Harum-Scarum Photo Op
In a still reeling, post-slaughter El Paso,
Our Lie-dispensing Sachem grins
And drones like a 5AM newscaster,
Giving the cameraman a disorienting —
Did I just see that?— thumbs-up,
The very dime store deity
Who spurred a locked-and-loaded
Disciple to declare fast and furious war
On “invading” brown people —
In Lady Melania’s matchless Old Country arms,
Lord have mercy on us,
The infant survivor, gussied up
For this mercilessly lopsided photo op,
In an adorable but venerating
Plaid bow tie, gurgles
And begins to learn,
In the somersaulting,
Motherless and fatherless world
(Planet the wild-eyed shooter leaves him)
The weight of the word b-a-w-l.
* * * * *
The Hood
(Abu Ghraib, Vietnam)
O desert corporal,
You of the cardboard pedestal
And scandalous wires,
The dungeon’s ink-dark cloth,
Nobody in the instilling army has a clue
You’re the very same child
Who stumbled and fumbled to reach
A dilapidated shed,
Failed to fit your first grade limbs
Into a dingy crawlspace:
All of six — how could you shadow-box
Pterodactyl jungle choppers, grasp
Phantoms of round-eyed
Bar girls in ripped ao dai?
You raise a rum-flecked pillow
To ward off the predictable blows
From your dashing, dish-breaking,
Back from country Dad,
And hell’s bells,
Damned if he doesn’t
Scissor the homespun pillowcase
Just to dub you a new Casper —
Little huffing captive
In a funereal cowl,
A lowly chador —
To consign his bullish firstborn,
His little boy hellion,
Back to a claiming darkness:
Here comes the hood in childhood!
* * * * *
Senator, Where Is Your Voodoo Doll, Your Snare?
Decorum won’t do the trick;
The price-is-right whores or hallowing intellect.
Match-quick as a vogue-ing mother
From the sassy & treacherous House of ________,
Your irate constituents insist:
Bitch, get real!
Where is your voodoo doll,
Resplendent with pins?
Your tally-ho foxhunter’s feisty snare,
Your ready-or-not middle finger?
No more insipid Mother May I,
Insufferable Simon Says,
Or Mother Goose, for God’s sakes!
No more beguiling Pied Piper!
Trumpet fanfare
And hearty drumroll, please:
What we need from you,
Posing, slap-on-the-wrist Senator,
Are stratagems beyond your penchant
For ultra-plush accounts,
Elaborate tax dodges, & milquetoast assent,
Time & again presenting
My-country-tis-of-thee’s cherished car keys,
Without a molecule of remorse,
To toadies, phonies, & verifiable thieves;
We demand a patriotic love, a prosecution
Whose unsuspected teeth snap shut,
Like a global-warmed polar bear’s rictus,
An unapologetic crocodile’s jaw,
Like the Big Bad Wolf, nestled
& ready to roll,
In Grandma’s frilly nightgown . . .