He moves with great strides
arms swaying at his sides.
There’s a sense of purpose there;
some even stop to stare,
but he keeps his gaze straight ahead
as if to say, “Can’t stop, have places to go instead.”
As I sit and watch him pass by,
I wonder if his pace will intensify
or if he can even maintain that pace
in this one-man race.
Ultimately, there is cessation
when he will reach his destination.
And so I cheer him on
knowing he has already won.
It’s one man’s one-man race
and he always comes in first place.

They say the White House pit viper
is no pied piper
who actually piped the rats away.
The White House pit viper
is more a Svengali
dictating what the (p)-resident will say.
Then the (p)-resident feels so jolly
as the children (not the rats) are carted away.

There once was a man from Verona
who loved smoking a Corona,
but it put him in a snit.
He couldn’t get it lit.
He was huffing and puffing bologna.

Only a thirty-two-year-old pit viper
Looking over the (p)-resident’s
Shoulder and hissing out draconian
Policy that might even have given
Joseph Goebbels pause could unite
The country in tears for babies,
Mothers and fathers. Perhaps we
Should congratulate the venomous
Snake before it strikes again in
The hope that it will change it’s
Ways, but then there is that thing
About the nature of scorpions.
Pit vipers, too?

There are the aberrations
like your father walking out
of the house to go on an

errand and then you, a teen,
get a call that he died while
out or your wife dying in a

day when she is forty-nine
while seemingly perfectly
healthy, but then there are

the salt-box slogan “When
It Rains It Pours,” incidents
that are so unexpected and

shocking but, by virtue of
the numbers and age, some-
thing understandable (after

getting used to it) — like
friends and acquaintances
dying, going horizontal,

now shorter than the grass,
dust in the wind — old girl-
friends, old buddies from

grade school, high school,
the fraternity, classmates
in grad school — people with

whom you had lost touch but,
nevertheless, assumed were
going about their business

just as you do but don’t any-
more. And then you absently
check your pulse and shake

your head because in spite
of the frequency, it does
take some getting used to.

I would use harsher language but
I’m afraid the owner of this press
wouldn’t allow it and so,
you, and you know who you
are, are killing my country;
you, and you know who you
are, are killing the constitution;
you, and you know who you
are, are hiding out waiting to
be re-elected;
you, and you know who you are,
are allowing despots to determine
who we are;
you, and you know who you are,
are standing by while fascism takes over;
you, and you know who you are, have
sold your soul to the devil,
metaphorically speaking,
and sold us down the proverbial river;
you, and you know who you are, are
cowering and the devil laughs and Hitler
laughs and every damn despot whoever lived
laughs like a hyena (simile-ically speaking).
Do you hear them, you, who know who you are?
Do you?

The world is going to hell in a fascist hand
basket and here he is watching the last day
of the white man’s sport of last resort (all
others having been sacrificed to the athletic
ability of brown and black people until the
brown and black people are given equal oppor-
tunity and then maybe we will have the favor-
ite sport of fascists as they choose to keep
people of color out of the country clubs and
into concentration camps, gas chambers and
incinerators) — golf.

The article spoke of the termination
of human life and the extension of
all other life and as hard as it was
to swallow such talk, it has to be
considered. Life will go on with or
without us and it is insanely insane
to think otherwise unless you are
part of the dying breed of flat-earthers
(Don’t go too close to the edge) and
six-thousand-year-old earth believers.
In which case, you would be devoured
by creatures that roamed the earth
just a few years ago maybe like my
Chocolate Lab.

In a poem, she wrote
of the languorous life
of a cut and waiting rose.
I’m not a rose
but I suppose
I, too, these days
live a languorous life
in light of all of life’s strife
accentuated
by a government attenuated —
thin, weak, inconsequential
like wimps
or as one pundit put it —
the president’s pimps.

The ghost writer who isn’t much of a ghost
said (to paraphrase), in reference to the man
for whom he was the ghost, “He’s empty. He’s

an empty, leaky vessel. Something complimentary
is poured in it leaks out quickly thus necessitating
more and more and more compliments.” Even though

the former ghost isn’t a psychologist nor a psych-
iatrist nor a licensed therapist, he uses all the
jargon, and it all rings true and true to more than

just a few of the licensed therapists: malevolent
narcissist, ego-maniac, misogynist, racist, black
hole, soulless, heartless, incapable of compassion

and empathy, inherently cruel and on and on and on
and maybe to the most metaphorical — an empty, leaky
vessel. Then the former ghost gave the scary warning

(to paraphrase), “If he had the power of the despots
he admires, he would be killing his perceived enemies
in the numbers of the worst despots.” The former ghost

has scary things to say and we should listen up for
he is no etherial being, no ghost vanishing with the
first daylight breeze. He’s the writer who followed

the leaky vessel around watching his every move,
listening to his every word, perceiving his behavior
and then naming it all in an almost poetic image —

a leaky vessel.