Zumwalt Poems Online

Posts tagged ‘thoughts’

SHOW OF FORCE

SHOW OF FORCE

Black Rain

Night is Morning.
Morning is Night.

Oil showering down.
Smoke invading lungs.

Back Home

Truths are lies.
Lies are truths.

Kurds should attack.
Kurds should step aside.

We must pick the leader
to lead Iran into the future.
Who the hell is he?
I couldn’t care less.

We had to attack before Israel attacked:
this forced Israel’s hand.
We have to dismantle Iran’s nuclear capabilities
that we have already totally obliterated.

A sitcom streams
at uncertain times:
plot twists reveal
a psychopathic killer.

The war is short:
ending in a few days;
this war can last forever:
we have the will and the resources.

We are liberating the people
until there is no one left.

— zumwalt (03/2026)

Category:

2026, Free Verse, News, 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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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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The human touch

Based on this recent news event: https://www.npr.org/2025/12/25/g-s1-103683/powerball-player-arkansas-won-jackpot

The human touch

On Christmas Eve, many just like me
stopped at the station where I get my gas
and bought slips of paper
as thin as my patience
waiting its reward.

A mile or so away in Cabot
I closed my own store,
shut down the register,
reminded by the radio of
the size of the jackpot
while I drove home
in my rusty 2003 Tacoma.

Maddie set out some sandwiches—
our light Christmas Eve meal;
two months of watching costs
earned tomorrow’s fortune of presents
paired with roasted prime rib.

That morning came, and our two children
visited us in bed to tug at us—
too small to pull us out
and not old enough to realize they hadn’t.

A delight of flung wrapping paper and
unchecked squeals energized our living room
as, with some guilt, I looked at my phone
to glimpse the weekly Powerball snub.

No ordinary loss:
promised paradise, this time,
came from the station where I staked my three bucks.

But this small defeat brought reassurance:
in a world of algorithms,
predictive apps, and AI advisers
that steal away jobs and raise energy prices
there was still one thing technology couldn’t do:
choose the right numbers.

Category:

2025, AI, Free Verse, Poem, Poems, Poetry, writing

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JOUSTING WINDMILLS

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!

Category:

2025, Free Verse, Modern Poetry, News, Poem, Poems, Poetry, writing, Zumwalt

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With apologies to Emily and the DOJ

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)

Category:

2025, Headlines, humor, Modern Poetry, News, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Politics, Satire, short poems, Uncategorized, Windmills, writing, Zumwalt

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Updated Dump

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)

Category:

2025, Contemporary Poetry, Free Verse, humor, Modern Poetry, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Satire, writing, Zumwalt

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Imperfect Information

My apologies. I had messed up the formatting earlier. It is now corrected.

Imperfect information

Category:

Uncategorized

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formaldehydration

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)

Category:

2011, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Zumwalt

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