Tag Archives: poems about politics

A Cautionary Tale

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A Cautionary Tale

I’m held spellbound by your plan. It is ingenious for sure.
You might be a benefactor and your motives may be pure,
but still you are a diplomat and know your way around
all of the maneuverings that daily may be found

in politics and daily life and so I wonder why
the minute that I said I’d sell, you made an offer to buy.
Is it, as you say, because you know I need the cash,
or are your motives otherwise and have I been too rash

in leaping at your offer? Perhaps I’ll look around
and see if there’s a better deal waiting to be found.
Conspiracies are floating ’round. I hear there is an air full.
In politics and real estate, you cannot be too careful.

 

Prompt words today are spellbound, why, benefactor, ingenious, diplomatic. Image by Maria Lin Kim Luhn on Unsplash

Torch of Liberty

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Torch of Liberty

If we could kidnap inequality and lock it safe away,
then resurrect our scruples and let them have their say,
we could acquit our consciences and set our nation right.
Then reilluminate her torch to guide us through the night.

 

Prompt words today are acquit, scruples, kidnap, inequality Photo by Juan Mayobre on Unsplash Used with Permission.

Relax. The World is Rosy.

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Relax. The World is Rosy. 

A passenger on Air Force One has issued a decree.
In flights over the ocean, he’s noticed no debris.
Thus, reports of scientists concerning plastic trash
are, POTUS assures us, probably too rash.
Do not accept the evidence of scientists verbatim.
Comments by reality stars furnish better datum.
Wind turbines cause cancer. Global warming is a farce.
Proof that GMO’s are really harmful is too sparse.
Of course we are ecstatic to discover science is faulty.
Next they’ll make daft declarations that the ocean’s salty!!!

 

https://shop.donaldjtrump.com/products/trump-straws

Truth is stranger than fiction? Yes, it is true the the Trump campaign has made $460,000 selling plastic soda straws with Trump’s name stamped on them.

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/08/politics/trump-global-warming/index.html

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/07/19/president-trump-we-have-bigger-problems-than-plastic-straws.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-claims-wind-turbines-cause-cancer-reigniting-long-feud-2019-4

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-gmo/trump-simplifies-reviews-of-genetically-modified-farm-products-idUSKCN1TC2Q8

The prompt words today are evidence, trash, daft, ecstatic and flights. 

Gratitude

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Thanks Be to Pure Hearts

 Thanks be to that creator of the universe—
the one I can no longer pray to in a church
because of those powers who take truth prisoner
and lead the masses to be whoever can be most safely trusted
to surrender reason to those powers.

Thanks be to that man who turned water into wine.
Not a teetotaler. Not even abstinent, or so some say.
That man who loved all and who would not strike anyone
except for merchants making a living from the church.
Two thousand years ago,
he saw that merchants and moneylenders
would lead the world wrong—
using the little minds of frightened men
to turn faith into a weapon.

Praise be to those at the beginning of it all
who tried to set a true course but made the mistake
of leaving the compass in the hands of human fools
who saw, over all, how to use it for their own glory,
making power their god and oiling their way upward
not toward salvation
but toward ever higher places in this world.

Those who are not fools might speak our enemies’ names
yet be shouted down by those
Dunning and Kruger have named as their adjutants—
the countless mindless who speed the world toward ruin.

Yet for this day, I want to turn my back on those I’d rather curse
to thank pure hearts who still can see the way.
There is still, I know, a part of them in all of us,
evident in everyday things: a mother’s sheltering arms
or in as simple an act as taking the smallest piece of pie.

So when we give thanks today,
thank those who remain kind within the world,
carrying along the spirit
of those first beneficent acts
that started with the dust of stars
and from it created consciousness
and then implanted some good turn of will
so as to give hope in a world
that feels divided in the blackness of the universe,
lonely in this night
but steered by those pinpricks in its cover
through which light shows, even in the darkest dark.

 

This is a rewrite of a poem written three years ago. The prompt today is gratitude.

How the Mighty Will One Day Fall

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I would pay a pretty tuppence
to see his highness get his comeuppance.
His smug assurance, his galling preening.
He’s like a babe in need of weaning,
sucking at the teat of fame.
What other mortal needs his name
written on towers around the world?
He’s Ozymandius, stone lip curled
in cruel splendor, sure in his power
reasserted on every tower.
But remember, as he counts each coup,
how all the mighty have fallen, too.
False knights wear armor prone to tarnish.
His Midas touch will lose its varnish.
We’ll laud the day when he’ll be dumped—
That day when he’ll be over-trumped!

 

The prompt today was mighty.

Peculiar Little Habits

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Peek at the keys spread out on the floor.

Peculiar Little Habits

Peculiar little habits and peculiar little ways
help us pass away the hours and wile away the days.
When you enter in the door, close it exactly twice
to be sure the catch secures as solid as a vice.
Always check the doorknobs before you go to bed
to be sure the deadbolt  is completely dead.
Security is something that can’t be left to chance.
You must man the battlements and take a vigilant stance.
Do not invite strangers to wander through your home.
Give foreign folks and foreign thoughts no further place to roam. 

Seal your borders. Block people who
may be a different color from you.
Be sure that you have set a ban
on each thing unAmerican.
Burn our silks. Wipe out baklava.
While you’re at it, ban our Java.
Set up a refreshment jury
to vote on food like Indian curry.
Wienerschnitzel’s got to go.
Ban sushi. Nix gado gado.

Chocolate should be exorcised.
Ban music that’s unauthorized.
Raga, salsa and jungle beat
are rhythms we should not repeat.
America for Americans
is how we have arranged our plans.
Blood tests mandatory for sure
to make sure our blood is pure.
Send all the dark skins we have banned
to places not so tightly planned:

Prince Edward Island or Mexico
are places they’ll be forced to go—
places less pristine and picky
content to take folks slightly icky,
not perfect folks like you and me,
immaculate in our ancestry.
With endearing little habits, peculiar little ways,
we’ll wile away our hours and wile away our days
waiting for those foreign folks on whom we need to pounce,
doling out our safety by the pound, not by the ounce.

Picking fights with neighbors, casting insults at Korea,
twittering and ranting in a verbal diarrhea.
As it is above, so has it become below—
Trying to regress from what was once the status quo.
Truth becoming what we make it, in spite of evidence—
reinventing science by divine providence
Though we cannot lock out hurricanes or fires caused  by our blindness,
we have power to lock out sanity, ecology and kindness.
We’ll check our country’s doorknobs before we go to bed
and insure that all the deadbolts are completely dead.

 

The prompt word today is peculiar.

Spiked Interest: A Modern Day Fairytale

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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.”

Radical Rabbit

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655c2b8020db1d3c020343288ee27074painting 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!!!