The Arc of the Denier
it’s all fun and games
until one morning you wake up
with a bad case of the hoax.
The Arc of the Denier
1 Reply
Category Archives: Politics
I think I made a mistake
I think I made a mistake
baselines, fault lines , paradigm shifts
ignorance has been weaponized
what will we do, what will we do
when all the nouns are verbed?
I think I made a mistake
how is there still doubt in that sentence?
A man goes to a party
to get infected with a virus
in order to prove
that the virus is a hoax,
the man dies.
It’s hard not to be harsh.
Is this a new baseline,
a new low?
Is it an intelligence deficit?
Is it lack of education?
No, this is something different
this is a sea change
the beast has left Bethlehem
the malware has been activated
the human race has started to self-limit.
Whatever god, assembly of gods
or conglomerate of alien scientists
malevolent or benevolent
that designed this whole shebang
that opened this can of worms
has had enough
the malware has been activated
the fix is in
it’s past midnight and the eagle has flown
Aunt Mary is hanging out the washing
the human race has started to self-limit.
A man goes to a party
to get infected with a virus
in order to prove
that the virus is a hoax,
the man dies.
Brendan over at earthweal poses the challenge: Observe shifting baselines in your world, in climate change, your nation’s governance, the pandemic.
The Fallen (2020)
The Fallen (2020)
Today I thought about Reince Priebus
not so much the man,
more the strange music of his name;
those slender vowels reversing
that echo of wince
the possible meanings
a salve, an ointment
put some Reince on that cut, son;
the Latinate portliness of Priebus
a writ to slap someone with – Habeas Priebus
a complicated skateboard manoeuvre
he executed a perfect reverse Priebus;
then I thought of Anthony, dear Anthony,
Scaramucci, Scaramucci
will you do the fandango,
you were not long with us
but still the smell of aftershave lingers
and it was you who let us know
about Steve Bannon’s auto fellatio,
alas, poor Steve
abandoned on the side of the road
like a rumpled sofa
a rumpled sofa smelling of yesterday’s sweat
and stale doctrine;
and what about Spicer and Huckabee
cartoon characters
Plucky and Angry
your souls will be in the repair shop
for some time to come.
They appear in waves,
the arrested –
Flynn, Cohen and Stone,
the ones who once were serious people –
McMaster, Kelly, Bolton.
In years to come when men and women gather
to talk of greatness
your names will be long forgotten.
The list of the fallen goes on and on
and still Humpty sits on his wall
and still we wait for Humpty’s Great Fall.
A different version of this poem appeared in Oddball Magazine
Taking part in Open Link Weekend over at earthweal . https://earthweal.com/2020/07/03/earthweal-open-link-weekend-27/
The Path Forward
The Path Forward
no dumbass in a MAGA hat
is going to solve this one
all the bluster you can muster
will do nothing at all,
remember that guy
who got first in the class
the one wearing glasses
who never got the girl
he’s the one who will save our asses
so get out of the way
you won’t be missed
this one will be solved by scientists.
The challenge over at earthweal is to write a poem about The Crossroad we are at. Well, this is possibly not the subtlest poem ever written but hey…..these are not subtle times.
Ironic Distancing (with bonus haiku)
Ironic Distancing
The mind wanders
I think of a word that rhymes with ‘banker’
and marvel at how
in the middle of a global crisis
my brain still tilts
towards the trivial, the juvenile.
I try a sound poem
panic, pandemic, pandemonium
but it’s missing something,
panache, perhaps.
I make up a joke involving Peter Pan
but decide now is not the time to share it.
I detect the late onset of maturity
and feel depressed.
I text some friends,
we try to out-snide each other
but after a while
we are all chewing on the same bone.
I’m besieged by an idiocy of idioms –
the whole nine yards
the whole kit and caboodle
and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
I re-assess my relationship with surfaces
I can no longer count on
that counter to lean on,
and as someone inclined
to whistle past the graveyard
walk past the writing on the wall
I have to admit
that the object in the mirror
was a lot closer
than it first appeared.
I write a haiku
four in the morning
moon shining on toilet bowl
porcelain pathway.
Watch your back! Basho!
Taking part in open link weekend over at earthweal.
Stable Genius (poem)
Stable Genius
O stable genius
keeper of the keys
the stable door hangs open
the horses are running free.
Taking part in open link over at earthweal.
Pandemic (poem)
Pandemic
xenophobia
humming in the background
like a cheap fridge
the markets in a flop sweat.
The word of the week over at earthweal is “pandemic”
Watching CNN (a sort of rant)
Anderson, Chris and Don and their assembled pundits are discussing the assassination of General Soleimani, the Iranian general. They all agree that he was a “bad actor”, a “bad guy”. They don’t say “bad hombre”,but it’s knocking at the door. This appears to be sufficient to warrant execution, it’s the timing and ongoing strategy they are concerned about.
Why I ask myself are they talking like characters in a 1950’s western?
Why are they talking like school kids?
Bad guys, good guys – “goodies and baddies”.
Back in the Classroom:
Teacher, by the end of the major combat phase of the Iraq war, 7,419 Iraqi civilians had been killed, primarily by U.S. air-and-ground forces, is George Bush Junior a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre?
No, child, every American president is good.
Teacher, were those innocent civilians “collateral damage” or “victims of terror”?
That is a complex and morally confusing question, child. Here in America we do not like confusion.
Teacher, why do the American media continue to refer to the Canadians killed in the Ukraine Airlines crash as Iranians.
It’s less confusing that way, see above.
Teacher, is President Trump a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre?
No, child, President Trump is a liar, a racist, possibly a crook and possibly a sexual predator but he is not a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre.
Teacher, why are Anderson, Chris and Don so angry with him? Why the sanctimonious, po-faced editorials?
Because he is un-statesmanlike and because they have become lazy and are content to trot out the same tired outrage every day of the week. Their ambition is limited, they are happy just to be “not Hannity”.
But teacher, they seem like nice guys.
Your point is?
Four Expressions Using The Word “Hell” (poem)
Four Expressions Using The Word “Hell”
that’s one hell of an expression
it’s all going to hell in a hand basket
they were scattered all over hell’s half acre
hell hath no fury like a president impeached.
Boris Johnson at the G7 (a sort of triple tanka)
Boris Johnson at the G7
Can’t believe I’m here.
Oh! The joy of dissembling!
Japes, pranks and capers!
What is Macron looking at?
I think Donald might like me.
There’s Melania!
Those cheekbones, the north face of
the bloody Eiger,
scale her promontories, what!
No time for rumpy pumpy,
lots to do! Trudeau
is smirking, colonial
prat! I think Merkel
wants to spank me, go nanny!
Concentrate! Now where was I?
If Robert Mueller Wrote a Tanka (plus Mr’s Mueller’s haiku)
If Robert Mueller Wrote a Tanka
Why the long face, Bob?
always that same damn question
since I was a boy,
and always the same answer:
it is long because it’s long.
Couldn’t resist reposting that one. Okay, just one more……
Mr’s Mueller’s Haiku
You’re disappointed
you don’t know disappointment
you don’t know damp squibs
Photo: English Bay, Vancouver, A-MAZE-ING LAUGHTER, by Yue Minjun.
If Robert Mueller Wrote a Tanka
If Robert Mueller Wrote a Tanka
Why the long face, Bob?
always that same damn question
since I was a boy,
and always the same answer:
it is long because it’s long.
Okay, just one more……
If Justin Trudeau Wrote a Haiku
I’m a feminist;
man, it’s difficult, women…
I just don’t get them.
Photo: English Bay, Vancouver, A-MAZE-ING LAUGHTER, by Yue Minjun.
If Ivanka Wrote a Tanka
If Ivanka Wrote a Tanka
dawn at Camp Kushner:
wake up, my little weasel
slither forth again
and wriggle up the pant legs
of rich and powerful men.
The Scale of Things … (a Poem)
The Scale of Things
Is it possible to have a metric
a way to rate privilege
one that does not reference
gender, economic status, race?
Can the moral high ground be assigned?
Is a child loved by a parent
not more privileged
than one that is not?
This is in response to Anmol’s challenge over at dVerse which begins with the quote :
To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitious and invisible. You’re everywhere you look, you’re the standard against which everyone else is measured….Michael S. Kimmel
When Everyone’s a Maverick
When Everyone’s a Maverick
the thing that defined him
was that he was
unapologetically
unapologetic
while those around him
stopped at
unapologetic.
It’s Not Easy Being Mike Pence
When I look at Mike Pence
I think of H.L.Mencken
who once said
that Puritanism
is “the haunting fear
that someone, somewhere
might be happy”.
Fareed Zakaria is Stealing my Stuff
I was watching Fareed Zakaria and Don Lemon on CNN last Friday night; they were trying to make sense of the ongoing tragic farce that is the Trump White House and Don Lemon posed a question which could be summarised as follows : “Is Donald Trump crazy like a fox or crazy like a fool”. It was clear that Fareed thinks that the needle has been stuck on ‘fool’ for quite some time. At one point, he says to Don something like “look, you have to understand that Donald Trump is a performance artist.” This sounded familiar to me, so I looked back through my blog posts and there it was in a poem I published on Reuben Wooley’s website :’I am not a Silent Poet” back in January 2016. Here’s the poem, but please click on the link above and check out Reuben’s excellent site.
Trumped
I get it now
Donald T
Is a performance artist
Like that guy in Beijing
Sucking dust out of the air
With a vacuum cleaner
Or maybe he’s
one of those mirrors
In a fairy tale
Reflecting only
The worst in ourselves.
Fareed, I’m waiting to hear from you.
Steve Bannon’s Eyes
CLEVELAND, OH – JULY 20: Stephen K. Bannon looks at his computer to see who will be the next caller he will talk to while hosting Brietbart News Daily on SiriusXM Patriot at Quicken Loans Arena on July 20, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Kirk Irwin/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
CLEVELAND, OH – JULY 20: Stephen K. Bannon looks at his computer to see who will be the next caller he will talk to while hosting Brietbart News Daily on SiriusXM Patriot at Quicken Loans Arena on July 20, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Kirk Irwin/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
CLEVELAND, OH – JULY 20: Stephen K. Bannon looks at his computer to see who will be the next caller he will talk to while hosting Brietbart News Daily on SiriusXM Patriot at Quicken Loans Arena on July 20, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Kirk Irwin/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
look like
portals to
hell.
American Carnage
American Carnage
Not the export it used to be,
nothing like the glory days
Hiroshima, Vietnam, Cambodia;
still popular at home tho’
nearly twelve thousand gun deaths a year
the gun barrel points both ways.
This is not much of a poem, is it?
That last metaphor was a bit clumsy
and there’s no music in statistics
but there is a rhyme in that last line
and there’s assonance in ‘American Carnage’
and there is an ass in the White House
but enough about that
stay away from the low hanging fruit
we need a rhyme
carnage, baggage, garbage, image
imagine all the people
that’s what this situation needs
a protest singer, a protest song
three chords and a chorus
that we can sway and link arms to
Where are you
Josh (Ritter)
Michael (Stipe)
Bruce ?
Trumputin (a romance)
Don loves Vlad
Vlad loves Don
Love as big as
A nuclear bomb.
Front door, back door,
Kremlin, tower
Nuclear love
Nuclear power.
Just when I thought I had nothing more to say about Donald Trump – a mongrel haiku, that adheres to the syllable count but not the spirit.
Oh Donald is it
policy or is it just
pandermonium.
This is the first in a series of poems called “Poems with titles longer than the poem itself.”
The Unconventional Republican (remix)
The center folds
and all ’round topple
into the opening void,
what rough beast
rabble in tow
slouches towards Washington
bursting with tawdry pomp
and irrational schemes.
A few notes, this poem of course echoes and directly quotes “The Second Coming” by WB Yeats, a poem which was written after the first World War and still resonates today. For a brilliant analysis of the poem, read “Break, Blow, Burn” by Camille Paglia. The Irish jazz singer, Christine Tobin has put the poem to music on a CD called “Sailing to Byzantium” which is well worth checking out.
Trumped
Reuben Wooley over at I am not a Silent Poet has been kind enough to publish one of my poems – “Trumped” – about our good friend, Donald. Check it out at https://iamnotasilentpoet.wordpress.com/2016/01/20/trumped-by-jim-feeney/
The Level Of Discourse (Donald Trump,The Republican Party and Hitler Analogies)
The Level of Discourse
I want to say a few words
About the level of discourse
How low can it go?
How low can it go
When a candidate for the presidency
Of the United States
Gets up on television
And mocks, mimics, ridicules
A disabled man
And the media endlessly debate
Whether he intended to or not
When he plainly did
And the members of his party
Refuse to criticize him
Refuse to say that
This is beneath our dignity,
Perhaps dignity
Has left the room
Has left the United States of America,
And these same party members
Pride themselves
On their rugged individualism
Their boots on the ground machisimo
And oh how they love their Hitler analogies
But when a trumped up
Pumped up tin pot bully
Emerges from their own ranks
They are too chickenshit to say anything
How low can it go?
The level of discourse
How low can it go?
On Hearing that Joe Biden is not Entering the Presidential Race ( a slimverse)
Ahh, Joe, I
thought you were
just Biden
your time. Ouch!
Stopdraggingthepanda 