The Next Day

Damn the crimson tulips—

Their sticky silk closed

Into themselves, in the weeds,

Awaiting birth.

Mocking me.

Doom the trumpets.

Curse the spoon-fed saccharine myths,

The fairytale gone bad, horribly awry—

They betrayed me.

I’ve stopped performing.

This hurts worse than I’d thought.

The shaking will not stop, steeped deep in my bones.

There is not enough Xanax, or sleep—

But It will pass.

This spring is an afterdeath.

An emptiness and hollow panic—

A hangover of uncertainty.

It will pass.

The brass key to that last door,

Pressed in my palm—

Then released to the floor.

 

America First

Dismembered, one stroke of the pen,

One dollar at a time—

 

The arsonists are in charge of the fire station.

 

Destruction plumes, forcing fumes

To an indifferent, hazy sky.

Books and art in the sulphur flames

Crackle and snap alongside

Food scraps for the aged and

Melting plastic eyes of children’s puppets—

The radio hisses its last static,

Then silence.

 

The water leeches its lead,

Flowing down the strip mine scar.

A fiery freight car carries the lost

To the pyre on the River of the Dead.

 

In this deconstruction of the administrative state,

We’re all going to be deconstructed, destructed and

Tossed into the mass grave of alternative facts.

 

What did you expect?

@realDonaldTrump

45th President of the United States of America

Washington, DC

Joined March 2009

 

Played golf today with Prime Minister Abe of Japan and @TheBig_Easy, Ernie Els,

And had a great time.

Japan is very well represented!

 

I don’t know Putin, have no deals in Russia,

And the haters are going crazy –

Yet Obama can make a deal with Iran,

#1 in terror, no problem!

 

Don’t believe the main stream (fake news) media.

The White House is running VERY WELL.

I inherited a MESS and am in the process of fixing it.

 

The so-called angry crowds in home districts of some Republicans are actually,

In numerous cases, planned out by liberal activists.

 

Sad!

 

Great optimism for future of U.S. business, AND JOBS,

With the DOW having an 11th straight record close.

 

Big tax & regulation cuts coming!

 

I am so proud of my daughter Ivanka.

To be abused and treated so badly by the media,

And to still hold her head so high,

Is truly wonderful!

 

Give the public a break –

The FAKE NEWS media is trying to say

That large scale immigration in Sweden is working out just beautifully.

 

NOT!

 

My statement as to what’s happening in Sweden

Was in reference to a story

That was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden.

 

Maybe the millions of people who voted

To MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN should have their own rally.

It would be the biggest of them all!

 

FAKE NEWS media knowingly doesn’t tell the truth.

A great danger to our country.

The failing @nytimes has become a joke.

Likewise @CNN.

 

Sad!

 

Find the leakers within the FBI itself.

Classified information is being given to media

That could have a devastating effect on U.S.

 

FIND NOW

 

Seven people shot and killed yesterday in Chicago.

What is going on there – totally out of control.

 

Chicago needs help!

 

Stock market hits new high with longest winning streak in decades.

Great level of confidence and optimism –

Even before tax plan rollout!

 

I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!

 

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Housekeeping

First, there’s a bag, then a box—

And another, then many more.

 

You fill a rusted dumpster with

Mismatched chipped dishes,

Shoes that gave you blisters.

 

Those stiff taffeta dresses from 1959,

Still smelling of your aunt’s verbena cologne—

You keep those.

Breathing in the memory, recalling all.

 

The detritus of experience builds its curious momentum.

Memories trapped in the stone dust basement,

Hurled outward in a mushroom plume.

 

How do you wipe clean a half-century?

 

Quickly, an impartial executioner—

Rinsing the blood from your knife.

 

To Pee or Not to Pee

-For Gavin Grimm, who took it to the Supreme Court

 

That is the question.

 

My government now tells me where—

In a private stall, on the other side of the school,

By the nurse’s office.

 

I make the walk of shame to be

 

Unisex.

 

I am not unisex.

I am a boy,

Not a hazard or a threat to you.

But maybe one to the status quo.

 

You know,

I just want to be me.

I just want to pee.

She Persisted

“She was warned.

She was given an explanation.

Nevertheless, she persisted.”

 

-U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell

 

She persisted.

 

Binders full of women—

Latina, African American, white, transgender, gay.

Hole-punched all of us,

Paraded for your agenda,

Served up for your pleasure.

 

Scold bridled in an iron mask—

Padlocked, depressing our tongues.

Crazy emotions and shrill voices,

Bite at the bridle.

 

Sweetie, you’d be much prettier if you smiled.

 

Silence need not equal silence.

We have choices.

 

Oh, we nasty women,

Centuries of us—

The smell of us in our words,

Our sex, our power, our voices.

 

Strapped and dunked and sunk we rise.

We nasty.  We trashy.

 

No.

 

We persisted.

 

Those words,

May well be my first tattoo.

After the scars heal,

It will be pink and perfect.

Belltown Drugs

I remember the variety store
Where Daddy bought his
New York Daily News

and how he tucked
the Necco wafers in his pocket
for me
always in a different place:
the hip pocket of his pleated best,
up his sleeve, behind his ear.

But always for me…

***

The comic books cost 12 cents –

same as a Hostess cupcake.
I always got both.

I peeled away,
the sticky chocolate layer,
its curled white icing lace,
smearing messy fingers
on my pink Sunday bestdress.

Daddy, he lit a Kent Gold,
and babygirl climbed into
the baby blue Chevy BelAire,

You, daddy, and me.
we partners in crime.