Translation: “Donald, we are watching you!” jdb photo, solidarity march, La Manzanilla, MX
The prompt today was “farce.”
Centering
Many folks are fearing the center will not hold.
Our unity is broken, our future has been sold.
But the ways of nature are complex and manifold.
And when the final stories of mankind have been told,
of how we “bested nature” by trying to break its mold,
when all our quests have ended, both for glory and for gold;
we won’t be its ending, but just another fold
whose exploits lay beneath the earth, written in the mold—
of how we “tamed” an environment that was too brash and bold,
wrapping it in hydrocarbons, conquering the cold.
The prompt word today was “center.”
The Win
When you reach out for the prize,
please be sure you recognize
that chaos can adopt the guise
of a much-wished-for surprise.
Bad things can come in lovely trappings,
so when you remove the wrappings,
what you might find wrapped inside
is something they have had to hide
lest you know the ugly truth.
A close-lipped smile can hide the tooth
that bites the hand that votes for it.
How can we once again permit
such evil to come into power?
This time we cannot hide or cower.
Brave men and women must stir their bones—
leave their screens, forsake their phones,
to come back to reality.
See how much worse the world could be.
Environment an oozing shambles
while big business wrecks and gambles.
Brother turned against his brother,
all the world blaming the other.
Misogyny, racism and
a lack of respect for the land—
what will these concepts lead us to?
Democracy is now a zoo.
Polluted rivers, polluted skies,
will prove the truth some recognize.
In forgetting our forefathers’ goals,
we’ve let big business buy our souls.
Lately foolish, please now be wise.
Please, countrymen, open your eyes.
Your children sicken, your grandchild cries.
Please save his country before it dies.
It is time to recognize
these words do not hyperbolize.
Now is the time to change and wake up.
Our country’s factions need to make up!
The prompt today was recognize.
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?
public domain photo
Black Friday
Yesterday you masticated
until appetites were sated.
Then certain relatives orated,
argued, harangued and debated—
their monologues all unrelated.
Trapped, you were all educated
in what they sanctioned, what they hated.
Admit it, weren’t you elated,
when that last politician was rated,
and the last argument abated?
Once all your visitors were gated,
those final good-byes terminated,
and their ills excoriated,
you could prepare for what was fated.
Your choice was unequivocated.
Now that you’d heard and eaten all,
Tomorrow, you’d consume the mall.
Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States (the fourth Thursday of November). Since 1932, it has been regarded as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the U.S., and most major retailers open very early (and more recently during overnight hours) and offer promotional sales.
The prompt today is “sated.”
Please read Anglo Swiss’s post before mine. You may find it in the Reader or HERE.
A Leader Reader
Politics distress me. They send me to my bed.
I prefer the nightmares that I conjure in my head.
For to get over nightmares, it is a piece of cake.
I simply give up sleeping and remain wide awake.
But the world situations that most bother me
do not disappear when I turn off the damn TV.
They just go on mouldering when they’re not in my view
while all our fearless leaders just do and do and do.
I think that the solution might just be to tell them, “Stop!!!”
Every nation on the earth trying to be cop
for all the other nations seems somehow not to work,
for sometimes the one supervising is the biggest jerk!
Though I don’t know the answer, perhaps the Swiss are right.
Perhaps yearly elections would do less to incite
pork-barrel legislation when each man has a vote
the needs of common men might replace needs of men of note.
The only problem we might face, doing so much voting
is that it just might interfere with our TV remoting.
It might be necessary to replace “reality” shows
with just plain reality–where everybody knows
each bill that’s passed and all the facts of governing our nation,
so we would grow up wiser each succeeding generation.
Voting done on cellphones or Android application
might bring out the vote at last, much to the consternation
of politicians dependent on propaganda’s lies,
hoping that the real facts never come before our eyes.
All this campaign financing a phantom of the past
while we’re presented with the truth–finally, at last!!!
(I cite poetic license, folks, as my excuse for this poem. I realize this is a simplistic solution to the world’s problems. Our government in the U.S. is perhaps too large and too complicated for the Swiss system of governing, so it is best this world is not governed by such as I!!!)
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: Dear Leader–If your government (local or national) accomplishes one thing this year, what would you like that to be?
The Prompt: Seat Guru—You get to plan a dinner party for 4-8 of your favorite writers/artists/musicians/other notable figures, whether dead or alive. Who do you seat next to whom in order to inspire the most fun evening?
I chose twelve guests, plus myself. The seating chart is below. You will have to imagine me sitting in the exact middle of the table shaped like a ring around me.
I have planned the dinner party, set the table, cooked the food,
but decisions about seating charts is ruining my mood;
for I want to sit by everyone, hear every conversation,
and trying to choose only two is causing consternation.
I think, therefore, I’d put me on a chair right in the center
on a sort of lazy Susan so I’d be able to enter
every conversation and to listen in on all,
seeing how they fare just like a fly upon the wall.
I’d have a little foot pedal to spin me at my ease—
enjoy Chaucer with my salad and Jane Austen with my cheese.
Jesus Christ and Whoopi could gang up on Rush and tell
why he’s the one who’s going to be broadcasting in Hell.
Osama bin Laden would be seated ear-to-ear
with Mohammed who would tell him what all terrorists should hear:
that the truth of the religion has got lost along the way,
for no one who is enlightened wants to kill and burn and slay.
Steve Martin would be there for fun to loosen up Osama
and spar with Rush to get his mind off Hillary and Obama.
I’d ask two people from real life to join us at the table:
Doug between the prophets so he’d finally be able
to be faced with the real men so he can sort out fact and fiction
and show it’s the religions that have caused us all the friction.
The men themselves had peace at heart and must bemoan the end
that power brokers bring the world to as their truth they bend.
The other person that I want to have here at my meal
is Ann Garcia, for I know her pleasure would be real.
Seated by Jane Austen, she would question her and tell
of her appreciation of the books she’s loved so well.
Barbara Kingsolver I’d seat upon on her other side.
She, too, would get much praise but also would have to abide
many interruptions from one listening from the middle,
for I’d be hopping back and forth like water on a griddle.
These people all are here because my curiosity
is whetted by my fantasies of what I’ll hear and see.
There is another guest that I’ve neglected to reveal,
but he is central to the plot of this illustrious meal.
Geoffrey Chaucer would be there to listen and relate
the story of this group of people that we love and hate.
So all the world could hear the tale of what we learned at table.
This earliest father of literature is surely the most able
to see the truth of character and spin a tale to tell
the truth of what will save our world from fire, brimstone, Hell!
And then, one final person I’d invite to be a guest
is Barbara Walters, who would come to interview the rest;
so we’d be sure that all received their moment in the sun,
and we could question them after her interview was done.
If you have any questions that you’d like an answer to,
most happily, I’ll ask them and pass answers on to you.
I will not mind a bit assuming this laborious task.
Just comment on this poem and say what you would like to ask
of Chaucer or of Jesus or of Whoopi or of Steve.
If they’re still here, I’ll ask them, or if they have chosen to leave,
I’ll channel them in poetry and say what I believe
they’d say if your request were one they could themselves receive.
But for now our party’s over and our guests have all departed.
Many better-fed, and (let’s hope) some more open-hearted!!!
P.S. The number of guests at my dinner party is coincidental. In no way is this poem meant to allude to another illustrious dinner of twelve plus one.
P.P.S. Oops..Barbara Walters somehow got bounced off the seating chart. I guess I’ll give her my seat and I’ll just roam around the perimeter, helping my sister serve the soup, but mostly just listening in and butting in. So this really should be called “Party of Thirteen.” I also had Will Rogers on my original seating plan, but he was somehow omitted. It was my first time using the program that created the seating chart and it took me longer to get it together than to write the entire poem. Sorry Will, I’ll catch you later. Perhaps devote an entire poem to you.
