“Greedy for Greenland,” the great leader uttered, Musing on military modes of grabbing. “Security’s shield,” he shouted out loud, White House words went forth boldly!
Europe’s earls then entered objections, Rallying round the riches of Danes. Pushing back promptly against plans of might, Frederiksen fierce, flashed her reply:
“If force is flaunted on frozen shores, Strikes from the States shatters our league; Broken the bond of bindings sworn, NATO is nuked—if neighbors clash!”
He lied about what was in store, To launch a swift, two-hour war. But our boss won’t explain, Now we’re in for more pain in a far away place, In a very messy state with a lengthy, complicated, intricate case of having much, much more on our plate than we ever should have ever, ever, ever asked for.
My country with the hair of inlaid fiber-optic cable With the thoughts of a backed up four-lane freeway at dusk With the waist of a redwood in the center of a scenic bypass My country with the lips of blinking Christmas lights With lips of teabags of silt from the Great Lakes With the teeth of a picket fence on a shifting, slumping shoreline With the tongue of a ticker tape parade on celluloid stock My country with the tongue of a televised courtroom With the tongue of a satellite that spies in dark silence With the tongue of a cracked bell that just rings and rings on command With the eyelashes of high-tension wires With brows of the edge of a sold-out stadium My country with the brow of a blue light under the sheets And of the steam rising from an executive sauna fifty stories high My country with shoulders of interstate concrete And of a hydroelectric dam holding back the stars My country with fingers of a ballot box—contested, sticky, messy Of a strewn deck of plastic cards My country with armpits of coal dust and scented bubble tea Of suburban sprawl and the nest of a bald eagle in a cell tower With arms of Mississippi tributaries and of a thousand assembly lines And of a mingling of the cornfield and ambushed migrant workers My country with legs of elusive wildfires With the movements of a swing state and a jazz festival My country with calves of sequoia bark My country with feet of broken treaties and numbered amendments With feet of subway tracks and tourists flicking coins into canyons My country with a neck of unharvested wheat My country with a throat of pulsing fiber and high-powered cooling fans Of a protest stage-shrieking in the bed of a dry river With breasts of the Appalachian night My country with breasts of a multi-story shopping mall Of a ghost town shadowed by the noonday sun My country with the belly of a thumb-scrolled digital map With a back of an abandoned silver screen My country with the back of a cruise ship climbing into the stratosphere With a nape of red clay and cooling asphalt And of the threads of a smudged napkin on a diner counter at 3:00 AM My country with hips of a barreling NextGen Acela With hips of a county rodeo and of Friday night tossed penalty flags Of a pendulum swinging between fairground stand food and Michelin starred dining My country with buttocks of Civil War reenactments Of a buttocks of uncirculated library books Of a buffalo nickel gifted to a grandchild My country with the loins of an offshore drill and of grocery store pharmacy Of prairie grass and vintage baseball cards My country with loins of theme park hydraulic launch coasters My country with ears full of rotating sirens Of ears of the Great Prairies and fast food in the car Of eyes of parabolic, steerable radio telescopes My country with eyes of a flatscreen TV left on at night With eyes of a forest gasping for breath…
The eyes of my country turned toward we, the people Hands held out for an answer, cuffed and arrested for expediency.
Release the files but just in part — Deception’s Pathway lies Too raw for Headline’s hungry Spark The whole would scandalize As Cards dealt from some hidden Deck With watching eyes confined The Truth must flame out gradually To hide the Guilt entwined —
They loaded files on Friday night, Though not the total lot; The press was vexed by partial truths But that is what we got.
On Saturday fifteen were gone — One noticed from before: A president in gilded frame — A photo in a drawer.
What this all means to common folk Escapes my simple mind When wealth can build a mighty wall That shields them from their crime —
And if a few are put in jail That does us little good For those that still control the wealth Will raise the price of food.
The message here is pretty clear And one that fits my rhyme That money spent judiciously Protects — even the damnedest — most despicable — devils of our time.
my table is busted a sore sight to see and the metal-grill chair is as comfortable as a bed of needles. a pretty girl in a blue jacket and in maroon cords reads the school paper; she is in a trance. a small audience is watching a couple of college students playing five-minute chess. a young women on the other side of the room gazes at me over the rim of a white coffee cup.
i burnt myself this morning frying up french toast and the pain mingles with everything else like short-wave radio static. 1.3 GPA yells a figure with sideburns and a number of people in his group laugh until their heads fall off and someone has to come and put them back on.
sitting cross-legged on the carpet and from a distance it all looks like a game of charades, long, long hair and i find myself stare.
i am thinking of leaving PROTECT YOUR LOUNGE ENVIRONMENT TAKE THE TIME TO BUS YOUR OWN TRASH a famous musician enters, but no one recognizes him. a cloud hangs over, but then again maybe it's just the plumbing. my eyesight is shot everything in the distance all looks the same and now it is only my table that is different from the others.
-- zumwalt (1974) [reformatted for WordPress display]
I never liked them anyways And THEY ALWAYS came with a safety cap for something that’s not now very safe
The bottle always asserted its authority just two wait this long if you really want more
Treated me like a child even though it said “extra strength”
I am not pregnant that’s hard for a man particularly in their sixties but what’s not good for a goose is maybe even worse for a gander.
I live with pain constantly Bad neighbors Bad news and so — pretty bad headaches…
I can easily explore better options no warnings on dosages I well know what works well and even if I have a brutal headache the next morning and mess up the car driving At least I had me some fun.
Discrimination lies with concentration Machinations, machinations equilibrium staggers— Smell the breath of industry—intoxicated fumes Has the ignition point been reached? Atomize before the vestigial globules are digested and Odovacar pulverizes the wall
zumpoems 