Monthly Archives: March 2025

The Visitor for dVerse Poets “Personifying the Abstract,” Mar 26, 2025

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The Visitor
(In a Time of Covid)

My day is a guest who arrives too early,
starting the party without me to the insistent drumbeat
of a distant all-night party not yet over.
Its music sketches a portrait of my distant past:
wild nights, the sharp bite of tequila,
casual passion draped across my back.

Kukla the girl cat’s clever claws push me from my bed. 
Other than her insistent cries for desayuno,
this new day written across my life
comes with invisible directions. 
It smells like fresh-blooming plumeria
and tastes like Nescafé with Coffee-Mate and stevia.

It is too tame, this safe life with so many hand-washings
that they rise to my tongue and foam as I speak to myself in the mirror,
keeping six feet of distance even with myself
as I wait for the arrival and my capture
by this distant threat creeping ever closer.

“Sangre de Cristo,” mutters Jesus the water vendor,
taking his own name in both vein and vain as he
reminds me to keep my distance—
La señora, no matter how generous a tipper, now a threat.
I sweep his footsteps from the doorway,
set them on fire and gather their ashes for a poem.

The birds sing their way into my verses,
as does the snake that lies coiled in my kitchen sink.
I taste the language of all of them,
real life as surreal as any dream—
this world a wasp nest,
each of us sealed up in our individual cell.

Without a life, I write one for myself.
You are invited to join it here on my sanitary screen.
Make your rejoinders more clever than Alexa’s or Siri’s,
so I can dispense with the both of them.
Imagine me touching your words I cannot hear,
and make them less sharp than what you might be feeling.

A stream of family music from below
flows up the mountainside to pool in my ears.
I breathe the perfume of that family.
I savor its taste—tamarind, lime and salt,
the homeyness of bland tortillas—
and hope they are kept safe there.

For dVerse Poets. To read other poems written to this prompt, go HERE.

dVerse Poets Quadrille Challenge #220

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The Lady Doth Protest Too Much

That name engraved across my mind
is of the phantasmic kind.
The one who seems to have carved it there
is one for whom I do not care.
It is not grounded in truth or fact.
It seems my thoughts have just been hacked.

 

 

for dVerse Poets

To see other poems written to this prompt, go HERE.

The Numbers Game #65, Mar 24. Come Play Along!!

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Welcome to “The Numbers Game #65”  Today’s number is 186. To play along, go to your photos file and type that number into the search bar. Then post a selection of the photos you find that include that number and  post a link to your blog in my Numbers Game blog of the day. If instead of numbers, you have changed the identifiers of all your photos into words, pick a word or words to use instead, and show us a variety of photos that contain that word in the title.This prompt will repeat each Monday with a new number. If you want to play along, please put a link to your blog in comments below. Here are my contributions to the album.

Click on photos to enlarge.

This Week, for Cellpic Sunday

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For Cellpic Sunday

For Sunday Whirl Wordle, Mar 23, 2025

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The King of Chaos. I was on my way to a local hotel/restaurant to read my Trump poem when I saw a woman selling this pinata beside the road. I braked, turned around and went to buy it. A man, seeing me buying it, stopped to buy one as well. “Does it have anything inside?” He asked. “No, you have to cut it open in back and fill it,” I answered. “What should we fill it with?” asked his female companion. “I’d suggest filling it with baloney,” I answered.

The King of Chaos. I was on my way to a local hotel/restaurant to read my Trump poem when I saw a woman selling this pinata beside the road. I braked, turned around and went to buy it. A man, seeing me buying it, stopped to buy one as well. “Does it have anything inside?” He asked. “No, you have to cut it open in back and fill it,” I answered. “What should we fill it with?” asked his female companion. “I’d suggest filling it with baloney.”

Depression

A chain of glimmering wishes gleams silver as I free
my mind from all its worries of what is or what may be,
but moment by sadder moment, my sorrow flames again,
whipped up from fading embers of a sadness that has been
lingering like a trance that I cannot escape.
Faint shadows of those horrors that assume a larger shape.
I dip into my past to restore wild memories
that I naively hope will bring  depression to its knees.
But they do too little to trim away the fears
That hover all around me, holding pleasure in arrears.

The word prompts for today’s Sunday Whirl are: sorrow dip  chain wild silver free trance glimmer faint trim

(If you can think of a better title for this poem, please suggest it. Company arrived just as I was finishing it and gotta get posted.

Heather Cox Richardson. This is downright chilling. Loss of memory, rambling statements. And he’s on his way to play golf!!!

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Perhaps in response to the growing outcry over last weekend’s rendition of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador under a legal justification a federal judge has found questionable, President Donald Trump last night told reporters that he didn’t sign the proclamation that set that legal process in motion.

When asked when he signed the proclamation invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, by which Trump claimed that Venezuela is invading the United States by sending alleged gang members over the border, Trump answered: “I don’t know when it was signed, because I didn’t sign it.” Trump was on his way to his golf club in New Jersey, and seemed to be handing off responsibility for the declaration to someone else, perhaps Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Other people handled it,” he said. “But Marco Rubio’s done a great job. And he wanted them out, and we go along with that. We want to get criminals out of our country.”

But, as Matt Viser said in the Washington Post today, on Friday White House communications director Steven Cheung said Trump personally signed the proclamation, and his signature appears on the document in the Federal Register of official government documents. The gap between the two versions of events raises questions about who is in charge of White House policy.

Trump’s habit of deflection might explain last night’s statement, and his habit of distraction might explain today’s social media post, in which the president returned to an exchange of words between him and Maine governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, more than three weeks ago. At a meeting of the nation’s governors at the White House on February 21, in a rambling speech in which he was wandering through his false campaig stories about transgender athletes, Trump turned to his notes and suddenly appeared to remember his executive order banning transgender student athletes from playing on girls sports teams.

The body that governs sports in Maine, the Maine Principals’ Association, ruled that it would continue to allow transgender students to compete despite Trump’s executive order because the Maine state Human Rights Law prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender identity. Trump asked if the governor of Maine was in the room.

“Yeah, I’m here,” replied Governor Mills.

“Are you not going to comply with it?” Trump asked.

“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” she said.

“We are the federal law,” Trump said. “You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t….”

“We’re going to follow the law,” she said.

“You’d better comply because otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding,” he said.

Mills answered: “See you in court.”

As Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing of Politico recounted today, after the exchange between Trump and Governor Mills at the White House the administration opened investigations by the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture into Maine’s policies. The Department of Agriculture temporarily paused funding for the University of Maine, then restored it and cleared the university system of Title IX violations, saying it had “clearly communicated its compliance.” The University of Maine system said it was “relieved” and added that it had never violated Title IX compliance.

On March 11 the Department of Education abolished more than half of the offices in its Civil Rights Division, getting rid of more than half of the division’s employees. Last Wednesday it said it had concluded its investigation into the Maine Department of Education and had determined that the state was violating Title IX by permitting transgender youth to play in the boys’ or girls’ sports that conform to their gender identity. It gave the state ten days to follow the administration’s interpretation of the law.

This morning, the president posted on social media: “While the State of Maine has apologized for the Governor’s strong, but totally incorrect, statement about men playing in women’s sports while at the White House Governor’s Conference, we have not heard from the Governor herself, and she is that one that matters in such cases. Therefore, we need a full throated apology from the Governor herself, and a statement that she will never make such an unlawful challenge to the Federal Government again, before this case can be settled. I’m sure she will be able to do that quite easily. Thank you for your attention to this matter and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!! DJT.”

Mills was a former state attorney general, and her position is that it is her job as governor to follow state and federal law. But Trump seems to be trying to make his fight with her personal. So long as she is willing to kowtow to him, the “case” can be “settled.” Exactly what she is supposed to be apologizing to him for is unclear, unless it is that she stood up to him, a rare enough event that at the time, Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times noted: “Something happened at the White House Friday afternoon that almost never happens these days. Somebody defied President Trump. Right to his face.”

At the White House, Governor Mills was not only reinforcing the rule of law in the face of an authoritarian who is working to shatter that principle; she was standing up to a bully who claims to be protecting women and girls but who has bragged about sexual assault, been found guilty of sexually assaulting writer E. Jean Carroll, and barged in on teenaged girls dressing in the Miss Teen USA changing room.

Trump’s political stances have also belied his claim to protect women. He has worked to deny women and girls access to health care, including the right not to die needlessly from a miscarriage. He has undermined women’s right to control their own bodies and defunded or stopped the programs that protect their right to be safe from domestic violence and sexual assault. He has ended programs designed to protect women’s employment and has fired women from positions of authority.

Mills stands in dramatic contrast to Trump. Her career has focused on helping women and girls to overcome domestic violence, the threat of sexual assault, and inequities in the workplace. As a district attorney—the first woman elected as a DA in New England—she grew frustrated with the ways in which the criminal justice system failed victims of domestic violence. She co-founded the Maine Women’s Lobby to advocate for battered and abused women, which then led to her election to the Maine legislature and from there to state attorney general and then to the governorship.

While Trump’s demand that Mills make a “full throated apology” to him is in keeping with his habitual attempts to dominate women, Mills follows in a tradition of women from Maine who stood up for the principles of American democracy against bullies who would destroy it.

In a similar moment, Senator Margaret Chase Smith, of Skowhegan, Maine, stood up to Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy. McCarthy and his supporters were hoping to gain votes in the 1950 midterm elections by stoking fear that the communists who had recently taken control of China threatened the U.S. On February 9, 1950, during a speech to a group gathered in Wheeling, West Virginia, to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, McCarthy, a Republican, claimed that he had a list of 205 communists working for the State Department and that the Democrats refused to investigate these “traitors in the government.”

Sympathetic newspapers trumpeted McCarthy’s charges—which kept changing, and for which he never offered proof—and many of his colleagues cheered him on, while Republicans who disapproved of his tactics kept their heads down to avoid becoming the target of his attacks.

All but one of them did, that is. Senator Smith recognized the damage McCarthy and his ilk were doing to the nation. On June 1, 1950, with McCarthy sitting two rows behind her, Smith stood up in the Senate to speak. “Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism,” she said. Americans have the right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, to protest, and to think for themselves, she said. She condemned those trying to stifle dissent.

“I do not want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear,” she said. “As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist. They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.”

Senator Smith ended with a warning: “It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”

—

Notes:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/22/trump-deportations-autopen/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-see-you-in-court-maines-governor-tells-trump-on-transgender-athlete-ban

https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-educations-office-civil-rights-concludes-maine-department-of-education-violating-title-ix

https://www.propublica.org/article/education-department-civil-rights-division-eroded-by-massive-layoffs

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325854/trump-education-department-layoffs-civil-rights-student-loans

https://www.ed.gov/media/document/letter-of-finding-maine-doe-109602.pdf

https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-educations-office-civil-rights-concludes-maine-department-of-education-violating-title-ix

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/us/politics/trump-maine-governor-transgender-athletes.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/22/donald-trump-trans-athletes-maine-00003871

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/SmithDeclaration.pdf

https://apnews.com/article/trump-rape-carroll-trial-fe68259a4b98bb3947d42af9ec83d7db

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/a-timeline-of-donald-trumps-creepiness-while-he-owned-miss-universe-191860/

https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/about

Bluesky:

ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3lkxtadpkc22f

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Time to Order the Book

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Someone told me they didn’t vote for Trump, they voted for our country. Now time to do more for it. Get rid of this person who is dismantling it, bit by bit. If you are still unconvinced, order and read the book written by his niece!!! Available for free in ebook or audible with a trial membership on Everand. 

Overdone Quinceañera for dVerse Poets, Mar 21, 2025

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ddvers

Overdone Quinceañera

She’s framed in a portrait that’s slightly off-center
wearing a fur stole her sister has lent her.
Her chin on her hand, jewels on finger and wrist,
she’s trying to hide that she’s never been kissed.
Just a teenager, she’s longing for glory,
trying to add romance to her story.
Though she looks mature, she is new to the scene.
Time enough for such glamour when she is sixteen!

 

 

An Ekphrastic poem for dVerse Poets  Open Link

Some Poultry Answers, for Fibbing Friday, Mar 21, 2025

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For Fibbing Friday, the task at hand is: Have some fun with dreaming up who these ‘familiar people’ were or what they could be remembered for (or whatever your mind comes up with).

1.  Perseus. A handbag designer
2.  Ares  Where they stashed the Native Americans (Naughty, naughty)
3.  Achilles  A Mexican restaurant
4.  Poseidon  King of flowers
5.  Medusa An American-based Health coverage organization.
6.  Athena Where you can usually find the best eggs. If not available, try at hen b.
7.  Hades  What Lucille Ball’s  response to her husband was when he told a good joke.
8.  Apollo  A poultry hero
9.  Cronos  A petition to make raising poultry in urban areas illegal
1o. Hermes His response when she asks him to clean up the kitchen after she has finished cooking.

Snopes confirms truth of the below. What next?

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According to Task & Purpose, cemetery officials confirmed that they “unpublished” the pages in question in compliance with a Trump administration executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion and a resulting directive from U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “targeting race and gender-related language and policies in the military.” This was confirmed by Snopes!!!! Read below.

SnopesClaim:

In mid-March 2025,

The Arlington National Cemetery website removed links to webpages about Black, Hispanic and female veterans buried at the site.

Rating:

True

 

 

(archived) circulated online that the Arlington National Cemetery website had removed links to webpages about Black, Hispanic and female veterans buried at the site.The claim originated from a report by Task & Purpose, a military news, culture and analysis outlet. The report found that between December 2024 and March 2025, several links to pages relating to Black, Hispanic and female veterans disappeared from Arlington National Cemetery’s website.

Using archive.org‘s Wayback Machine, a website that archives pages from across the web, we verified the removal of links that Task & Purpose reported. The removed links included three pages from the “Notable Graves” section, six education “themes,” two pages from the “History of Arlington National Cemetery” subsection and one page from the website’s “Explore” tab. Therefore, we rate this claim true.

According to Task & Purpose, cemetery officials confirmed that they “unpublished” the pages in question in compliance with a Trump administration executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion and a resulting directive from U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “targeting race and gender-related language and policies in the military.”

We reached out to Arlington National Cemetery to confirm the above. We also asked the cemetery to confirm exactly which links officials removed and when. A cemetery spokesperson gave the following reply:

We are proud of our educational content and programming and working diligently to return removed content to ensure alignment with Department of Defense instruction 5400.17 and Executive Orders issued by the President.  We remain committed to sharing the stories of military service and sacrifice to the nation with transparency and professionalism, while continuing to engage with our community in a manner that reflects our core values.

In a further March 14, 2025, email, the same spokesperson said, “We are hoping to begin republishing updated education modules next week.”

Missing links led to pages paying tribute to Black, Hispanic and female veterans

The Task & Purpose report included a full list of links the outlet said disappeared from Arlington National Cemetery’s site.

Using Wayback Machine, we replicated Task & Purpose’s findings. The missing links, removed between December 2024 and March 12, 2025, were as follows:

At the time of this writing the pages listed above still existed and could be accessed through their direct URLs, but not through links on the Arlington National Cemetery website.

For example, the Freedman’s Village page was still available through its direct URL, though the History of Arlington National Cemetery section of the website no longer linked directly to it. The page detailed the temporary settlement housing formerly enslaved people that the federal government constructed on Arlington National Cemetery grounds in 1863.

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Section 27 of Arlington National Cemetery saw the cemetery’s first military burial during the Civil War. More than 3,800 African American formerly enslaved people were also buried in Section 27, according to the page, which was still live but also not directly linked on the site on March 14.

Six “Themes” disappeared from the cemetery’s Education portal between February and March 2025. (education.arlingtoncemetery.mil / web.archive.org)

From a page-by-page click-through of the Arlington National Cemetery website we also found a missing list of webinars under the website’s “Explore” section. The Webinars subpage disappeared from the site between Feb. 22, 2025, and March 11, 2025. The page contained recordings of talks on topics including “Freedman’s Village” and “75 years recruiting women” that might have qualified it for removal.

Links removed following DOD ‘digital content refresh’

The U.S. Army, reporting to the Department of Defense, operates Arlington National Cemetery under the Office of Army Cemeteries. Therefore, policies enacted in the DOD also apply to the cemetery, its staff and its website.