№ 841: Past, Present, And Future Tense

HERE AND NOW (April 22) —

THERE'S A NON-ZERO CHANCE our future is past;

that Donnie the First is Donnie the Last;

that he ends voting (and the Constitution);
that he restores football (and also pollution);

that bills of attainder will be back in fashion 

(if they don’t interfere with the passion to cash in

of his flocking parvenu oligarchs,

his Gospel-trumpeting moral loan sharks,

or his Ayn Randy Darwinian “winners” —

atheists unwelcome at Wednesday church dinners);

that the first shall be first; that the last remain last

(as they have been forever — present and past);

that the U.S. experiment will come to be seen

as a flop; that we regress toward the mean.

№ 787.1: EXTRA! I Have Seen The Future (it's for jerks)

THE WEEK

Trump officially opens formerly protected Utah national monuments for business
The Interior Department released final plans Thursday for two national monuments in Utah that President Trump moved to radically shrink two years ago. Under the final plans, about 2 million acres that were once part of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments would be open to mineral extraction and ranching. Public lands advocates, Native American groups, and conservationists whose lawsuits to prevent the downsizing of the national monuments are still being litigated in court, called foul.

TOMORROWLAND (February 7)

Who will own all the garbage

when that’s all that’s left of the world?

The swirl of plastics and carcasses

where blue-green oceans once whirled?

The deserted sun-blasted inland

now remarkably close to the coast?

The poisonous air and brown waters

which will be supporting at most

hearty one-cell extremophiles

who find such conditions divine

and with Donald still POTUS

will anyone notice

the Koch Brothers’ name on the sign?

№ 715: Have A NICE Day

QUICK MARTY, THE DeLOREAN (October 29)


Email readers click here.

(with apologies to James Rado, Gerome Ragni and Galt MacDermot)

When a loon is in the White House
and “presidents” aligned with “tsars”
combined destroy the planet
and Musk leaves Earth for Mars,
this is the dawning of the Age of Apocalypse
the Age of Apocalypse
Apocalypse
Apocalypse
Idiotic politicians
discovering new divisions
making ever worse decisions
expounding cock-eyed visions
infesting every nation
de-stroy civ-il-iz-a-tion
Apocalypse
Apocalypse
When a loon lived in the White House
and “presidents” aligned with “tsars”
combined destroyed the planet
and Musk left Earth for Mars,
that was the dawning of the Age of Apocalypse
the Age of Apocalypse
Apocalypse
Apocalypse
Apocalypse
Apocalypse
Apocalypse

[corrected 10/30/2019, 9:47 am to add music credit]

№ 661: Short-term Thinking (a speculation)

UNTIED STATES OF DONNIE (August 14)

Would it sound bitter

if I said that Twitter

by forcing short message length

encourages nonsense

and, therefore, in consequence
stupidity's mistaken for strength?

If it weren't for Twitter

Donnie could not have glittered.

Without Twitter he'd not have prevailed.

If forced to think

with pen and ink,

he'd be just another junk male.

A Page Six tyrant,

Murdoch compliant,

sexist, rich, arrogant prat,

whose dirty nose

left him exposed,

got him indicted.
That would've been that.

Will there be a sequel

to “created equal”?

(Providing there's still an environment.)

The way that it looks

we just might close the books

as notion and nation take early “retirement”.

№ 562: Crystal Ball

REAL WORLD, March 28

When you look closely,

you see we're such jerks,

it hard to imagine

that anything works.

Why, for instance,

more cars don't crash

since our abilities

are so slapdash.

Could be our “settling” —

how we make-do —

is the secret ingredient

pulling us through?

Or is it our breeding,

our over producing

children, that prevents

our numbers reducing?

Optimist cite

Homo sapien pluck.

All that I see is

just pure dumb luck.

Call it this, call it that,

I have no doubt,

whatever it is,

it's running out.
Anthropology shows
we too shall pass.
WHATEVER WE DO.
You bet your ass.

№: 411: Endgame?

Will we ever erase
this idea nugatory:

the notion that “race”

is a real category?

Ethnicity, yes,

language, I guess.

Religion, of course,

's a continuing source

of intercommunal strife.

And nationality

trumps rationality

in most every aspect of life.
Culture's another
terrific divider:
marking distinction between
in- and outsider.
Sex orientation's

dividing nations.
(As if we need
yet more perturbations.)
The Bible says,
“Be fruitful and multiply.”
Instead we divide.
I don't know why.

Would that we could

fast forward the sequel

to that happy day

when everyone's equal.

A world full of equal

sisters and brothers.

(And as Orwell foresaw

some more equal than others?)

Not really relevant, but when Barbra met Elliott.. . .

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No. 227: Crystal Balls

When “EXPERTS” insist they know where they're going. . .

RELAX! That's just their hubris showing.

On future events it is pointless to dwell.

With present and past it's too early to tell.

Wherever we are, wherever we've been,

whatever the who, what, where, why and when,

we, even now, never know how

to ever know anything, anywhere, anyhow!