A good friend has told him that
if life circumstances had been
different, the sky would be the

limit on what he could have done.
He could have gone to Ivy League
schools, gotten a Ph.D. from one

of the best divinity schools in the
world and become a distinguished
professor at a top rated school.

He thought about that and thought
about the life circumstances that
he couldn’t change and what he

does with the cards he is dealt
and he smiled and felt really good
as he sat at the table once again

with the cards in front of him
and sunglasses over his eyes and
a smile in his heart for the

support he felt from those who
struggled in a way he never would
and for what he is without any of

the cards and because of that,
the sky could never ever be a
limit on an eternity of gratitude.

The (p)resident is the pawn of chaos
being dictated by the real boss —
the real boss being Bannon
who shoots chaos out of a verbal cannon.
All around the world,
all is coming unfurled
from the Far East to the Middle East,
all geography is a fascist’s feast.
Through Russia, Europe, Britain, Scandinavia,
the seeds of destruction are the mania.
And in what was once the good, old USA
a nation facing further destruction everyday,
white, evangelical, Christian Republicans
are happy to elect a despicable, pedophile, Southern bumpkin.
Will Bannon, the Rasputin, get his way
and send civilizations hurtling into rapid decay
only to be rebuilt in some godforsaken, demonic way?

The big, ugly, white, evangelical,
Republican monster watched TV
and saw an interracial couple in

bed in a mattress commercial and
went ape; then an Asian woman
was in a commercial for another

mattress company and she was by
herself enjoying her regular size
mattress, but the aroused and

ashamed (never) monster thought her
movements to be way too provocative;
then, in a commercial on internet

service, a black guy answered the
door of his palatial mansion and,
of all horrible things but under-

standable, because these are the
end time signs of the end times,
he is not the butler. Enough,

enough, enough! The monster can’t
take it any longer and yells,
“A white, Republican, evangelical,

pedophile, really big monster is
my kind of monster to save us
from the invasion of human beings.”

Rollin’ down Rt. 66 at 66 miles 
	an hour we came upon the sign 
that read, “Fantasy,” 
	and another that read 
“73 Ounce Steak For Free,”
        (caveat: You have to consume all 73)
and then we passed the 
	75’ aluminum cross at the spiritual 
rest stop and we knew we 
	were just 20 miles out of Amarillo city.

My pulse quickened as the highway became 
    	a race track of Ford 150’s, 250’s 
and three's roarin’ down on me  
	and up my rear 
as Amarillo came near. 

My guess was the first stop for those big horse 	
        powered cowboys would be “Fantasy,” 
and was not the spiritual rest stop with the 	
        75’ sparkling clean, aluminum cross that looked 
like no one had ever hung from
	such a monstrosity
as that, 
	let alone a 65’ sparkling clean, aluminum 
Jesus in a hundred gallon hat.
        We were on our way to Texas high society.

In light of a self-incriminating tweet by
the president pertaining to possible ob-
struction of justice, the fired FBI director
tweeted a pithy aphorism by the Buddha,
“Three things cannot be long hidden: the
sun, the moon and the truth.” Forsooth!

Mark Twain wrote that he tells the truth
because lying takes too much work:
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have
to remember anything.” Forsooth!

If I had been around, I would have
voted for Mark Twain for president,
but his real name was Samuel Clemons.
Good heavens!

Mark Twain was considered a nom de plume,
I presume. But a nom de plume is a pseudonym.
Is a pseudonym a phony guy? I thought, for sure,
you were my guy. Did you tell a lie?
Oh, Samuel Clemons, why, oh, why!

Why all the fume about a nom de plume?
Everyone knew the pseudonym was the pseudo-him.
Unlike never the twain shall meet,
Twain and Clemons were one and the same.
How sweet!

Mark Twain for President! He’s too lazy to lie.
Finally an honest guy!

My wife and I dragged and our chocolate
lab Bart cheerfully romped into the spot
where we would stop our backpack trip

for the evening. We passed a bend in
the river and Bart made for it as soon
as our packs touched down. No sooner

was he in the river after jumping off
the steep bank than he was caught in
the branches and going down fast, when

out of nowhere came two angels around
that bend in a canoe. Even before we
shouted they paddled for the dog, grab-

bed him, disentangled him and held him
high by the collar while we made it down
the bank and grabbed him. By the time

we made it back up the bank the angels
flew around the bend and out of sight.
I asked, “Was that the Lone Ranger and

Tonto?” My wife said, “No, they would
have been on horses.” We felt a new
rush of energy while the dog fell

exhausted at our feet. He wouldn’t
be helping to put up the tent or
cook dinner.

Twenty, thirty years of stacking
the deck against the poor and the

middle class and then legislation
to reduce taxes on the wealthiest

and the totally dishonest housing
bubble and its sudden burst and

the near fatal financial fall of
all falls in 2008 and 9 when we

all could have gone down the
economic drain until the next

eight years of stability and
now the utter, unbelievable in-

sanity of the last election and
the new tax bill promising heaven

to the middle but actually padd-
ing the pockets of the rich and

the oligarchs laugh and the pluto-
crats count and the fascists move

fast to take over the whole frag-
ile affair called by the founders

“democracy,” and all the while the
poor just sit and, knowingly, smile.

All of it has the word “sex” in
it but it doesn’t have anything
to do with the glorious experience.

No, the organ might be used, but
it has everything to do with the
sick thinking in the other organ

sitting inside of the other head
— it’s spelled POWER. It’s all
about the illusion and now that

the power brokers are falling
faster than the leaves of fall
and weeping, weeping, weeping

like weeping willows and wailing
like a bad country-western song
about how sorry, sorry, sorry

they are, I am reminded of my
high school wrestling coach who
when I was found in an obvious

falsehood and saying how truly
sorry, sorry, sorry I was, he,
with a certain smirk on his face,

stated, “Are you truly sorry or
are you simply sorry you were
discovered?” And I was just a

stupid sophomore. Are the former
power brokers just stupid, sopho-
moric sophomores bragging in the

boys’locker room or power brokers
finally being called out by victims
for their unconscionable callous-

ness and disreputable even illegal
not to mention immoral behavior?
They ain’t sophomores anymore.

The Writer’s Almanac offered a
really nice poem each day.
It would greet me without delay
in my e-mail inbox.
Now, on Garrison I’ll place a pox.
The Almanac has been cancelled
along with the poems that
were mostly top shelf.
because, apparently, Mr. Keillor
couldn’t keep his hands to himself.

At lunch the other day with wife and friend,
the waitress reached in front of me to pick
up my coffee cup for a refill at the same time
asking me if I wanted more coffee. My mouth
was full. I almost tapped her arm as it passed
in front of me to draw attention to my grunt and
nod of affirmation. And then I recoiled my hand
in horror and fear just in a nick of time as I
thought of accusations galore galloping across
the country and so I nodded, swallowed hard and
choked out, “Sure, mam,” glad I didn’t have to
jump on my trusty steed and head out-of-town
fast.