Zumwalt Poems Online

Posts tagged ‘Poem’

A Blot Upon Thee

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.

Category:

2026, News, Poetry, Politics, Zumwalt

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Gibbon and Toynbee bump into Spengler at Starbucks

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?)

Category:

2026, Free Verse, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Zumwalt

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Three poems published today at The Good Men Project

Three Zumwalt poems were published as featured content today at The Good Men Project: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/faceoff-on-facebook/

This is quite an honor to have three lengthy poems of this level of density and abstraction published on a high-traffic site like The Good Men Project. Please visit if you have a minute.

This is a highly visited online publication per Gemini AI: “The Good Men Project: ~2 – 3 Million monthly visitors (varies by source, sometimes listed as 1.9M unique visitors)“

FYI -- the formatting for "roads closed" was lost when posted on their site.

UPDATE: Roads closed was removed from their website, requested by me, due to formatting issues. I will post an update when Roads closed is published again.

Category:

2025, Free Verse, humor, Poetry, Published Zumwalt Poems, Social Media, Zumwalt

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Concept of a Plan

Concept of a Plan

Here is “The Great Healthcare Plan,”
The finest concept known to man.
No need to think of how this works
Or who this helps and who this hurts.

This policy is the greatest, most wonderful healthcare dream,
The biggest savings anyone has ever known or seen.
We’ll slash the drugs, making deals with forced consent,
By three hundred, four hundred — five hundred percent!

We can’t pay off the middle men,
That’s up to you to do, my friend.
If you need more to make you well,
Then just follow our plan,
straight to…
well…
straight to where I might one day dwell.

— zumwalt (January 2026)

News stories:
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/15/nx-s1-5678654/trump-great-healthcare-plan-video-announcement-aca-premiums https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/15/politics/trump-health-care-plan

Category:

2026, Headlines, humor, Poem, Poems, Politics, Satire, 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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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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