http://player.pbs.org/viralplayer/2365915100/
PBS SHOW LINK TO THE MYSTERY OF VAN GOGH’S EAR AND THE LADY WHO RECEIVED IT.
http://player.pbs.org/viralplayer/2365915100/
PBS SHOW LINK TO THE MYSTERY OF VAN GOGH’S EAR AND THE LADY WHO RECEIVED IT.
December 5, 2016
by JOHN PAVLOVITZ
In a land where the states are united, they claim,
in a sky-scraping tower adorned with his name,
lived a terrible, horrible, devious chump,
the bright orange miscreant known as the Trump.
This Trump he was mean, such a mean little man,
with the tiniest heart and two tinier hands,
and a thin set of lips etched in permanent curl,
and a sneer and a scowl and contempt for the world.
He looked down from his perch and he grinned ear to ear,
and he thought, “I could steal the election this year!
It’d be rather simple, it’s so easily won,
I’ll just make them believe that their best days are done!
Yes, I’ll make them believe that it’s all gone to Hell,
and I’ll be Jerk Messiah and their souls they will sell.
And I’ll use lots of words disconnected from truth,
but I’ll say them with style so they won’t ask for proof.
I’ll speak random platitudes, phrases, and such,
They’re so raised on fake news that it won’t matter much!
They won’t question the how to, the what, why, or when,
I will make their America great once again!”
The Trump told them to fear, they should fear he would say,
“They’ve all come for your jobs, they’ll all take them away.
You should fear every Muslim and Mexican too,
every brown, black, and tan one, everyone who votes blue.”
And he fooled all the Christians, he fooled them indeed,
He just trotted out Jesus, that’s all Jesus folk need.
And celebrity preachers they crowned him as king,
Tripping over themselves just to kiss the Trump’s ring.
And he spoke only lies just as if they were true,
Until they believed all of those lies were true too.
He repeated and Tweeted and he blustered and spit,
And he mislead and fibbed—and he just made up sh*t.
And the media laughed but they printed each line,
thinking “He’ll never will win, in the end we’ll be fine.”
So they chased every headline, bold typed every claim,
‘Till the fake news and real news they looked just the same.
And the scared folk who listened, they devoured each word,
Yes, they ate it all up every word that they heard,
petrified that their freedom was under attack,
trusting Trump he would take their America back.
from the gays and from ISIS, he’d take it all back,
Take it back from the Democrats, fat cats, and blacks.
And so hook, line, and sinker they all took the bait,
all his lies about making America great.
Now the Pantsuited One she was smart and prepared,
she was brilliant and steady but none of them cared,
no they cared not to see all the work that she’d done,
or the fact that the Trump had not yet done thing one.
They could only shout “Emails!”, yes “Emails!” they’d shout,
because Fox News had told them—and Fox News had clout.
And the Pantsuited One she was slandered no end,
and a lie became truth she could never defend.
And the Trump watched it all go according to plan—
a strong woman eclipsed by an insecure man.
And November the 8th arrived, finally it came,
like a slow-moving storm but it came just the same.
And Tuesday became Wednesday as those days will do,
And the night turned to morning and the nightmare came true,
With millions of non-voters still in their beds,
Yes, the Trump he had done it, just like he had said.
And the Trumpers they trumped, how they trumped when he won,
All the racists and bigots; deplorable ones,
they crawled out from the woodwork, came out to raise Hell,
they came out to be hateful and hurtful as well.
With slurs and with road signs, with spray paint and Tweets,
with death threats to neighbors and taunts on the street.
And the grossest of grossness they hurled on their peers,
while the Trump he said zilch—for the first time in years.
But he Tweeted at Hamilton, he Tweeted the Times,
And he trolled Alec Baldwin a few hundred times,
and he pouted a pout like a petulant kid,
thinking this is what Presidents actually did,
thinking he could still be a perpetual jerk,
terrified to learn he had to actually work,
work for every American, not just for a few,
not just for the white ones—there was much more to do.
He now worked for the Muslims and Mexicans too,
for the brown, black, and tan ones, and the ones who vote blue.
They were all now his bosses, now they all had a say,
and those nasty pantsuited ones were here to stay.
And the Trump he soon realized that he didn’t win,
He had gotten the thing—and the thing now had him.
And it turned out the Trump was a little too late,
for America was already more than quite great,
not because of the sameness, the opposite’s true,
It’s greatness far more than just red, white, and blue,
It’s straight, gay, and female—it’s Gentile and Jew,
It’s Transgender and Christian and Atheist too.
It’s Asians, Caucasians of every kind,
The disabled and abled, the deaf and the blind,
It’s immigrants, Muslims, and brave refugees,
It’s Liberals with bleeding hearts fixed to their sleeves.
And we are all staying, we’re staying right here,
and we’ll be the great bane of the Trump for four years.
And we’ll be twice as loud as the loudness of hate,
be the greatness that makes our America great.
And the Trump’s loudest boasts they won’t ever obscure,
over two million more of us—voted for her.
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by Louis Jenkins
There’s no use in regret. You can’t change anything.
Your mother died unhappy with the way you turned out.
You and your father were not on speaking terms
when he died, and you left your wife for no good reason.
Well, it’s past. You may as well regret missing
out on the conquest of Mexico. That would have been
just your kind of thing back when you were eighteen:
a bunch of murderous Spaniards, out to destroy a
culture and get rich. On the other hand, the Aztecs
were no great shakes either. It’s hard to know whom
to root for in this situation. The Aztecs thought
they had to sacrifice lots of people to keep the sun coming
up every day. And it worked. The sun rose every day.
But it was backbreaking labor, all that sacrificing.
The priests had to call in the royal family to help,
and their neighbors, the gardener, the cooks…. You
can see how this is going to end. You are going to
have your bloody, beating heart ripped out, but you
are going to have to stand in line, in the hot sun, for
hours, waiting your turn.
“Regret” by Louis Jenkins, from Tin Flag: New and Selected Prose Poems. Will o’ the Wisp Books. © 2013
Louis Jenkins’ poems have been published in a number of literary magazines and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 1999 (Scribner, 1999) and Great American Prose Poems (Scribner, 2003) His books of poetry include An Almost Human Gesture (1987), All Tangled Up With the Living (1991), Nice Fish: New and Selected Prose Poems, Just Above Water, The Winter Road and Sea Smoke. His most recent books are North of the Cities (2007), European Shoes (2008), Before You Know It: Prose Poems 1970-2005 (2009), Words and Pictures, with Richard C. Johnson (2012), and Tin Flag (2013), all published by Will o’ the Wisp Books. Mr. Jenkins was awarded two Bush Foundation Fellowships for poetry, a Loft-McKnight fellowship, and was the 2000 George Morrison Award winner. Louis Jenkins has read his poetry on A Prairie Home Companion and was a featured poet at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in 1996 and at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, Aldeburgh, England in 2007. Louis Jenkins and Mark Rylance, actor and former director of the Globe Theatre, London, co-wrote a stage production titled Nice Fish, based on Mr. Jenkins poems. The play premiered April 6, 2013, at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and ran through May 18, 2013.
by Thomas Lux
Whatever is too stupid to say can be sung.
The human voice can sing a vowel to break your heart. It trills a string of banal words, but your blood jumps, regardless. You don’t care about the words but only how they’re sung and the music behind-the brass, the drums. Oh the primal, necessary drums behind the words so dumb! That power, the bang and the boom and again the bang we cannot, need not, live without, nor without other means to make sweet noise, the guitar or violin, the things that sing the plaintive, joyful sounds. Which is why I like songs best when I can’t hear the words, or, better still, when there are no words at all.
“Regarding (Most) Songs” by Thomas Lux from The Street of Clocks. © Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.
https://www.amazon.com/God–Particles-Thomas…/0983823804
Editorial Reviews. From Publishers Weekly. The prolific Lux (The Street of Clocks ) should … God Particles [Thomas Lux] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Poetry. The latest collection of dazzlers from one of the few poets writing …
Bless Their Hearts
by Richard Newman
At Steak ‘n Shake I learned that if you add
“Bless their hearts” after their names, you can say
whatever you want about them and it’s OK.
My son, bless his heart, is an idiot,
she said. He rents storage space for his kids’
toys—they’re only one and three years old!
I said, my father, bless his heart, has turned
into a sentimental old fool. He gets
weepy when he hears my daughter’s greeting
on our voice mail. Before our Steakburgers came
someone else blessed her office mate’s heart,
then, as an afterthought, the jealous hearts
of the entire anthropology department.
We bestowed blessings on many a heart
that day. I even blessed my ex-wife’s heart.
Our waiter, bless his heart, would not be getting
much tip, for which, no doubt, he’d bless our hearts.
In a week it would be Thanksgiving,
and we would each sit with our respective
families, counting our blessings and blessing
the hearts of family members as only family
does best. Oh, bless us all, yes, bless us, please
bless us and bless our crummy little hearts.
“Bless Their Hearts” by Richard Newman, from Domestic Fugues. © Steel Toe Books, 2009.
I believe in planting trees in whose shade I will never sit.
We would all be happier if we all did this.
The artist within us strives to perfect for perpetuity.
The writer within us knows that most of their words are not read.
The caregivers within us know that their efforts will not be returned.
We know we cannot take our efforts and our concerns with us.
We plant seeds for tomorrow even if tomorrow does not come.
Likely, we would likely go mad if we did not do this.
A good parent is a parent that gives to the future.
The future is about the quality of life of the child and the grandchild.
Yet there are those of us who do not believe in the future.
There are among us those that believe the world is ending.
They believe that the end of time is the will of beings greater than themselves.
There is no factual evidence that their beliefs are correct.
Riches are better than poverty. Wealth provides comfort.
Health is better than illness. It maintains our being.
Contentment is better than depression.
To know something is much better than believing something.
To know is a personal fact.To believe is a personal wish.
And every word I write is a shady spot where I will never sit.
Ninety billion galaxies in this one tiny universe—
a billion seconds make thirty-two years.
No matter how many ways we conceive it,
this generous wedge called Ursa Major
more than fills my sight.
But now, as I turn to put out the lights
and give my dog her bedtime cookie,
my eyes become the handle of the great Milky Way,
and carry it into the house.
-by Dan Gerber
“Facing North” by Dan Gerber from A Primer on Parallel Lives. © Copper Canyon Press, 2007.
by William Carlos Williams
There were some dirty plates
and a glass of milk
beside her on a small table
near the rank, disheveled bed—
Wrinkled and nearly blind
she lay and snored
rousing with anger in her tones
to cry for food,
Gimme something to eat—
They’re starving me—
I’m all right I won’t go
to the hospital. No, no, no
Give me something to eat
Let me take you
to the hospital, I said
and after you are well
you can do as you please.
She smiled, Yes
you do what you please first
then I can do what I please—
Oh, oh, oh! she cried
as the ambulance men lifted
her to the stretcher—
Is this what you call
making me comfortable?
By now her mind was clear—
Oh you think you’re smart
you young people,
she said, but I’ll tell you
you don’t know anything.
Then we started.
On the way
we passed a long row
of elms. She looked at them
awhile out of
the ambulance window and said,
What are all those
fuzzy-looking things out there?
Trees? Well, I’m tired
of them and rolled her head away.
From The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams. © New Directions Press, 1991.
September 11, 2001 holds ugly memories for us. Songs were written about that day, keeping with the old tradition of commemorating important events in song and verse.
This song celebrates the survivors, not the dead. Drink up to their memory, it says, and go on about your life.
WE THE LIVING © 2014 Kenneth Harper Finton
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by Thomas Lux
The high-tension spires spike the sky
beneath which boys bend
to pick from prickly vines
the deep-sopped fruit, the rind’s green
a green sunk
in green. They part the plants’ leaves,
reach into the nest,
and pull out mother, father, fat Uncle Phil.
The smaller yellow-green children stay,
for now. The fruit goes
in baskets by the side of the row,
every thirty feet or so. By these bushels
the boys get paid, in cash,
at day’s end, this summer
of the last days of the empire
that will become known as
the past, adios, then,
the ragged-edged beautiful blink.
“Cucumber Fields Crossed by High Tension Wires” by Thomas Lux from The Street of Clocks. © Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001. Reprinted with permission.
Thomas Lux is an American poet that holds the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and runs Georgia Tech’s “Poetry at Tech” program. Wikipedia
Bio: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/thomas-lux