From the "Protest Annual: 2017"


There once was a piece of Old Diggery
Who handed out lessons in piggery
He stood up on a box his oaf song to sing 
Quashing a letter from Coretta Scott King
And birthed a whole nation of triggery*

What's next?

A big man, his name was McConnell
Sang loud, but was always atonal
Lizzie came to the fair, her allegiance to swear
He stepped on his tail, cried "You'll never go there!"
While the media screamed "Hold the phon-ell!" 

What's next?

When a woman encounters a block
That appears to be nothing but crock 
At first she insists, while the plot turns and twists, 
then taking the thread she grabs hold and persists
and exposes a old load of cock

What's next?

When the Union was shattered in twain
The first blows were struck by a cane**
They started a war on the Senate room floor
Till the nation shed blood, crying 'Slavery no more!' 
We're still trying to scrub out the stain

What's left?  

Respect these old chains we do not 
Confirmation's a big ball of snot 
When the glove's on the ground
We'll be rolling around 
He'll squeal like a pig, a glorious sound 
When we put old Mitch in the pot

What -- pray tell! -- does it mean?

A rule that protects an old pig
Is not going down very big 
When the government fails, put the villains in jail
A swinish poor lot from the head to the tail
But first their own grave they must dig. 

*triggery: the urge to shoot oneself
**Abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner was caned by a Southern Congressman on the Senate Floor in 1856.


Blues Time on the Liberty Streetcar* (or That Old Villain)


I spied for Russia, land of worn-out promises and second-hand suits 
Don't ever trust a man with a tongue that tweets
Give me my old umbrella, a Remington revolver, and a gun that shoots

I shopped at Liberty Market, home of marvelous opinions and those 
Candy-Land fruits
His empty heart is full of zeros, a brain stuffed with crazy conceits 
I spied for Soviet Russia, land of worn-out promises and second-hand suits 

I'm going down to Mestizo Avenue   searching for my roots
He's got a bag full of nothing and a fist that beats
Give me that old umbrella, a Remington revolver, and a gun that shoots

I walked the graveyard of heroes  in a pair of Beanie boots 
He's got a shoulder in his holster and his mind mistreats 
I spied for Soviet Russia, them worn-out promises and second-hand suits 

I worshipped at the feet of a man   that hollers and hoots 
He's got a bird that whistles, golden slippers, many feet 
Give me that old umbrella, a Remington revolver, and a gun that shoots

We gonna ride that Liberty railroad   to the land of true recruits 
We gonna spit upon his tweeter, till his spittle-gun retreats
I spied for Putin Russia, land of worn-out promises and second-hand toots 
Give me my old umbrella, a Remington revolver, 
and a gun that poots

*The new streetcar line in Cincinnati, where overweight white men may ride with open carry weapons.



Somewhere in the Middle of a Century 


My mother kept the home fires burning,
fulltime child-manager and homemaker on an austerity budget
We didn't go out to eat
I can almost hear her saying, 'we don't go anywhere'
Still my life was privileged 
Born white in America, particularly at that time, was privilege,
the luck of the draw
My parents, having survived family losses, served their country,
and worked their way out of a Depression 
earned it for us
I was born into a stable family --
not on third base, but at least on the roster  
(nothing I did to earn it) 
Ask my father if he had that luxury
On second thought don't ask him, since 
he would never speak of those early days 
My parents lived tight
but GI Bill, that wisely generous uncle, bought them a house. 
Dad went to college at night (GI Bill again), 
to get a degree he cashed in, eventually
for a good job without a long commute
When all those new white kids like me 
rushed into existence, 
an open-handed nation built new schools
(Fortunate once more!) and our town  
red-lined the school district so we had just enough black kids
for a good basketball team
A scholarship bowed politely
 and opened the gates to a private university,
with minimal loans (try that, these days) I reluctantly paid back,
and all the glittering opportunities I thenceforth squandered 
I squandered on my own

What I earned in life, I earned
What I was given was privilege
Face it, white people, 
We were lucky.




Silence at Noon 

​
I turn on the corner of the hawk,
high in the bare choir of a street tree in winter,
and make for the lane where feet may slip downhill,
skiing in my shoes
Alive to the novelty of taking this path before the sun is low 
Exposed to ambling vehicles and the bullrush of the trash removal service 
that breaks the silence of the windless noon 
with a P.A. for the skies 
Men in woolen hats, barrel chests and purposeful strides
the only human presence on the wintry streets
Dog walkers, subway takers, the substitute postman,
the quick-hitting afternoon paper lady
all attesting by their absence to their choice of other hours
Even the decor is silent 
the filigreed deer, creatures of silvery light, lifeless by day, 
promissory notes for the early dark,
sleigh bells by memory alone in a season cold, but snowless
The dogs indoors, even the squirrels have turned tail, 
birds feeder-fed to stillness 
I take as much of the sunlight, the silence, this wintry peace
as solitude can bear 
A thief's progress, keeping nothing, 
free as a wingless thing can be.