Sunday, October 7, 2018

Poem: This Is Not America


This Is Not America

Malicious face of twisted rage
Blindly led to disengage
From fact or logic or reasoned thought
A sense of truth is nary sought

This is not America

Demagogue screams fitful venom
Behold, amassed, the mindless plenum
Fascist bent, tempestuous crowd
Empty slogans, yet shouted loud

Diversity their greatest fear
Boogeymen are always near
Through bigot’s voice and rapist’s mark
Republic’s light will fade to dark

This is not America

Lies, corruption, a swamp of fraud
Spew the hate, buffoons applaud
Tearing down foundation’s core
The GOP, a loathsome whore

In Donald Trump they found their muse
Mendacious scoundrel, perverted views
If this is our road of choice
And scales of justice lost a voice

Then this is not America

Copyright SGW 2018

Sunday, August 19, 2018

Poem: Racists' Different Names


Racists’ Different Names

American NAZIs or Ku Klux Klan
No matter the names, they share the same plan
Hatred and evil and bigotry’s hand
Morality missing for all which they stand

Risen from swamps of a racist’s divine
Donald Trump wears the emblem of supremacist’s line
His message is wrapped in the worst we have been
Make American Great Again; our original sin

Through slavery, segregation and violent acts
Indian genocide and anti-immigrant tracts
Always “those people,” lent an image to fear
A small-minded dogma zealots cling to as dear

If you can’t see this evil or sit idly by
Bring a rationalization as deflective reply
Hide behind falsehoods that you wrap to your being
Denying the threat and pretend you’re not seeing

You don’t need the hood or the NAZI salute
Enabling of malice is its own absolute
History will show you as a partner of hate
Sides have been chosen and it is approaching too late


Copyright SGW 2018

Footnote: Inspired by Spike Lee’s “BlackkKlansman.”

Sunday, July 1, 2018

Poem: Fascist's Dupes


Fascist’s Dupes


Were you part of the crazed masses of people
Screaming madly, unyielding devotion
As the little man with the odd mustache
Spewed on about the Fatherland first?
Nationalist, fiery rhetoric and pounding fist;
Don’t trust the media beyond the Goebbel’s tools!
Keep out or destroy those not like us!
Were you frothing at the mouth within your hostile, twisted fealty?

I ask this;
Why?

We look at the pictures today;
Those enablers, blind followers, hateful fools;
Cast aspersions on their souls.

But this is not like that.

Except the rule of law is threatened and scorned.
Media is condemned as “enemies of the state;”
Unless Rupert’s state media apparatus speaks.

Brown people are animals!
Refugees are terrorists!
Scientists are lying with their damned facts!

Tyrants and dictators are fawned upon.
The rich and corporatists gobble up any crumbs previously missed or kept from.

Hatred, fear, intolerance, irrationality, fraud, corruption, lies.

Drained the swamp; built an ocean’s cesspool.

We buy it all because, well, lies are easier.
Or our own unmistakable hatred, ignorance and fear feed us.
We will offer excuses or mixed up explanations.
Our cowardice resides in the shadows,
Behind the screaming, chanting, violent enmity.

Someday people will look upon our photographed images,
As the gluttonous, orange mass of vile inhumanity
Stands before us offering the same fascism.
We will be equally stained and shamed by history;
Dupes.

Copyright SGW 2018



Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Poem: Burr - Misunderstood American


Burr – Misunderstood American

I am not throwing away my shot

Fateful day where aim was true
A shot was “thrown” to much ado
But was that more contrived excuse
Preparatory actions one might deduce
Determined foe who would not relent
Though ample chance was underwent
Hamilton more did instigate
‘Twas Burr who penned to mediate
Slurs sprung forth in Alexander’s wrath
Burr’s cool hand sought other path

I am not throwing away my shot

History makes Burr a shifty fiend
But to strike a deal was how he leaned
A politician, true, with all that hints
No more, no less, men before or since

Rivals conspired to ruin his name
First New York then Virginia same
1800 did not connive to steal
Campaigned for “Jeff” with fullest zeal
He was cast aside by the doubting Thomas
Career was lost, a broken promise

I am not throwing away my shot

Ventured west in a fevered state
But not the traitor that became his fate
Filibuster goal was a common theme
Of Spanish lands many eyes would glean
Though foolish in his ill-laid action
To split the nation was no attraction

His legal mind was marked outstanding
For middling classes sought better standing
And while quite the scoundrel in romantic fares
For women’s rights had fewest peers

Burr was flawed like any man must be
Yet much is lost by history
Reduced to villain by word and song
Lin Manuel, a genius, gets so much wrong
Most profiles writ hold Burr stained quite unfairly
We’ve heard his name but know him barely

He did not throw away his shot/He threw away his shot


Copyright SGW 2018

Footnotes: Based largely on information from Nancy Isenberg’s biography “Fallen Founder – The Life of Aaron Burr.” Repeated line from the Broadway musical “Hamilton.”


Saturday, May 5, 2018

Poem: Chui


Chui


Trees are my domain
Resting regally
Surveying horizons
Piercing eyes stare out

Nothing betrays calm
Waiting to spring out
Climb down from my perch

Hunger drives my time
Swalapala graze
Perhaps songura
Nyumbu, with luck
Cunning guides my course

You will not see me
Until I am there
Falling upon you
Did you quite suspect
Though no matter now

Belly full of meat
Again, I lie here
In the branches; high
Simba skulks below
Laughs of fisi range

This branch, sacrosanct
I sneer for effect
Mostly hold contempt

Drift off to sleeping
Dreams of future hunts
Trees are my domain


Copyright SGW 2018


Footnotes: Chui is leopard; Swalapala is impala; Songura is rabbit; Nyumbu is wildebeest; Simba is lion, Fisi is hyena.


Sunday, April 15, 2018

Poem: Clusterfuck #45


Clusterfuck #45


Each day brings a brand, new disaster
Or chaos, confusion and con
Awash in corruption and vices
And any; all, sanity gone

One, lone “accomplishment” is counted
A tax scam of epic device
Shifting the wealth of the nation
So the rich gets much more to their slice

Corruption runs rampant in dealings
The Emoluments Clause laid to wreck
Shadiness pervades every action
When a mafia clan has no check

The level of incompetence is astounding
Tweets expose emptiest suit
He will lie and distract to no purpose
But the deceits are his one absolute

“Draining the swamp” was pure artifice
Since replaced by an avowed toxic waste
From economy to environment to diplomacy
The destruction arrives with posthaste

Disgraced to the world in our turmoil
As Trump clings to tyrannical mates
He has traded away our virtue
In collusion, betrayal, dictates

Putin, ah Putin, his favorite despot
With impeachable behavior he’s set
An unbridled, ass-kissing convention
Or is it pee that explains what we get

He is walled by the vilest hatred
Building on bigotry and racism and fear
All “MAGA” conveys in its message
Is his cowardice is proved crystal-clear

Every day seems to pass in disorder
A small, little man run amok
This Trumpian reign ‘be remembered
As a mistaken, unsound clusterfuck


Copyright SGW 2018


Sunday, April 1, 2018

Poem: Fools' Day


Fools’ Days
  
Trump supporters
Do they notice?
Today is no different from all the others
Fools are three sixty-five

Butt of the joke

MAGA
Draining the swamp
Tax cuts
Middle class relief
Job creation
Great negotiator
Best people
No collusion

April fools!
Rest of the year, too

Copyright SGW 2018


Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Poem: Theorize

Theorize

Time is elusive and time is at hand
Absolute reason; chaotic, unplanned
Time imparts theory of fullness in being
Everything, nothing, upon us while fleeing
Time reaches, grasping, for understood thinking
Lost in a moment by reflex of blinking
Time passes surely while time’s made to live
Gone through the spaces of effluent sieve
Time lasts forever in its finite dominion
Withstanding convention or dissenting opinion
Time’s been provided until it is squandered
Lapses unnoticed; continually pondered
Time is cliché yet creative conception
Stands as the rule and recedes from exception
Time knows no boundary can be hoped to transcend
A Big Bang beginning; collapse for an end

Copyright SGW 2014


Footnotes: Inspired by “The Theory of Everything,” a movie about Stephen Hawking. M.A.D. assistance in this writing.


Thursday, January 11, 2018

Poem: Random Kenya

Random Kenya
  
Kenya conveys a randomness

People by roadside
Selling wares
Lying prone, asleep
Simply looking to the distance
Walking cattle

Driving long, dusty backroads
To what feels like nowhere
Then, in vast emptiness
A man
Standing resolute
No obvious point of origin
Or destination
But he’s there if needed

Markets spring up
Awash in multitudes
Followed by open, bare roads

Broken down vehicle
A community appears from thin air
Some help
Others tinker
Children gawk, wave, take it all in

Kenya’s randomness is comforting
  

Copyright SGW 2017