https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/pam-bondi-house-hearing-02-11-26
“The Trump administration has repealed an EPA rule that classified carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases as a threat to public health.”
Make America Gray Again
His rival had issued a rule
That carbon’s a dangerous fuel.
So this new EPA
Just kicks science away
Since Dissing Obama’s so cool!
–zumwalt (February 2026)
“‘She didn’t answer anything. She came here just ready to talk about the Dow Jones and the … NASDAQ. It sounds kind of crazy to me,’ the Republican told reporters.
“Asked about Bondi attacking him as a ‘hypocrite,’ Massie indicated he wasn’t surprised.
“‘I think that’s part of the culture of this administration. When they don’t have a good argument, they just go to name calling. That’s what her boss does to me, so I just let that roll off,’ Massie said.”
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/pam-bondi-house-hearing-02-11-26
REDACTION Reaction
I’m here today to do my very worst
With smears well practiced and rebukes rehearsed.
The victims? They are quite beside the point,
My only task: massage and then anoint.
I sit before this useless House today
With nothing real or meaningful to say;
I counter-punch and stubbornly evade,
Divert and stall this televised parade.
I cross out “Guilty,” “Sin,” and black out “Crime,”
To stall the clock and simply waste your time.
My purpose: taunt, attack, deflect, disrupt:
Who cares if Justice is ██████ corrupt?
— zumwalt (February 2026)
I am proud to announce the publication of another Zumwalt poem at New Verse News:
https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2026/02/a-blot-upon-thee.html
(Update: To see the poem, please click on here or the link above– you can see the redacted words in the poem this way.)
If you enjoy sampling a wide range of styles of poetry, reading poems that address interesting and relevant topics, or just reading engaging material, I recommend you visit New Verse News and take advantage of their free subscription — scroll down a bit and the subscription option is on the right side of the page. This is one of the most enjoyable contemporary poetry publications online.
Plight of the Iguanas
These reptiles that thrive in the heat
Fall frigid and plop at our feet.
From branches they’re dropping,
And from rooftops they’re flopping,
But at least we’ll have something to eat!
For Name’s Sake
A center that bore a great leader’s name,
A symbol of culture, of merit, of fame,
Now carries a brand that’s suspect and lame:
So artists avoid it, along with its shame.
Now our president posts it’s time to shut down;
“No one rejects ME,” he thinks with a frown.
“Time to remodel — I’ll teach this whole town,
I may not be nice, but I DO wear the crown!”
— zumwalt (February 2026)
Gibbon and Toynbee bump into Spengler at Starbucks
Steel glass shafts
Glint skyward
Glittering silver deceptively erect
Yet reality is whispered
With salient impotence
In sequins, basking
They are ripe for a gaudy technicolor cave-in
To a Muzak score
Rotten props, rotten struts, rotten foundations
Polished pillars once
We’ve lost the varnish
And revel in the grease-spots
And ember-burns
While concealing our leprous nudity
in faded Purple
Thus we pursue Byzantium
At a break-neck stagger into the nitre trough
To be the feast of Seljuk flies
Humming 4-chord progressions
Rotten rags, rotten flesh, rotten sensibilities
No phoenix pyre
The red of flame metamorphosed to rust
And blue-bright iron
Decays to dust
Rubble spawning weeds
And housing ravenous mandible-clapping insects
Living but to shun the day
And suck the husk
Of desiccated brains
—Zumwalt (around 1978?)
He eyed up the ice for the steal,
Which he claimed he would do with much zeal,
But now he’s retreating
From his warlike chest beating—
He calls this the art of the deal.
— zumwalt (1/22/2026, revised 1/28/2026)
“China wedding goes viral as twin brothers marry twin sisters and both sides have twin uncles.”
Relativity
Two sisters, identical twins,
Wed brothers with big matching grins.
The household now shares
Their uncles in pairs,
But that’s not where chaos begins.
— zumwalt (1/22/2026)
“President Donald Trump, on Wednesday, January 21, 2026, scrapped the tariffs that he threatened to impose on eight European nations to press for U.S. control over Greenland, pulling a dramatic reversal shortly after insisting he wanted to get the island ‘including right, title and ownership.’”
News Story: https://apnews.com/article/trump-davos-housing-greenland-gaza-a2f3f4c18ba321c8025a3e208fc0ddf6
The Art of Repeal
He eyed up the ice for a deal,
Which he swore he could buy or would steal,
But now he’s retreating
From his warlike chest beating,
as if it had all been surreal.
— zumwalt (1/22/2026)
White Russians with White Vodka
The sky peers out over
its trailing cape, wide and pallid,
obscuring the meridian,
erasing the horizontal arguments
of Kamchatka avenues.
Don’t check your map:
it will look much the same as in summer;
it won’t show flurries,
blizzards, cyclones,
meter upon meter
of accumulated snowbanks—
You will not see the swallowed
Lada Grantas, Kia Rios,
Toyota Prados, Cherry Tiggos.
Once one could have turned on a TV
late at night
and seen snow—
now politicians,
talking heads,
social media
whitewash and whitenoise us
non-stop:
ultimately,
we will be head deep,
unable to plow out,
and even Kamchatka
will seem like
a tropical paradise.
–zumwalt (January 2026)
Based on today’s news https://asianmail.in/2026/01/19/record-breaking-snowfall-in-russia-extreme-snow-buries-towns-in-kamchatka/ and this dVerse post’s call to action: https://dversepoets.com/2026/01/20/poetics-new-year-snow/
