Tag Archives: poem about Donald Trump

Holding On Together, for The Sunday Whirl

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Holding On Together
Greed, despair and tragedy need not rule our lives,
so long as that calm part of us holds on and survives.
(That presence that walks with us on those hard journeys where
evil seems to stalk us from within its fiendish lair.)
For at each of its stages, Earth has held it all:
both vibrating heart strings that heed the spirit’s call
as well as those demonic fiends that seem to be in power,
issuing their edicts from whichever tower 
they’ve chosen to reign from, be they palaces of stone
or White Houses half demolished that they claim to own.
These despots or these presidents, these potentates or kings
seem to concentrate their power in edicts and in things,
whereas those below them go on living their lives
by concentrating on the kindness that survives
and which we show each other in our living day-to-day,
hoping that the nightmare will soon fade away.

This is my very favorite quote and I have paraphrased it a hundred times. Here is the actual quote:

“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is what happened on the banks.” ~ Will Durant

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle  the prompt words are:
greed tragedy despair presence walk calm strings earth all spirit vibrating heart
Images created with the help of AI…the best that I could do.

Requiem for a Tyrant, for The Sunday Whirl Wordle Dec. 1, 2024

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Requiem for a Tyrant
(Guess Who?)

He will wander from the wide-eyed world into that sacred cave
where past memories assault him—wave on wave on wave,
bringing back on him the agonies, maneuverings and strife,
shattering the safety that cushioned him in life.

Harsh currents froth around him and spray into his eyes—
all his evil actions, his cheating and his lies
strung out to swirl around him, shifting power once again
so he becomes the object of all his former sin.

For The Sunday Whirl Wordle  the word prompts are:frothed waves string face cave spray sacredshift shattered safe wide-eyed world  

Ta Ta and Good Riddance

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Ta Ta and Good Riddance

He wants to know what’s all this fuss
about being unscrupulous.
Honor to him is just a fable—
His every act meant to enable
a law or bill or legal tort
as a means to then exhort
his cronies to increase his fame
to pad his pockets and laud his name.
His vacant eyes contain naught
of what he did for  what he’s got.
A patriot for sure he’s not.
If I were forced to make a list
of all the ways he is not missed,
I fear the list would stretch so far
as Katmandu or Zanzibar.
And though I know them all by heart,
I do not have the time to start
at the beginning and reach the end.
So I’ll just say, here and anon,
that I’m relieved that he is gone.

 

Prompt words today are enable,  scrupulous, vacant, list and exhort.
Photo by Srikanta from Unsplash, used with permission.

The Graffiti Artist

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Graffiti Artist

Such errands as having to go to the store
to get milk for one’s mother can be a big bore.
Then I spot a blank wall that alters my view
of what I’ve been sent to the corner to do.

My mind shifts a cog and memory grows faint
as I forget the milk and instead buy spray paint.
I’ve abandoned my purpose and lost my perspective
to scrawl on the wall these words of invective.

It’s not that my sentiments are hocus-pocus.
It’s simply that I have shifted my focus.
I don’t prevaricate, for though they’re ruthless,
let it not be said that my statements are truthless.

What some see as defacement, others see as art,
but this is never my goal from the start.
When I have a thought, I just want to share it.
Some put it on T-shirts and then choose to wear it,

but I want it bigger. I have to shout.
My feelings require a wall to get out!
So please look at the message and if you must blame
someone for graffiti, just look at the name

of the politician that I am exposing
for graft and corruption or lying or posing.
He’s the real villain. I’m only the one
who’s revolting with spray paint instead of a gun!!!

Prompt words for today are prevaricate, focus, abandoned, scrawl and perspective. All photos of graffiti thanks to Unsplash. Used with permission.

Playing with Matches

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Playing with Matches

A family of good repute,
attractive, rich and most astute,
they were nonetheless resistant,
stubborn, pig-headed, persistent
in the planet’s sure demise.
It should have come as no surprise
when they chose to politicize,
using that influence money buys
to become candidates who chose
to rape and pillage, preen and pose
but did not care a single whit
about the planet, but ravaged it.

They paid for monetary gains
with forest fires and hurricanes.
Cared only for self-serving wealth,
forfeiting safety, and the health
of thousands who fell to the threat
of pestilence and grief and debt.
What cared they of the good of those
who didn’t sport designer clothes—
who hobnobbed with the hoi polloi
so lacking in finesse and joy?

And so politicos and cronies,
ministers and other phonies,
rap stars, lawyers, politicians
fed their spoils to the morticians.
That triangle of greed and crassness
together with the cruel vastness
of their dishonesty and greed,
like a virus commenced to breed
foment in what used to be
a bastion of democracy.

Kids in cages, plagues that flourished—
who cared if the undernourished
perished to the awful swell
so long as billionaires were well?
For four long years their riches grew,
feeding on the likes of you!
The monarch yielded royal scepter
as the inept grew  still inepter,
ruling with a heedless hand
to rape the populace and land.

Until the nation finally turned
and, finally, travesty spurned,
kicked out the dolt and started to
restore order to the zoo.
Trump’s hand finally overtrumped,
his evil minions finally bumped
from positions they never mastered,
thrown on the junk heap with the bastard!
The whole world hopes we’ve finally learned
those who play with matches are burned!!!!

 

Sorry, but the prompt words made me create one last rant. I hope this subject is now closed! Prompt words today are triangle, planet, persistent and repute.

Been There, Don That!!!

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Been There, Don That!

I wouldn’t give a nickel, I wouldn’t give a tuppence
to save our expired president from his earned comeuppance.
His service contract’s over. He will not get another.
And hopefully Ivanka won’t, nor will her older brother.
They’ll no doubt muddle on in life, spending their father’s millions,
living on a credit line, maintaining they have billions.
A new guy’s in the White House and we hope he might
prompt a more irenic phase to save us from our plight.
He doesn’t shoot endangered species or found charities to plunder—
proof that future national elections need not echo our past blunder!!!

Prompt words today are muddle, service, comeuppance and irenic. (Irenice=prompting peace or reconciliation.) Image by Jose M. on Unsplash. Used with permission.

Knowing

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Knowing

We cast long shadows in the sun,
but shorter as the day is done,
and when we shrink into our selves,
placing  our souls upon their shelves,
what shadows last? Are our souls
made of  Teflon or are they bowls?
The world’s vendettas should be left
back in the wide world lest their heft
leave our spotless souls bereft
and our inner natures cleft.

Those whom we honor with boundless fame
and lionize in face and name
might sport a very great divide
if we were to see inside—
their nature split  between what they
profess to be—what they might say
and what their true intentions are.
Their true motives might be far
from what we perceive as their intentions.
We cannot know a soul’s dimensions
except by looking at the facts
of how the outer person acts.

What they profess that they believe
may often be used to deceive.
But heart-to-heart, it is absurd
to think truth is conveyed by word.
Some part of us knows deeper meaning
devoid of boasting, strutting, preening.
The soul requires no advertisement,
seeks no excess aggrandizement.
In our soul of souls we know
what is authentic and what’s for show.
That shadow that we cast without
within has very little clout.

 

This poem is both a commentary and assessment of those who have lately been much in the arena and about ourselves–including myself.

Prompt words today are long shadows, vendetta and lionize.

Still on the Nickel?

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Still on the Nickel?

Four hundred thousand for a pension, a million for his travel.
More for his security, McConnell, pound your gavel.

Give him not a penny. Not a nickel nor a dime.
He deserves no further payment for his life of crime.

May the senate use its Trump card to deal out his comeuppance.
When it comes to a pension, he should get nary a tuppence.

We’re tired of his finagling, the lies and all the trouble.
It’s time we drew the needle out to burst his four-year bubble.

If I may be pauciloquent, I’ll simply say, “IMPEACH!!!”
Finally do the right thing. Kick out the sonnofabeach!!!!!!

Prompt words today are comeuppance, trouble, pauciloquent (terse, using few words) and finagle.
“On the Nickel” in this context means “On the dole.” The Nickel is a street in San Francisco where a lot of homeless hang out. That Trump should have his hand out for further entitlements after his term is over just seems unconscionable to me. Let him earn his own nickels from now on. Impeachment will insure this. Here is one of my favorite Tom Waits songs that I drew my title from.

Trump Tower II

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Trump Tower II

The architecture of the house takes his needs to heart.
To create a perfect climate in every single part
was a top priority, so when the north winds blow,
within, he feels no ill-effects from gale or rain or snow.

He’ll find the ambient temperature is perfect day and night.
Summer, winter, spring or fall, be it day or night,
his family will not feel the cold, succumb to summer’s scorch
In the bedroom or the living room, the basement or the porch.

The sound control in every room functions without a hitch,
so when he whispers secrets, the staff can never snitch.
Noise produced in one room is not heard in any other.
He’s protected from Ivanka’s soaps and rock played by her brother.

All-in-all the ambience surrounds them like a glove—
be it balmy climate or all the sounds they love.
Bird song or the ocean or mixtures of the two.
What animal sounds they might crave—an auditory zoo.

Species may vanish off the earth but he will always hear them.
It’s nice to enjoy species without having  to be near them.
Doves cooing, elephants trumpeting, a lion’s hearty roar
might persuade a burglar to remain outside his door.

What cares he if the oceans rise and masses do not love it?
His house converts into a boat so you can float above it.
The whole world may freeze stiff or burn for all that he may care,
for he’ll be protected safely, tucked up in his fine lair.

Prompt words today are architecture,  ambient, succumb, snitch.

Fore!!! (Ousted)

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Fore!!! (Ousted)

He wasn’t fit, he wasn’t deft.
Of brainpower, he was bereft.
So it should have been a landslide loss
that demoted him from being boss,
but it seems that daftness is in vogue.
Too many voted for the rogue.
Yet when I heard, to my delight,
we’d been  delivered from four years’ blight,
I whooped my whoops and cried my cries.
No constant orange would greet my eyes
whenever I turned on the tube.
We’ve exorcized the bungling boob!

Prompt words today are delight, landslide and  deft.