word
in all the earth.
 

​Robin Wyatt Dunn lives in a state of desperation engineered by late capitalism, within which his mind is a mere subset of a much larger hallucination wherein men are machines, machines are men, and the world and everything in it are mere dreams whose eddies and currents poets can channel briefly but cannot control. Perhaps it goes without saying that he lives in Los Angeles.

​dig and dear the deer
dig the embled queer and shredded face of the dawn
sucked dry and stuck over the fireplace
shark and rat
and faceless hat
to wear inside the breeze
 
remember the name of the thing
remember the shape
remember the need of it
remember the reason of its breathing
​

​Sally, sally,
Battle Britt
Carp and Keep My Evening Shrift
to Seed The Soak and Spank the Oak
 
You Tremendous Oaf
Baffler Boffler Backler Bonded One
 
Is it myself, or you,
Ah, it's both.
 
Meet in the evening
For the Oath
Rankle the Devil
for his Toast
and mark the meal
for our Revoking
Peace
 
It's War.
 
My eye orn countryman.
My island watched fairy.
My reek and rook and wretched paper man,
So close to me,
I can smell your sweat,
Like yeast,
A loaf of loneliness,
Bespoke and curled about your feet,
It's eating me,
I see,
And better for it, and me,
To know it has begun.
 
I only wanted to say hello.
I only needed to leave you this clue:
Of the dragon
Please hear him in your sleep
Counting off your sheep
Inside his mouth.

the sun is a band
a band of men
a band of leather
a band on the porch
waiting for the night
 
smoking
tapping its feet

​the storm rises over my stomach
filling my legs with juice
the prickles sense the coming of the herb
prickling against the cloud
 
shuddering beneath the stream of the heart

​burn and burn and burn
the rate the train and you
lock and load and carry miles inside
lecher dawn's delight
lick the loose stain of rust from the freight car door
 
burn and burn and burn
burn the lad and lake
burn the tom and brakes
blanket all the night with my face over yours
 
burn the broad beggar
and lift him into the train
burn the street and your past face
we'll scar you to our own--
 
burn the setting and the trace
I have the calculation for our leaving
-- like a portal from the world --
-- in legend --
my heroes are you

​This manuscript is dedicated
to all I loved, trampled  
& killed
 
This manuscript is decorated
with flowers
died long ago
 
I write, scribble
thousand manuscripts
everyday, every week, month
 
But these comeback
to a secret chamber, to be read & loved 
by the trampled & killed

​Soccer match ended
in torrential rains
I was fourteen, & the field
muddy, really muddy.
Mother searched me from
sidelines, and later
among known friends.
Mud covered me,  
my friends’
This was not me mother had
known. The ball slipped
away from the goal keeper’s hand
& I got a goal,
& ecstasy, she
hardly knew.
 
Fourteen, I learned goals 
were possible; dribble past
mother,
wait for slips 
& muddy fields.

​Alleys are my favorites
dimly lighted 
Greater than dark
lesser than bright
 
I fear dark, the image of a 
white sheet father was lying 
covered with haunts me  in dark;
he had ulcer in stomach
 
I am afraid of brightness
Reminds me of a dance floor
where the leading lady
was knifed by someone she loved
 
I walk in dimly lit alleys
Where I stored my innocence
Where I liberated my insanity
Where I feel safe to laugh at you,  
myself

​We finally agreed to a
rendezvous, but 
ubiquitous vacuum clapped
our presence.
We looked at each other
Brown leaves fell
from the tree I planted
in a misty morning.
East tried to shine, but West
was all cloudy
 
Hands were pasted to
our shoulders
Lest the scratches and pains
Remind they were
nothing but prickles

​We need a change of house
& furniture.
This house is old & decaying
 
Here in the pale wall
a photo of my father, 
serious looking, grazes. 
 
I didn’t look at the photo
for the last three decades.
His eyes are too prying  
 
In the book shelf there is a title,
‘How the battle was lost’. I read the book  
everyday in the last three decades 
 
Water drips in my bath,
drips in a rhythmic way.
I adore the music and sleep
 
Once there was a garden
in the backyard
It’s untidy and abandoned now
 
Last week I saw obstinate yellow flowers
in the bush, peeping through bright,
feel-good sunshine 
 
which abandoned me
during the last three 
decades, everyday.  
 
I need a change of place
I need a new address, &  
a new vision
 
that does not search
yellow flowers & a serious,
grazing father.

​Inside of my dream
there’s a bird flying 
from one nest to an-
-other, without wings
Inside of my dream
there’s a man holding 
a sign that says, I 
have serious cancer
Inside of my dream
there’s one refugee 
with tears of grief 
because he lost hope
Inside of my dream
there’s a young lady
smoking, and waiting
for the train to suicide
Inside of my dream
there's a black cat
staring at me, and 
waiting to the end of my dream

​When I was a teenager
I donated to a little orphan
since then I made a vow that 
I would adopt her, and marry her
Days go by and nights come 
I learned how to hurt myself 
by doing bad habits that will 
guide me to die below the bridge
I lost count of my harmful cuts 
I lost all the joyful memories and 
moments from weeping beneath 
the lights of the miserable bar
My mother thought that I was well,
As my smile hid the tears that 
damaged my physical therapist 
within minutes after hearing me
I lost many chances and luck
until I met a broken heart,
she cried when she knew that I 
found what was missing of me
I found her 
between all of my poetry
between all of my cigarette smoke 
I tried to lose her
as I saw my shadow following her
Ann you didn't adopted a regular girl
you have definitely raised one angel
that showed me life with colours
From your love and care for my princess
the grief inside of me has smiled when
your daughter kissed my salty lips and 
wiped my tears, hopefully she will
close my eyes after my smiling face rests

​John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller is a novelist, poet, and former Foreign Service officer having served 27 years with the U.S. State Department serving in ten countries (Korea, Thailand, India, the Eastern Caribbean (Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts, St Lucia, and St Vincent) and Spain. Prior to joining the U.S. State Department, Jake taught overseas for eight years. Jake served in the Peace Corps in Korea. He grew up in Berkeley but has lived in Seattle, Stockton, Washington DC, Alexandria, Virginia and Medford, Oregon. He has traveled to over 45 countries and 49 states. He has been writing poetry, fiction, and novels for years. He has completed four SF novels and is seeking publication. His work has appeared in numerous literary magazines online. His poetry blog can be found at https://theworldaccordingtocosmos.com

​I had another encounter
With the divine recently
Another Cosmic cat perhaps
Perhaps not
 who knows what cats are
are they alien from another dimension
or was he channeling God ?
 
I call him the Buddha cat
For the cat loves
Sitting in a meditative pose
Not moving
Just starting at me
With his soulful deep eyes
Boring into my soul
exploring all my secret thoughts
 
the buddha cat
does not move
does not react
as he is so deep
into his interior mediation
truly in tune
with the cat universe
and the cosmos as well
 
the buddha cat
seems to be
one with God
one with Buddha
One with Allah
And all the other
Billion names of God
Known and unknown
 
The buddha cat
Can teach us all
About the art of meditation
As he zones inward
And loses his soul
Joining the cosmos
And becoming
The buddha cat
 
The buddha cat
Lives in a modest
Town house
In a modest suburb
Proving yet again
The divine spirit of God
Is everywhere all around us
 
The buddha cat
Reminds us all
To look for god
In the everyday
All around us
If we but have eyes
To see 

President Trump
Your words don’t make any sense
Any more
As they are increasingly
devoid of meaning
 
Often every word
out of your corrupted mouth
Is the exact opposite
of the accepted meaning
Of that word or phrase
 
Just one example
You were accused
Of trying to hide
the name Mc Caine
From the ship bearing that name
 
So that you would
 not be confronted
With the hated name
Mc Cain  
On your trip to Japan
 
If you had the chance
I am sure
You would engage
In the soviet era practice
Of removing people
from historical records
 
And Mc Caine
all references to the Senator
And his admiral father
Would be forbidden from being used
Seen or remembered
 
But you could not
even do that
As your evil foul deed
Came to light
In a memo
 
 
Written by an underling
Rather than admitting the truth
You gave us a world salad
Filled with unhinged words
Lumped together
 
President Donald Trump
insisted Thursday
he had nothing to do
 with keeping the USS John S. McCain
hidden from the site of his weekend speech
 
He said whoever
had done so was
“well-meaning.”
“I wasn’t involved.
I would not have done that.
 
I was very angry
 with John McCain
because
he killed health care,”
Trump said,
 
referring to the late senator’s
deciding vote
that killed a Senate GOP bill
to repeal
the Affordable Care Act.
 
“I was not a big fan
of John McCain
in any way, shape or form,”
Trump continued in comments
to reporters
 
“Now,
somebody did it
because they thought
I didn’t like him,
 OK?
 
And they were
well-meaning.
I will say,
I didn’t know anything
about it.
 
I
      would
                  never
                                have
                                            done
                                                           that.”
 
Almost
 every word
in your statement
Has been verified
to be a lie
 
And your statement
That whoever did it
Was well meaning
Contradicts
 “Well meaning”
 
For no one “well meaning”
Could have even contemplated
Such an act of monstrous  
profound disrespect
For three war heroes
 
Senator MC Caine
tortured in Vietnam
For five years
His Admiral father
And his admiral grandfather
 
In no way
could these actions
Be described as “well meaning”
As they were
profoundly mean spirited
 
 
And how pray tell
did John Mc Cain
Kill Health Care? 
By voting to not repeal health care?
Without a replacement plan
 
 
Meaning 15 millions people
would lose health care
Overnight?
That is how he killed
heath care?
 
It seems to me that the only
Accurate word would be
That he saved health care
From being destroyed forever
 
 
And how did you not know
Anything about this?
Why did someone in your team
Come up with this bizaro plan
Straight out of the Soviet era playbook
 
Perhaps President Putin
advised you
How to disappear people
from official photos?
And official memory as well?
 
All these words
No longer mean
what they used to mean
Now they mean what they mean
in a Trumpian bizaro world
 
As our mad prophet King
Chases the rabbit
Down the rabbit hole
Into the land
of wonderland
 
Where he hopes to rule
us forever
Screaming off with their heads
As he cuts words up
Into meaningless drabble
 
Where all words
Become unhinged lost words
In a cosmic word salad
Where they lose their meaning
And their mooring to reality
 
 
Found Poem Version
 
President Donald Trump
insisted Thursday
he had nothing to do
 with keeping the USS John S. McCain
hidden from the site of his weekend speech
 in Japan.
 
He said whoever
 
had done so was “well-meaning.”
“I wasn’t involved.
I would not have done that.
I was very angry
 with John McCain
because he killed health care,”
 
Trump said,
referring to the late senator’s deciding vote
that killed a Senate GOP bill
to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
 
“I was not a big fan of John McCain
in any way, shape or form,”
 
Trump continued in comments
to reporters
 on the South Lawn
of the White House.
 
 “Now,
somebody did it
because they thought
I didn’t like him, OK?
 
And they were
well-meaning.
 
I will say,
I didn’t know anything
about it.
 
I would never have done that.”
 
Trump’s second denial
came after 
The Wall Street Journal reported
 Wednesday
 
that the White House
wanted the Navy
to move the destroyer
“out of sight,”
 
citing an email
between military officials.
 
The ship is named for the late Arizona senator
and his father and grandfather,
 who were admirals.
 
Trump initially
denied any knowledge
of the effort in a tweet Wednesday night.
 
But an email to Navy and Air Force officials,
obtained by CNBC,
 had a number of directives,
 
including: “USS John McCain needs to be out of sight,”
and asking officials to “please confirm”
that directive “will be satisfied.”
A source with knowledge of the matter
confirmed to CNBC
the existence of that email.

The Journal
said a tarp
was hung over
the ship’s name ahead
of Trump’s trip
 
and that sailors
were directed to remove coverings
from the destroyer
that bore the McCain name.
 
The newspaper also said sailors
assigned to the ship,
who generally wear caps bearing its name,
 were given the day off
 
during Trump’s visit
to the nearby USS Wasp.
Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan
 
later told reporters,
 
“I would never dishonor
the memory of a great American patriot
like Sen. John McCain”
 
by asking that the ship be kept out of sight.
“I’d never disrespect
the young men and women
that crew that ship.
 
I’ve asked my chief of staff
to look into the matter ...
and as soon
as I find out more about this
I’ll let you know,” he added.
 
Note:  Please do so and let us know who gave the order
And whether this order was carried out
And if so, under who’s authority??
Inquiring minds want to know
 
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/30/trump-whoever-kept-uss-john-mccain-out-of-sight-was-well-meaning.html
 
 
 
                                                      
 

Virgina Beach
In a night of horrific scumbagery violence
Rarely seen in this jaded age of ours
Gone in one hour
In a spasm of horrific scumbagery violence
In just a few short minutes
Nothing more than that
In just a few moments
All 12 victims were murdered
 
By a disgruntled employee
Every one he knew was shot
And killed for no reason
Caused by the demons
His soul was so infected
 
Murderous demonic voices
All in his head
Screaming kill them all kill them all
Screaming none stop violence in his head
All the time
Causing him to start shooting everyone he saw
Regardless of who they were or where they were
Everyone must die screamed the demonic voices in his head
 
No one can be left alive
Everyone must die
Virtually all must die in his internal video game
Everyone must die
Regardless of who they were or where they were
 
Again just another day
Gone horribly wrong
All across America
In every town
No where is safe anymore
 
 
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/31/us/virginia-beach-shooting/index.html
 

​Best thing growing up
Experience as a life boy scout
Really great experiences
Kind of unique
Especially in Berkeley in the 60’s and 70’s
“Like wow man boy scouts are like fucking fascists training camps man, you are going to be a future FBI CIA DEA Narco undercover James Bond and shit, super bad assed motherfucking cop or something like that man.”
Everyone who was not a scout would tell me
Yet I persisted and loved being a boy scout
 
Life as a boy scout was weird yet totally awesome 
In those weird and wacky days learning to play with guns in the woods
Filled with denunciation of incipient fascism by everyone I met
Everyone told me that I would become a FBI counter intel agent
 
Still I persisted in my boy scout folly
Can’t blame folks for thinking those thoughts
Of course the boy scouts were all male, mostly white, non-atheist friendly
Unfriendly to the LGBT community
This was against the boy scout oath to be morally pure