Translation: “Donald, we are watching you!” jdb photo, solidarity march, La Manzanilla, MX
The prompt today was “farce.”
Spiked Interest: A Modern Day Fairytale
There’s spiked interest in forgiving. It’s become the newest fad.
Sis forgave her boyfriend and my mom’s forgiven Dad.
Isis forgave the infidels and Christians forgave arabs.
Egypt forgave England for absconding with their scarabs.
Now the Nepalese love China, they called them on the phone
and China made a promise to leave Everest alone.
Ukraine made up with Russia. Mongols gave up declining
to give any permits for the Chinese to keep mining.
The world would be so perfect, given all of these befriendings;
but sadly, only fairytales have these happy endings.
Marilyn, thanks for suggesting a tie-in to this Tom Lehrer song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIlJ8ZCs4jY
The WordPress prompt today is “spike.”
Can’t you see it, my fine sir?
Your life is one long racial slur,
combined with the disdain you feel
for a fine calf in a high heel.
You rail and sputter, rage and roar
until your scorn becomes a bore.
A petulant and spoiled child,
you bring out what is dark and wild
in those you seek to represent,
’til all of us are madness bent.
Others seek to stem the tide.
They match your vain despotic pride
with reason, kindness, calls for peace.
On their calm waters, you float like grease.
How can our country have sunk this low?
We’re pulled out by your undertow.
We struggle here, in sight of land
where calm and justice have been banned.
You are the antithesis to reason.
Charged with infamy and treason,
you simply hold a mirror to
the truth and say it isn’t you!
Slinging charges wild and truthless,
you show your nature: vain and ruthless.
You pollute our rivers, offend our friends.
The harm you do just never ends.
The principles of our constitution
cry out for their restitution.
These shores that welcomed your family
call out for equality.
Those rights women have fairly won
are not yet ready to be done.
WE THE PEOPLE seek to be heard.
We’re tired of actions we find absurd.
In place of your outrageous gall,
we seek your silence once and for all!
The prompt today was slur.
I made a misstatement in my last “Odd Ball” post for Cee’s prompt. I mistakenly said it was a photo I’d altered with my photo editing program (Photos, by Apple) when in fact it was a detail from a collage I did while at forgottenman’s house in Missouri a few years ago.
In response to the photo I posted, I got this query from anglogermantranslations:
And yes, anglogermantranslations, it is a political piece, although Mr. Trump had not yet come upon the scene in a political sense when I created it. He is a product of the theme, however, that dealt with the vanished innocence of our society and how the natural order of things has been taken over by big business and the profit motive. Was I right or was I right?
Tracks of My Tears
Every time I put it on, it runs down the hill.
I never had the knack of it, and now I never will.
Each eyelash might be clad in it, but in just a minute,
a tear goes streaking down my cheeks with my eye makeup in it.
It’s not that I am not adept. It goes on beautifully.
And I fan my new-made eyes ’til dry, dutifully.
Then I remember that a jerk is in the White House now.
At first I wonder why and then, I remember how
the majority of citizens voted for this churlish
oaf because the female candidate lacked being girlish.
Now eye makeup for me is simply something in the past,
for I can’t keep a dry eye over how our nation’s cast.
I have fears that for four years our nation will be limping,
so when it comes to eye makeup, I’m giving up my primping.
I think a lot of tears will flow down here in the dumps
now that the oval office officially is Trump’s.
The prompt today is “primp.”
“Macho” by Judy Dykstra-Brown, jdbphoto
Blind Judgment
Wielding words like bludgeons, they stumble through our world,
supporting fools as their gods, confederate flags unfurled.
Motivated more by hate than any rational thought,
they’d have no more spices added to our melting pot.
Hooligans wielding bludgeons as simple as a vote
cannot see the truth of what their voting might denote.
A businessman with ethics determined by the dollar
seems to have convinced them he’s the friend of the blue collar.
Bankruptcy and divorces, rash words and rasher actions.
Tax-dodging obligations, like a child in his reactions.
His minions yielding bludgeons, be they cudgels, guns or mallets,
now have it in their power to trash the world with ballots.
So all these bleating sheep with their lovely little daughters
will feed them to misogyny, like lambs led to their slaughters.
What leads nations on in these times of mass delusion?
Tomfoolery and hate and fear can lead to mass confusion.
We’ve seen it down through history with Hitler and Pol Pot.
Attila and Idi Amin, Gaddafi and Sadat.
All the blind majority led onward by a dunce.
All the dark sides of the world coming out at once.
Please, fathers love your daughters and mothers love your sons.
Protect them from the hatred of bigots wielding guns.
From politicians inventing facts and changing history,
leaving devastation wherever they might be.
We’re taught that justice must be blind to shield in its detection
of prejudice, and yet that selfsame blindness in election
may lead to faulty judgment that leads to foolish acts.
We should not cast our ballots when blinded to the facts.
The prompt today was “bludgeon.”
painting by James Hollis. Available on etsy
Radical Rabbits
Radical rabbits jump the stump
and conservatives with one big jump,
but they’ve been known to butt and bump
such right wing radicals as Trump.
This right wing radical, slightly crazy,
seems to leave some voters hazy
and spin their judgement upsy-daisy,
making their thinking super lazy.
Radicals aren’t all on the left.
Extreme’s the warp but not the weft.
One loose of tongue and good at theft
might leave our country most bereft.
If conservative’s your bent,
when you hear him spew and vent,
would you wish him to be sent
to D.C. as your president?
Radical’s found on either side––
right and left of where you bide.
Please cast your vote for a bonafide
choice that is not suicide!
Radical rabbits may be slightly
more to the left than you deem rightly.
Still their motives shine out brightly
and they are not as unsightly!!!
Yes, you guessed it. The prompt today was “Radical.” The electricity went out as I was writing this so I hurried to get it posted. Wish I’d had a bit more time for rewriting and perhaps I’ll do so later, especially for that last line which only scans if you read it as intended––with the stress on “they, not, as and sight!” Hope to find a better solution when the lights come back!!!
The words above occurred to me in a flash as I was swimming (past midnight) in the pool tonight, but I think they mesh well with the below commentary by Trae Crowder that awaited me on Facebook when I got in from the pool around 2 a.m.; and it is what caused me to post both my own thoughts and this commentary. It contains a bit of rough language, but it is for a purpose and the points he makes are ones I think we’ve all been ripping our hair out trying to get Trump supporters to realize. I hope you hear it through to the end. (Thanks okcforgottenman for introducing me to this video!)
The Three Stooges and National Campaign Reform
If I could change one thing about my country, it would be the national campaign and campaign financing process! The three ring circus that now exists is anything but fun. The posturing, lies, mud-slinging and character defamation (and recently the presidential candidates themselves) are more reminiscent of the Three Stooges than of the dignified performances that it seems should be called for on the part of those who are going to run our country and determine our futures.
I would like to see a system where presidential candidates are allowed to campaign for four months only. This would be done during a series of twice weekly debates and interviews run by a non-partial panel of interviewers who ask questions on key issues.
Each candidate would also be afforded so much space in newspapers per week but the articles would also be written by nonpartial journalists. Biographies of candidates would be written, again, by third parties who have no stake in election results.
The biggest change might be to totally outlaw campaign financing and instead to set up a common fund for candidates and to provide equal time for all of the leading candidates that would be provided by the networks and individual newspapers and national magazines. An additional advantage to this banning of campaign financing is that it might curb influence-peddling and graft and corruption in voting. Perhaps we could get out of the power clutch of big business and again make our government one by the people, of the people and for the people rather than one serving the interests of mainly the powerful and wealthy.
This may sound idealistic, but wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to base your votes on real information rather than theatrics, mud-slinging and character defamation? Perhaps if candidates were limited in the time they were given they would use that time to confront the real issues.
I don’t know how mailings and internet contact of private citizens could be regulated without impinging on the rights of free speech, as it would be a dangerous precedent to limit mention of candidates on various social platforms, but perhaps someone else could figure out some way to stop the current slander and libel and cruel character assassinations that occur on the internet. If not, at least we could encourage our government leaders not to serve as the patterns for such behavior.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Fun Platform.” If you were the new leader of your country and had the chance to transform something that’s currently an annoyance (or worse) into a very fun activity, what would it be? How would you go about the change, and why would you choose that particular thing?
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 