deep breath, sigh, what a waste land
except for the two lesser watched

pbs stations from nine to twelve
p.m. when you can watch top-notch

mysteries in subtitles from twenty-
years ago just like you used to watch

real foreign art films at the art
theatre, (is that theater or theatre?)

[before porn invaded] in hyde park
near the university of chicago when

you were a student at a south suburban
jr. (now community) college and wanted

to appear really, really, intellectually
sophisticated, except that it was easier

then to read the subtitles on a big
screen as versus a relatively small

flat screen hd tv and even though
it was before porn hit art theaters

/theatres (not to mention the per-
centage of viewers of porn on the

internet) you could watch gina lollo-
brigida and not care a whit about

the subtitles and still get a thrill
and then later at home with the family

hear the swedish chef on the pbs
station your children used to watch.

Once I found out I had thirty-five
percent English blood and two
percent Indian blood from India,

I realized I was both oppressor
and oppressed, more oppressor than
oppressed, much more oppressor than

oppressed and then I realized I am
what everyone is in oneself —
both oppressor and oppressed; the

percentage doesn’t matter because,
according to Holy Writ if you are
guilty of breaking one commandment

you are guilty of breaking all ten
and, therefore never one in a position
to judge anyone anymore for anything

and that would be a really good
starting place for personal humility
and responsibility, speaking as

one who is both oppressor and oppressed,
even if more oppressor than oppressed,
which according to my DNA is what I am.

The Brits know gardens.
We manicure lawns.
They see the glory in
a myriad of wild flowers.
We say weeds be gone.
They germinate.
We eliminate.
To imitate:
Something there is
that doesn’t like a
well manicured lawn –
Kentucky Blue
cut to the bottom of the sticks,
keep it neat through
and through,
but do make it quick.
We are adolescents.
They are our antecedents
our ancestors,
our grandparents,
the ones who know
how to preserve.
I’m not sure we deserve
such an inheritance
or anything more,
but give us a chance
and perchance
we, too, may yet grow
beautiful, British
gardens galore.

It’s the first of July, the
start of the Fourth of July
celebration. There is much
energy in the air, people
shopping for beer, getting
the boat ready, picnics. I
sit and think about the
dissipation of that energy
and enthusiasm over the
evolution of a short period
of time — too much sun, too
much beer, too much good
cheer, boiling and broiling
irritation at the neighbor’s
boorish political opinions
while said neighbor pontifi-
cates while standing over
the grill looking down at
what the man thinks could
pass for the neighbor’s
relatives — hot dogs, re-
trieving the boat from the
water in a dense, head fog,
fights between husbands and
wives about the best way to
run the boat up on the trailer
without carving a slice of
fiberglass while children
sit in the backseat glued
to their phones. My wife and
I decide to go for a jog at
a quiet, seldom used trail,
hunker down, play it safe,
lie low with the chocolate
lab and shudder at the thought
of all those people on the
road back to Chicago.

It’s easy for me to rant
about things as they are,
but I need to get beyond the “can’t”
and seek the thing nobler by far.

I’ve written in protest
and marched side by side.
“Fear not,” is Jesus’ request —
a mantra and spiritual guide.

“Fear not, fear not, fear not,”
banishing all things fraught.

Whenever I hear anything, I mean
anything at all, about the president,
I become a spiritual failure
and curse worse than a @#$%^&*@#$%!!!!!!! sailor:
I am so embarrassed that he
is at the helm;
I am just overwhelmed
that the US has become a
@#$%^&*@#$ netherworld realm
run by psychos, sociopaths, sycophants,
all that should be banished
to Hjelm,
an uninhabited Danish island,
which would then become hell.
The Danes are the happiest people
in the world who obviously aren’t
in touch with reality
and could use an
attitude adjustment promptly.
They need to live for awhile with our
Federal administration’s banality.
I know that would be a slap in the Scandinavian face
but would give us a little breathing space.
Besides, my wife would like me
to quit being a spiritual failure and
stop swearing like a @#$%^&*@#
sailor, with apologies from
my wife to all those sailors
and thank you for your service to the country.

I don’t know why but I’m really
uncomfortable in the presence of
sociopaths and psychopaths. It’s
disquieting, disorienting, disturb-
ing. This morning when I took the
dog out to do his business, I heard
this burst of air in the woods like
a water sprinkler was about to start –
ppssshhtt — and I was going to get
soaked. Water sprinkler in the woods?
Then I thought perhaps it was the
rattle of a poisonous snake except
I’m not in Arizona this time of year
and I live in the one county in the
lower peninsula that doesn’t have
poisonous snakes. The dog and I went
back inside. I fixed him his break-
fast and then I thought again about
how uncomfortable I am in the presence
of sociopaths and psychopaths and
then I went online and went to Yahoo
to get the day’s news and realized
we are all right there — in the
woods with strange sounds, poisonous
snakes and sociopaths and psychopaths.

The commentator asked,
“When will the fever
break?” and the listener
knew experientially exactly
what the metaphor meant.
He felt it in that moment —
relief from the pain, the
heat, the sweats and then
the cool breeze blowing
over his exhausted,
enervated body. “When
will the fever break?”
as if to make a question
into an affirmation of
what will happen. Hold
on; keep hope; a cool
wind is coming blowing
a wonderfully dry
breeze over our
political scene.
When will the fever
break? Have faith;
the fever will break.
It always does.

I hope the president’s
dumb and dumber,
ugly and uglier,
crude and cruder,
mean and meaner
tweets won’t stop,
because, eventually,
then the man who
delusionally dreams
of being on top
will be all alone
with only his phone
and his tweets
to keep him company,
before the men in white coats
strap him in a straight jacket
and accompany
him out of the White House
into psychiatric care
and eventually the big house,
hopefully putting an end
to our national nightmare
and his making money off the
American public by the only
thing about which he cares —
his dishonest, moneymaking rackets.

Bona fide demagogues ask, tell,
and then send others off to jail or hell.
Scientists are told to change their story
and if they refuse, they are
eliminated from work at the least,
and, perhaps, sent on to glory.
Fortunately, for us thus far in
the United States, the only threats
out of one pretend or wannabe demagogue
are the manic tweets of insipid epithets.