Category: Uncategorized

So, when will Republicans start to break ranks
And scurry for cover as Trump drops in polls
It won’t make a difference, we all say no thanks
No thanks to you Congressmen acting like dolts

You’ve shirked your sworn duty, not keeping your oath
To hold Trump accountable, feet to the fire
No real legislation, a task that you loath
Instead you spout slogans when newsmen inquire

I mourn the demise of the once GOP
A party that stood for things, principles true
Regardless which party on top that may be
Now that’s by the wayside in what you all do

Democracy needs a strong two-party system
Debates that are knowledgeable, minds that are keen
Derived from the people, constituent wisdom
Aware of the present while knowing what’s been

I hope and expect the results in November,
Republican trouncing of epic proportions,
To spur your grand party, to kindle new embers
Of reconstitution, democracy’s fortune

6/25/20

Call 911 with urgency
A black man sleeping in his car
That’s parked within my passageway
I can’t allow him there to stay
Police come quick from where you are
I’m scared. It’s an emergency

The net result, I’m sad to tell,
Was Rayshard Brooks, an unarmed black
While being cuffed, resisted, ran
Not trusting cops, no black man can,
The cop then shot him in the back
And kicked him dying where he fell

The officer, one Garrett Rolfe
Was charged, for killing Brooks, with murder
That is unusual, I must say
Would not have been, in prior days
They’d let Rolfe free for months and further
Before he’s tried, where he’d get off

Was this unique? The answer’s no
Cop prejudice is no surprise
They’re human like the rest of us
They act within the white man’s trust
Their prejudice some can’t disguise
And murder blacks where e’er they go

It happened near a century back
A massacre of Black Wall Street
Successful businesses of blacks
Were looted, razed, white-mob attacks
Not just in Tulsa, we’re blacks beat
Throughout the country black attacks

‘Though nine and ninety years have passed
Strong feelings anti black persist
Especially among those who
Are drawn to what policemen do
Where under stress they manifest
In tragedy, shades of the past

It’s good that cities o’er the land
Are working on police reform
And Congress may pass laws on cops
For prejudicial acts to stop
But since racism is the norm
It will take more to even hands

6/19/20

Prejudice

We’ve prejudices so endemic that we hardly know they’re there
So subtly they manifest in choices that we daily make
They underlie our attitudes, our judgements, what and how we care
We drink them with our mother’s milk; our social norms are our intake

Beware the stranger in your midst who’s strangeness lights your prejudice
Resist those movements happening that pressure your discomfort zone
Your intellect may reason yes but your emotions still resist
You find some flimsy rationale to stay with what you’ve always known

But in a mixed society where different cultures make their way
Where prejudicial attitudes oppress some peoples singled out
As culturally inferior, it’s evident in what we say
And what we do subconsciously that such oppression comes about

Some say that we have benefited unaware from prejudice
That somehow gross discrimination aimed at others as persists
Improved our opportunities; made life more privileged, they insist
It’s true, those cultures not oppressed presume how normal they exist

Review the practice of red lining done so prices would not fall
If there were not such prejudices lining red would not take place
And properties would still maintain their market values fair for all
We benefit when we’re not so discriminated in our place

It’s hard, but that’s the task before us, rooting out those deep beliefs
That label others as inferior people who are different
And meanwhile we can legislate: discrimination as a crime
When based on baseless prejudices. Now’s the time; it is the time

6/14/20

A question’s been bothering, I have to ask
I witness some people aren’t up to the task
In spite of disfavor in which they all bask
They show up in public not wearing a mask

It puzzles me, he who walks freely, face bear
Devoid of some cloth nose-to-chin there to wear
While knowing the virus is found everywhere
Is it that the maskless-in-public don’t care?

Or maybe such people are just un apprised
The plague is not over in spite of Trump’s lies
That all that’s behind us; ahead are clear skies
Must keep markets rising no matter who dies

The virus is wielding Damocles sword
In ways the economy cannot afford
So scaring most citizens out of their gourd
As such the grim reaper will have the last word

6/10/20

Distancing socially, protesting socially, where does a person of honor come down?
Whether to join all the citizens protesting years of brutality by the police
Risking one’s life in a roaring pandemic, honoring blacks whom police have struck down
Opposing the risk of continued injustice as happens so frequently by the police

Thousands and thousands across our great nation, thousands and thousands have taken this risk
Some have been beaten while protesting peacefully, beaten expressing their right to speak free
Black lives really matter as does good policing; this movement is worth it in spite of the risk
Day after day crowds unique in diversity marching for justice else no one is free

Meanwhile Donald Trump, in ineptitude wallowing, puts up a barricade keeping all out
Except for his sycophants huddled within, trying to show Trump as though he is strong
However, the marchers, ignoring the President, broadcast their message that justice will out
They’ll suffer the virus, the beatings with batons to see this new movement become very strong

6/5/20

I and my brothers, my son and grandson
Honorably we’ve served in our nation’s armed force
Some battles we’ve lost and some battles we’ve won
And now we’ve been shamed by Pres. Trump’s vile voice

Who ordered gov. troops using force and tear gas
To clear peaceful people from Lafayette Square
Protesting the murder of George Floyd, days past
So Trump could then pose for a photo op near

Trump also announced he’ll deploy Army troops
To quell peaceful protests, each citizen’s right,
As the First Amendment provides living proof,
Commanding the soldiers, our people, to fight

As members of forces defending our nation
We’ve each sworn an oath to uphold and defend
Our country’s unique and revered Constitution
Against foreign enemies and those within

That Trump, Chief Commander, would order our soldiers
Their sworn oath, to violate, fighting our people
Shaming our nation in eyes of beholders
Reveals Trump the coward, unworthy and feeble

6/3/20

One hundred thousand dead and one man killed
Floyd George, a black, was murdered by a cop
One hundred thousand human voices stilled
Cop Chauvin’s knee caused George’s voice to stop

It’s hard to mourn one hundred thousand lives
Or hug a half a million people grieving
Or vent your anger that this virus thrives
But at police for justice not receiving

We demonstrate in cities everywhere
Pent up emotions pouring to the streets
Some wearing face masks showing they’re aware
This virus is more potent than police

This epidemic favors killing blacks
As do police in many jurisdictions
We talk reforms but actions seem to lack
That citizens are equal is a fiction

A hundred thousand citizens plus one
Half perished due to Trump’s incompetence
And then Floyd George, unarmed, a docile man,
Was executed with indifference

5/29/20

My Birthday

Tomorrow, twenty fourth of May, it’s eighty seven that I’ll be
I’ve witnessed in those many years high points and low of history
My uncle off to World War II; he fought the Battle of the Bulge
Experiencing the hell of war; experiences he’d not divulge
Hiroshima and Nagasaki leveled by the atom bomb
Destructive power beyond belief; the citizenry all but gone
The Holocaust, six million Jews exterminated, naked, torn
And from their graves the ancient state of Israel in blood reborn
Korean War, it never ended; Vietnam: tasting defeat
The MAD Cold War, the Berlin Wall; the Soviet regime we beat
The bonds of gravity escaped; our astronauts danced on the moon
Through Internet the world now speaks and data banks mushroom and bloom
The Information Age is now; a world of knowledge in our hands
Yet ignorance abounds rejecting science they don’t understand
We’ve now the battle of the age: the COVID-19 viral scourge
Three hundred thirty thousand dead both here and all throughout the World
It’s raging still, still taking lives; our country constitutes a third
Of world deaths, for which I blame Trump’s leadership which is absurd
I’ve witnessed thirteen presidents and though I’ve disliked things they’ve done
I did respect them, decent men, except the last, the fourteenth one

5/23/20

Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump

A week of tardiness cost thirty thousand deaths
Or so a study at a university declared
How many weeks delayed ere Trump joined all the rest
Of countries battling the COVID-19 scare?

The thousands killed, now ninety four reported
Plus thousand more the virus killed, uncounted
Their families mourn; their countrymen supportive
But empathy from Trump’s not there – and would be doubted

This virus wave continues unabated
Yet every state has started to reopen
Now thousands more will die; ‘tis surely fated
This wave won’t end as everyone is hoping

So say a prayer for all of those we’ve lost
And for their loved ones in their lonely grief
And be prepared: these openings may cause
This taste of welcome freedom to be brief

5/20/20

Hydroxychloroquine, Trump’s magic remedy
Against the COVID-19 terrible infection
By taking it, there is no lasting penalty
From getting this disease it surly gives protection

That’s been Trump’s selling pitch, his message to the world
But research disagrees in many cases tested
Protection didn’t manifest plus side affects occurred
‘Twas harmful to the heart, arrhythmia contracted

But Trump then disagreed. The scientists were wrong
He didn’t trust their views, a bunch of Democrats
But still he felt belittled; he’d not just go along
He had to demonstrate that he was right, in fact

So when the epidemic reached the White House staff
Trump needed to protect himself or so he felt within
He ordered staff, all but himself, to always wear a mask
And started taking, every day, hydroxychloroquine

5/18/20