Month: October 2019

If the blackberries stray one inch

Northward, toward the hedge, or

Across the border that I have marked

Near the ferns, then in my great and unmatched wisdom

Everyone must dive straight into the thicket.

Oh, Donald, the texts.
No wonder you were Schiffing.
It’s a cold, hard world.

A dedicated irony hunter might point
to the bloody history of the nation
as state-maker and say “there,
where once we forged ‘democracy’
for others by rigging the game,
now we ask for others to rig the original,
to prop up a tinpot authoritarian
in the name of allegedly maligned freedoms.”

It’s a pointless exercise, though nostalgic.
The America that could influence others
through more than the threat of
annihilation is in the past.

The GOP is a death cult with two options:
destroy the republic; or find a way out
before the beverages are served.

Ringed around with devils, childe Donald to
the mountain rode, seeking vindication
from small men in smaller nations. Called code

on democracy and record keeping
but keep schtum? In this economy? Bah.
The base cosplays war, cries hoo-yah. No bum

is gonna keep ol’ dayglo down. This is
the fabled Bronx tough. This is Marxism
or worse, Central Park schisms aside. “Rough

justice for ME?” he tweets, “I built this house
out of straw men and painkillers.” Can’t help
but wonder at these meddling whelps. Ramen

noodle hair lifting up against the breeze.
At the base of the mountain, it grows cold.