Hickory Dickory’s dork

Dubya mangles a Mother Goose rhyme.

“Ol' Hickory Dickory’s dork ran the clock;
the dork struck one, struck another one,
struck another one, struck another one,
struck another one, struck...another one,

so maybe I’d better fire that dork, Cox!”

“Don’t this pome say it all!” says Dubya,
“I never uster like recitin’ pomes, butt
some pomes speak right to my brain."
(The clock strikes one & one & one.)

(17 SEP 08, Santa Clara CA)v2

Mcainomics

“I don’t know economics? Like hell!
Holy hell!” explodes John McCain,
“I read Samuelson’s ECONOMICS;
played pinochle & canasta & beat
Alan Greenspan & Andrea Mitchell,
tho why the hell they wouldn't play
poker, I’ll never know! Alan’s face
is just about as stony a poker-face
as I saw anywhere in the Navy.
Why hell, Lt. Dick Nixon made
a bundle running a poker-game
in the Pacific during WW2, or so
my 4-star admiral dad told me.."

(16 SEP 08, Santa Clara CA)v3

"If I Water"

Here's a poem I've recently written & revised this last Sunday in a poetry workshop here in San Jose CA where it wasn't very much appreciated by the 2 convening young academics (one of whom went to the Iowa Wokshops) because it lacked suff. illustrative imagery (it only has 2 images, in the 1st-line: plant &: water), which I intended, because it's predominantly a thought-poem, not an image-poem, as you can see (below.)

I explained: "It's not image-predominant, it's almost all fully-explicit subtext, written as though 20th-cent.Imagism...just hadn't happened." This wasn't appreciated either, & I was quickly told that Shakespeare was an imagist. Well, despite his secretive sonnets, I doubt he'd quite be able to grasp what an image has finally come to mean post-Pound & Co. Shakespeare/Marlowe always had lots of dangerous things to say & truly dangerous political ideas to embody, despite/because of the Tudor-Stuart police-state & its ubiquitous spies, courts, & punishments (secret torture & public death.) Overly gay Marlowe was allegedly murdered (for being an R.C. spy), but it's also alleged that he instead fled to Italy where he wrote what we have come to think of as Shakespeare's 'Italian' comedies & tragedies, e.g., "Romeo & Juliet", etc.) which Italian escape, etc. Pound would obviously have surely wanted to have duplicated - but only if Il Duce ('The Boss' -E.P.) had lived & prevailed.

Anyway, I made up the compound-term: what-lives (stanza 1, line 4, end), in French "qui vive* which in British English carries other (hunting/joyous) connotations; 'on the qui vive' once meant 'going out for a good time on the town.' This poem is more Japanese than western-European, based on the mode the Japanese call 'mourning/regretting the passing-away of things' (mono no aware).which the French would translate as "la tristesse pour cela qui se passe" (sorrow over that which passes-away.)

“If I Water”

If every plant I water
depends upon me, even briefly,
how important am I to it?
Or am I just tending what-lives?
When I die, who’ll tend it?

Or am I temporarily necessary,
my effect, only sporadic, or
am I minimizing my effect?
Just how lasting is any of this?
Maybe I’m just better off writing.

(10 AUG 08 Santa Clara CA - 14 SEP 08, San Jose CA)

Shoey Dookey

“Shit...on my shoes!?” snarls
John McCain,.looking down
in horror at his Ferragamos,
standing before a long mirror.
“This election’s getting nasty!
I’d better start wearing my old
Navy service-blacks. I wore'm
back then & I can wear'm
again, now, just to soft-soap
service-families who expect me
to still wear them, campaigning.
Yes, service-blacks as black as
Obama’s own black pair! (laughs)
That's an officers'-mess joke!”
He can’t help chuckling & he's
almost alone as he does. Sarah’s
lipsticking-up a mirror away.

(15 SEP 08, Santa Clara CA)v4

Purest McCain

“Next, think of Obama naked!”continues
John McCain to a room of middle-aged
flyover women who are wondering why
in heaven he’s asking them to do it.

“This presumptious, naked young man
intends to profane the Oval Office,
by exposing his private-parts! What
a depraved mind he must have!”They
shudder at 'depraved', remembering
Bill Clinton with Monica Lewinsky
on her knees in the Oval Office.
.
“Our Nation’s House deserves a pure
President, a Republican, pure in mind,
intent, heart & soul; I am that pure
warrior & have always been. I’ve
suffered for My Country, purely"”

making them gasp once they realizie
just how extraordinarily pure he is.

(05 SEP 08, Santa Clara CA) v6

OBAMA'S BANANAS EXPOSED!

OBAMA'S BANANAS EXPOSED

Category code: political direct (pol-dm)

(Chicago, IL; D-M daily news; C: pol-dm) 14 SEP 08

Republican propagandists are widely direct-mailing
sexually explicit photos of Sen. Barak Obama (D-IL)
sitting beside a man-sized bunch of overripe bananas

under a 64pt-bold B&W headline:
SEXUALLY PRESUMPTIVE;
32-pt B&W body copy follows,

alleging Sen.Obama will import a man-sized
bunch of overripe bananas into the Oval Office
for a daily nude lunchtime bi-sexual orgy.

This mailing exposes Sen. Obama’s brown bananas
but not Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) white bananas,

politically strengthening, or
maybe even weakening McCain,

provoking young, black voters in urban areas,
repulsing older whites in rural areas,
deeply disgusting the American heartland
which, as ever, is a political battleground..

Obama’s banana's brand is not exposed.
Chiquita™ Brands International (NYSE: CQB) denies it is.

(14 SEP 08, Santa Clara CA)v6

DRILL, (UH) BABY, (UH) DRILL

Determined to lubricate her appeal
while in her home state of Alaska,
Gov. Sarah Palin’s pumping hot
political oil by offshore-drilling

in a silver pipeliner uniform, doing
deep-squats & shouting “Drill, Baby!”
to audiences bellowing her deepest
grunts, not just repeating them.

"We’re going to drill (uh) down to make
this nation even more energy efficient,
(uh)” she said. to cheers of “Drill!, Baby!”
"You're right, drill, (uh) baby, (uh) drill!

I’m a mother of 5 & believe me, I know
what baby-drilling‘s all about, (uh) baby,
& you’d better believe I’ll drill, (uh) baby,
once I drill (uh) down in (uh) Washington!”

Chorus: “Drill, Baby, Drill!”

(13 SEP 08, Santa Clara CA)v3