As the funeral director
offered the closing
remarks with hands
folded as in prayer
and a pleasant smile,
he looked to the back
with a nod. No sooner
had the guests stood
and began making their
way past the casket
to the reception line,
two, dark suited men
began folding the
chairs. By the time
the line was done
the room was
empty except for
the flowers, which
the funeral director
instructed the men
to carry outside.
The procedure
was quick, efficient.
It was as if the
funeral had never
happened.

For years now we have been
crawling up where the sun
don’t shine. Plutocracy posing
as Democracy, white anger at

what they see as encroach-
ment by vermin — not the
Deplorables but the Despicables
simply by skin and who they

love, and lackey, kiss-ups
just wanting to keep a cushy
job with a thousand perks not
available to the Leftbehinds

who are told over and over and
over that their grievances are
legit and that their savior is
coming wearing a carrot top

and having a really big bum
hole, which is there to climb
into for security kind of like
going back to the womb except

that it is putrid and slimy
and gaseous and it isn’t
anything adventurous and
glorious like Jules Verne’s

“Journey to the Center of the
Earth” but rather the bleak,
black hole previously known
as a (Shining) City on a Hill,

which, to be honest and in all
reality, didn’t shine brightly
especially for Native Americans
and heretics, but it made for

great publicity by prejudiced
Puritans and this myth really
has been going on for a long
time except this now isn’t a

myth and it may be a metaphor
but still…it stinks.

She cleaned houses of
the rich and discovered
that the facade doesn’t

match reality. She snoop-
ed and got the scoop:
the rich have problems

that money doesn’t solve,
perhaps creates and, for
sure, complicates. Simp-

lify, simplify, simplify
is not a slogan of the
rich. Complicate, comp-

licate, complicate, ap-
parently, is. The shadow
is hidden in opulence,

but the shadow knows.
A rich young lady said
to her parents, “We sure

look good to others, don’t
we? We sure have them
fooled.” It’s hard work

keeping up appearances,
keeping the secrets,
hiding the incriminating

evidence. But it all
looks real good, so good
most everyone wants it

and gets jealous and re-
sentful when they can’t
have it. Little do they

know. But the housekeeper
knows and sure doesn’t
want it, as she sings

“Simplify, simplify,
simplify” all the way
to her simple, little,

loving home where she
embraces the light
and the shadows.

Old, white guys with pot bellies
Wearing fatigues from an Army
Surplus store and carrying lethal

Weapons are on their way down
To the border with Mexico to
Protect the US of A from women

And children who pose a direct
Threat to the security of the US
Of A. They are accompanied by

Legitimate soldiers ordered by
The (p)-resident as an election
Stunt and now costing millions

Upon millions of dollars as the
Old, white guys and the soldiers
Stand around in the barren

Desert pricking their fingers on
The barbed wire to keep out
The dreaded desperate des-

Perados, meaning the poor,
Desperate walkers who are
Still about a thousand miles

From the US border and the
(P)-resident has forgotten all
About it and is on to some

Other diversionary tactic to
Protect him from the damn-
Ing investigation by the

Special Counsel who just,
As a “By the Book” kind of
Guy, is actually working to

Save the country.

The few remaining
reddish-brown oak leaves
and the few remaining
bright yellow maple leaves
hide behind, it seems,
bright evergreens.
Once not long before,
those oak and maple trees’ leaves
dominated the scene.
It was just before the
season’s first big freeze.
Now, it is the bright green
of the pine trees
which dominates
the soon to be white, wintry scene.

My mother told me that
she told my dad that my

dad was being too hard
on me in the back lot as

he tossed balls to me as
I tried to hit the balls

back as he, in some im-
patience, told me how to

do it. He was right but
went about it much too

harshly and my mother
got it right and the next

day my father told me
he was sorry that he

was being too hard on
me, which I thought was

a really big thing for a
father to do and it was

one of the few times I
was grateful to both

my mother and father
at the same time.

The pundit said something like,
“In light of the President’s
firing of the Attorney General
and probably unconstitutional
and likely illegal appointment
of a person to do the President’s
bidding, people have reached
their ‘In case of emergency,
break glass moment,’ and are
once again taking to the streets
nationwide.” About seventy-five
stalwart souls stood in the
wintry weather in little, old
Holland, MI and marched in
concert with millions of others
across the land in support of
the special counsel. And here
is the poetic part, as read
by the same pundit, quoting a
protest sign held by someone,
somewhere, “Ho, ho, ho, hay,
hay, hay, Mueller ain’t goin’
away.”

The novelist wrote about a painter
and the painter spoke of painting
a ship in a bottle into a painting

with two little boys. The ship in
a bottle was a metaphor. I never
thought of that before — a ship

cooped up in a bottle. I just
thought about the arduous task
of putting all those pieces to-

gether in a glass bottle. I’m
imagining with extra long
tweezers as I never have

witnessed the process. But now….
Ships aren’t meant to be sealed
up in a bottle. Messages are

meant to be sealed up in bottles
and tossed into the sea for a
voyage of many, many nautical

miles till someone finds the
bottle, opens and reads the
message. Ships in bottles just

sit on desks and go nowhere
except maybe in the mind of
a little boy or girl staring

at the ship in the bottle and
imagining that he or she is
sailing the seven seas, in

which case, I think that
might be all right, in fact
really good.

cool, damp conditions,
new pine trees’ roots soak it up,
fish swim very still.

He said that once the vote was taken that it is the duty of all citizens to follow the duly elected leaders. Up until that moment, I cautiously had skirted any discussion of politics. I simply had sat in the patient’s chair and nodded affirmatively knowing he and I were polar opposites politically and religiously.

Despite warning signals going off in my head, I asked him if he was aware of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights which guarantees the right of peaceful assembly to protest the actions of elected leaders if those actions are believed to be in opposition to the very constitution those leaders swore to uphold.

He said there are violent demonstrations in the streets and people are rioting and looting and smashing windows.

His office is located in a small community where the closest thing to a riot would be loud cheering at a Friday evening, high school football game.

Incredulous, I asked him where those riots are taking place.

He said all over.

I sat and listened to a highly educated (albeit in a very specific and narrow discipline) person utter paranoid gibberish.

I said that I had been in many, very large, very peaceful protests since the election of 2016 and the only violent protesting that I knew of was in Virginia by white supremacists and I followed that by saying that some, meaning the private militias, on their way down to the border might engage in violence also.

He looked at me like I was a lunatic.

I was in his office, on his turf, and it would have been fruitless to continue.

I left realizing that some of the Deplorables have the prefix Dr. in front of their names and letters of academic achievement following their names.

What’s that about an educated fool?

Later in the day my wife and I entered a church building of a congregation I had once served many years previously. The church is located in a small community of almost exclusively white residents. My son once referred to it as Beaver Cleaver Land.  My wife and I are white, senior citizens — pretty harmless looking actually.  I write that because of what then took place.

We were looking around at the new construction. I noticed someone in the office and I was making my way through the office area when a man emerged from an office and asked, officiously, if he could help me.

I just wanted to see the building and not engage in a discussion of the past so I said I used to live in the area and had heard the church had gone through extensive renovation and I was interested in seeing it.

My wife and I were given the bum’s rush. He didn’t attempt to throw us out but as we left the office area, he stood barring the door and told us we could view other parts of the building.

Finally, after being treated dismissively, I did state that I was a former pastor, but the person turned on his heels and went back into the room where the staff was having a meeting.

Later, I called the church and spoke to the staff person who treated me and my wife rudely. I quoted Matthew 25 about “caring for the least of these,” and offering hospitality in the name of Jesus regardless of who walked through the doors. He said, in not so many words, that, in light of recent attacks on congregations (meaning the anti-semitic attack and shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh), he thought my wife and I might be terrorists and that he saw it as his duty to protect the property and whatever staff might be on site.

I made the suggestion that if the staff was concerned about people wandering through the office area while they were in a meeting, they could lock the door to the offices, put a sign that the staff was in a meeting and that the visitor should ring the bell for help.

I just shook my head. I asked my wife if she would like to go out for a drink. She sighed and said yes. I said, “Let’s make it a double.”

Welcome to Looney-Tune Land.