New Poem 200,000

 200,000

 Two Hundred Thousand

 How many of these people

 Would still be alive today

 If this wasn’t an election year

 If national plans preserving public health 

 Had been regarded as something 

 Worthwhile instead of violating

 Republican orthodoxy about

 Big Government, State’s Rights,

 And Free, Unfettered Markets

 >

 You probably have relatives 

 Who still believe the Trump Lie

 That his woeful response was better

 Than doing nothing and maybe causing 

 An apocryphal figure of Two Million deaths

 Thanks to their belief in the infallibility 

 Of The Donald,  you’ll probably spend

 Virtual holidays on phone, Zoom or FaceTime 

 Unless you give in and say you don’t know

 Anyone who actually has Coronavirus 

 And you sit closely alongside family

 Passing the Russian roulette pistol around

 Between servings of turkey, stuffing and cranberries 

 Working on raising the casualty numbers to

 Two Hundred Seventy Five Thousand

 Or perhaps an even 300K

New Poem: SCIENCE NEVER KNOWS

 keep your mind turned off

 relax and breathe maskless air

 it’s the burning season followed

 by the less cold than usual season

 don’t believe those educated pessimists

 don’t worry about within and without

 just help us keep punching others for you

 so you won’t have to think about 

 how much we take away

 and how often we laugh behind your back

 remember, loser and sucker,

 you’re voting for the color of our dreams

 

 

 

New Poem: LEAVE THE ROOM PERMANENTLY

 be mindful of your aging friends/as they repeat all the things their parents and grandparents once said/know when to leave the room permanently when they won’t change/talking about lies and Trump and people who are smug because they know more than they do and global warming being a hoax and Black Antifa building public housing next door and again Trump and Joe Biden being the demon from THE OMEN shape-shifted into an old man and Trump again again as the straight-talking savior who kicks liberals to the ground makes them cry then tears out their balls in a way Ted Cruz would approve of

 as you leave the room permanently/remind the people who are no longer your friends/how Ted Cruz had to lose his balls to support Trump in 2016/and that they are racists urinating toxins into the American bloodstream/and these toxins kill as deadly as COVID

don’t smell their smoke anymore/leave the damn room and drive and keep driving 

Some advice for Labor Day Weekend 2020

New Poem: HELLO KENOSHA

 hello Kenosha Wisconsin 

 stop assuming everyone Black is an armed criminal 

 tell the teen and adult vigilantes to go home or be arrested

 remove the handcuffs and the leg irons from the severely wounded

and, above all, tell Donald Trump the following:

yes, you’re the President, but you don’t denounce the violence

of your followers and your presence here is unnecessary 

and potentially inflammatory 

thank you for reading this and giving it some thought

a concerned American who votes

 

RITES OF THE COVID-19 SPRING chapbook.

 Now available on Scribd in document form: https://www.scribd.com/document/472173443/Rites-of-the-Covid-19-Spring

The Louis C.K. Poem

    but heeees my freeeeeennndddd say the female comics

    it is hard out there if you want to be funny

    bomb away on the open mics

    eventually get paid a little bit

    others get jealous

    say you’re not all that good

   the resentment you suck up 

    gets spit out in your standup set

    those pain in the ass kids and women

    who want you to pull focus from career career career

    eventually you’re around long enough  

    people think you’re commenting on bile 

    when you’re just regurgitating it

    here, female colleague, watch me wank

    look at this as comedy fraternity hazing

    damn this #MeToo stuff

    made you shelve your movie

    costs one million dollars in lost TV

    you’ll do new act attacking correctness

    drop in unannounced

    keep the press from spoiling the set

    wait long enough, someone will write

    you’re aware of what you’ve done to be diminished 

    when you still think you’ve been screwed 

    by pious people who don’t understand 

    comedy is letting your demons wank

    onto the audience in the same way

    you once wanked on people who,

    if they stood up to you,

    would see their careers go into the tank

    but heeeees my frieeeennnnnddd

    says the male comic who used some of his

    standup special time to middle-finger your accusers

    

    comedy, as practiced by some,  is not pretty

    it’s the fastball whizzing past your head

    it’s the punch smashing your testicles

    it’s the emcee saying you’re going to get fucked with

    it’s the joke that, too many times, leaves a stain

    that can never come out, no matter how much you scrub

    

    

New Poem: HOLLYWOOD

in 1932, she walked into Bullocks Wilshire
bought the best she could afford
then stood by the studio gates until chosen
>
days of learning how to talk, how to stand, how to diet
posing for publicity photographs
coerced into coitus by men who say you have to say yes
dress extra, bit player, supporting actress, star
marriages to leading men who wanted other stars on the side
>
even with a support system of friends and employees,
there’s constant pain, a yearning to stop this nonsense
>
then the contract runs out—make way for others
>
one day after the war,
she’s arrested for speeding down Topanga
after that, B pictures, TV series, then retirement
>
they buried her out in the back
of the church known as
Our Lady of the Cadillacs
>
in 1989, she walked into Beverly Center