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)
Our Free Union (With respect to André Breton)
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.
— zumwalt (Dec. 31, 2025)
Just published in New Verse News — Zumwalt’s new news poem, Jousting Windmills.
Click on the following URL to read poem: https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2025/12/jousting-windmills.html
I will post the text here later on, but for now, let’s drive some traffic to New Verse News!
With apologies to Emily and the DOJ
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 —
–zumwalt (2025)
News event: “At least 15 files that were released by the Justice Department Friday were no longer available on the department’s website on Saturday.”
Reference: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/at-least-15-newly-released-epstein-files-have-disappeared-from-justice-departments-website/
Updated Dump
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.
— zumwalt (2025)
Imperfect information
This
is
a sequential game
even
when
I
attack
out
of
turn
each
and
every move
is
built
on the
one before.
Round
after
round
we proudly announce
a
target
square.
Sometimes
we
hit
Sometimes
we
m
i
s
s
But
never
fail to
attack.
Salvo,
my friend
When
you are most
relaxed
and think
all is
calm waters.
As
long as
there
are ships
afloat
There
will be
missiles
launched
across
these
now choppy seas.
Salvo,
my friend
All
shots at once
against
our better
judgment.
As
long as
there
are missiles
to launch
There
will be
ships
targeted
aggravating
these
now choppy seas.
But
once it is
clear
there
is some
chance at
sinking
even
one
ship
We
pull
back,
bend
the
rules,
re-
arrange
our
positions,
midway,
put some
ships
in reserve,
deny
any
cease fire
and
secretly
fill out
our
battle reports.
-- zumwalt (2011, modified 2025)
formaldehydration
flickering, fluttering inauspicious celestial butterfly
recklessly spatters dribbling drips of darkened burgundy
over underwhelmed over-conscientious Cal Poly Pomona Green.
diamanté dimensions collide with an autumn-autumn whisper
merging the flap-flap-flap fanlight florescence with a soft gentle tap
shamefully simmering shimmy-round-sizzling shake-down capabilities.
this high-speed, high-tech, high-result diet
has made me high-strung;
it streams passing indentations of over-charged electrons and phantom fairy-tales
faster than the past registers future impressions of near-miss impacts.
I know
time
is slow.
starting off
when I
begin
finishing long after I am done.
and
truth
the crippled fugitive hiding
in
shadows of possibilities
cannot resist darting
out
for
a quick encore before the opening curtain.
Accessory Imagination
unable to ensure an icy trail
weds speed-dating,
timed-release capsules
to produce a solid business case
for planetary intimidation
but
when references are required
habitually-blinking,
surreptitiously-slinking imagination
sneaks away
like an exhausted waiter
forced to serve final meals
to a negligently unchained
food-critiquing population
desperately devouring
the final bounty of resources
one deja-vu moment
before
the impending
never-ever-ever-ending
bright-light-headlight-headache supernova drought.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2025)
jump count
The cycle sunk
and with disaster
capsized the bounty:
a quick game played into
extra terms and over time,
a reckless plot with
some mention of revenge;
a speculative view
afforded by affronting the populace.
the spring is wound…
the sword is drawn with crayons,
and you and I are pawns
in a game of pick-em-up 52.
-Zumwalt 1973
Agamemnon Never Had It So Good
The creeping crabgrass sprouts…
And in a malaise of malcontent challenges the
wafting, drafting hydrocarbons.
A lawn of moldering green cadavers.
Mercury, mercury, everywhere, and not a drop
to drink.
The salmon croaks. the sardine croaks, the crimson
crawdad croaks, even the warted frog croaks.
But do crooks croak? Nay!
O, justice, thou art not blind —
a bit deaf maybe — but not blind!
All that is left are saltines and brushed suede.
Thus we reach Armageddon.
—Zumwalt (late 1970s?)
PSYCHOLOGO
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]
