Zumwalt Poems Online

Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

White Russians with White Vodka

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/

Category:

2026, Free Verse, Headlines, humor, Mass Media, News, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Politics, Zumwalt

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A sure bet

A sure bet

The pick and roll is part of play,
And catch what coach has got to say.
But there’s a more important task:
Collecting bags of major cash.

You miss the shot, you miss the rim,
While placing bets outside the gym.
We take the bribe to slip and fall,
No cap, it’s part of basketball.

We fill the jerseys up with green,
The wildest flex you’ve ever seen.
We pray the Feds don’t watch the game,
Or we’ll get cooked and take the blame.

It’s great to hang with looks that slay,
To drive the whips and soak the rays.
To hit the clubs and play the field,
To party hard and never yield.

But danger lurks in losing games,
Not from the fans or public shame:
Don’t leave behind some mid-wit tell,
That turns your set-up into some
cringey,
grungy,
hoopless cell.

— zumwalt (January 2026)

New Story:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/15/sport/basketball-charges-gambling-scheme

Category:

2026, Headlines, humor, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Satire, Zumwalt

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Speaking Facetiously

Speaking Facetiously

Look at all the things I’m doing,
Stopping trouble while it’s brewing.
Midterms bring my party danger,
Turning winners into traitors.

I have made the country stronger:
Let me stay a little longer.
Keep elections out of reach,
For if we lose, who gets impeached?

— zumwalt (Jan. 2026)

Category:

2026, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Rhyme

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Grēnland unfæst (Greenland off-balance)

The Greenland saga continues to intensify, and this Zumwalt poem addresses the latest escalation of targeted tariffs, contrasting the gravity of the situation with a bit of humor. Given the history of Greenland with its European associations going back to the 10th century, Zumwalt chose a poetic style common to English speakers of that era: Anglo-Saxon alliterative meter.

“Grēnland unfæst” is the latest published Zumwalt poem, published today at New Verse News: https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2026/01/grenland -unfst-greenland-off-balance.html

This is the third consecutive month that Zumwalt has had a work published at New Verse News and the second day in a row a Zumwalt poem has been published in a literary journal.

Category:

2026, Free Verse, Headlines, humor, News, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Zumwalt

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take this

“take this” is the latest published Zumwalt poem, published today at Ink Sweat & Tears: https://inksweatandtears.co.uk/zumwalt/

Category:

2026, Poems, Poetry, Zumwalt

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Large Language Model Limerick

Large Language Model Limerick

This poet has run out of drink,
With no further incentive to think,
So a prompt-driven app
Now spits out my crap,
Spewing poems as I watch my brain shrink.

Category:

2025, AI, humor, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Zumwalt

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No More Cornborers

No More Cornborers

My steel-wool scrubbed & Comet-clean spuds
   grate with injurious gusto
Protect the enamel at all costs!
And a sheen is added to our distended
   esophagus.
Wintry blasts of fluoride and chlorophyll
   attack the waste
But only further pollute the abused
   frame.
Death enters the corridors, stalking stealthily
   in the Ajax-whiteness.
All is blinding! There is no more gray!
Josephine is become a slaughter-baron.
Ammonia chokes us all


 —Zumwalt
     [1981?]

Category:

1980s, 1981, Free Verse, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Zumwalt

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Donroe Doctrine

Donroe Doctrine

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.

— zumwait (Jan. 2026)

Category:

2020s, 2025, humor, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Zumwalt

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Von Bock Was A Pansy

Von Bock Was A Pansy

Those iron plates that churned the mud and gravel
Impress me not.
The rifled bore was, and is a crashing bore,
I shut my eyes to the breechblock and
Do not care for thermite.
I recoil from venturi.
I have only cutting remarks for the bayonet;
C.B.W. stinks.
Give me Gandhi & Walden, with a little pickle
On the side, and I am content.
Blood-red waiters make me yawn.

—Zumwalt
[Early 1980s?]

Category:

1980s, 1981, Contemporary Poetry, Free Verse, Modern Poetry, Poem, Poems, Poetry

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Slice-of-life, Microwaved

Slice-o-life, Microwaved

Askew in a vinyl cosmos
life’s beading up on
a cold tumbler
And Juan Valdez
has repossessed my mind
for the glory of Brazil
or Colombia
Some squalid country at any rate
Leaving my 33
grooves
scarred by needles at 78
several rich hits
off of
Mrs. Olsen
And Muzak sounds
like steam jets
and
dark mutterings over eggs
become berserk natterings
of rabid chipmunks
Gee Zus !
Only 12:00?
Existence is
deformed
in a
time-warp
—Zumwalt
[Night of 30 Sep-1 Oct 1981, Washington, DC]

Category:

1980s, 1981, Free Verse, Modern Poetry, Poem, Poems, Poetry, writing

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