You asked me to appear
before you and I am here
to ask you to quietly disappear.
Were you elected president?
Yes, I believe you were,
though illegitimately inferred
and as it is, I would concur,
but that is beside the point.
You pose a clear
and present danger
to this country and a world
in increasing fear,
so, as I am only an arm-chair
psychologist, still, I have to conclude
you are a malevolent narcissist
of huge magnitude,
so, please Mr. President, I am here
to offer you a television contract —
an immense financial figure,
so you can replace your arch-enemy
Arnold Schwarzenegger.
You don’t know anything about
anything really important,
but you do know your heart’s desire
and that is to look across the table
and say, “You’re fired.”
So, take the deal
and accept this modest appeal
and, if you wish, perhaps some day
we may both appear, together even,
on “Let’s Make a Deal.”

It doesn’t stop, the barrage
of hot, scalding, incinerating
lava relentlessly flowing
from the daily eruptions,
the rocks tumbling down
the mountains slamming
onto roads, pulverizing
people, crushing traffic,
blocking and stopping any
progress — and so it goes
or doesn’t go, just explodes
on the soon to bloom
Cherry Blossom rows.

Such need, such overwhelming
need posturing strength, but
revealing only bald-faced need,
screaming need, comfortable
only in front of the deafening
sound of a wildly cheering crowd,
comfortable only in front of
a television with his talking
face flashing back, making more
sounds. What does he do in the
silence, the inevitable, relent-
less silence that comes unaware?
Hide in his own mumbling gibber-
ish, the loud screams of his
dreams? Where did it go wrong,
little boy? Where did it begin,
when did the deprivation start,
— did the warm water turn cold
in the darkness even before you
were brutally thrust into life,
will it ever end or will you be
sucked back into the black hole?
Even in that cosmic silence
perhaps there will be an eerie
sucking sound in your ear to
give you comfort and keep you
company as you disappear.

What’s the new scene?
What do I mean?
Do I mean the mean, new scene
or the same, old scene
only quite a bit more mean?
Two weeks it has only been
but an eternity it seems,
know what I mean?
Not only the dirty water,
polluted air, smoldering earth scene,
know what I mean?
But the social, societal unrest scene,
know what I mean?
The disrespectful, malevolent, narcissistic
scene
signaling what this might mean —
the dreaded, forbidding, end-times
anthropocene,
which might mean
that this is about the soon to be Late, Great, Planet Earth,
which isn’t at all what the author did mean
but more at what the late, great James Baldwin did mean:
God Gave Noah the Rainbow Sign:
No More Water, Fire Next Time.

*With indebtedness to Anne Waldman and her poem Anthropocene Blues

It’s The Hollow Man, the Wannabe Stadel Lion-man
with the Faux Lion’s Mane and Pinocchio’s Nose Comedy Show
featuring the comedy cast of Reince “Rhino Skin”
Priebus unlike his boss The Thin-Skinned-Faux Lion-Man
and nitty-witty, ever-so-funny Kellyanne
and Michael Flynn, the kooky conspiracy man
and Can You Believe Steve Bannon,
Wild Hair, Paunch — the sinister Shar Pei Man?
They’re funny, they’re outrageous,
mocking the audience they will shout
and tell all to shut up and get the hell out!
Oh, no, that’s not at us they shout —
it’s just the press, foreign dignitaries,
leaders of state, kings, queens
and the Prince of Wales
they gleefully shout out.
They call them up and then hang up
so abrupt just for fun
and all laugh into the TV camera
shouting, “Trump’s Number One.”
At the National Prayer Breakfast
The Hollow Man said he prayed
for the Terminator before The
Apprentice would terminate
due to poor ratings it would
surely generate
without The Hollow Man at
that ship’s helm.
But now he’s in his own realm —
a universe parallel
with a comedy show nonpareil
which according to the critics
already is in all of Dante’s Nine
Circles of Hell.

I entrained our recently ailing
dog down the steps,
along the walk
out to the grassy area
that fronts the desert association
for purposes of non-desert aesthetics
in keeping with the resort across
the street
at a time I am normally asleep
so the dog might
take care of business at three
in the dead of night.
I had heard him panting and assumed
I’d better get him out the door
before something unpleasant
was placed on the condo floor.
No emergency like five days
before,
no, just a short pee
and perhaps a slow walk till four.
I walked him back to the condo and he
headed to bed
and then I thought…
in spite of the hour, what a treat
it was to walk my dog
under the lights of the street,
through a fog, which didn’t
exist, as it did in Casablanca,
but which, nevertheless, bode suspense
and ghostly, nocturnal adventures
in store
and would have, without brave dog
by my side,
caused fright
even more
in the dead of night
and which, adventure or not,
thankfully didn’t last till four.