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Author: Bartleby

Is there a difference between Donald and Hillary?

Is there a difference between Donald and Hillary?

Yes there is, and the difference is this:

You can work with Hillary. You can help to create a grassroots support for sensible, helpful, win-win policies, and Hillary will be so happy to work with you to realize your dreams of a safer, sounder, more vibrant, more interesting, more productive, more beautiful, more decent United States of America We All Rise and Fall Together And There’s No Escaping This Country Because It is Too Damn Big and Strong So You Better Buckle Your Seatbelt And Get To Work To Help Her Be Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise, which–since wisdom and goodness are two aspects of one locomotion–means Healthy, Wealthy, and Kind.

You cannot work with Donald. You can watch while he shows off, while he confuses bullying for strength and dishonest innuendos for valid insights, and–through an incompetence so great and so self-satisfied that, since it seeks a great power that it has no right to, has actually become straight up evil (yes–incompetence, if proud and willful enough, can shade all the way into just flat out evil!)–hurts the country, the world, you, me, all of us. And for what? Because you wanted to flub through your thought-process and pretend that a basically decent human being who wants to help and is skilled enough to–with the help of a citizenry that pays attention and demands civil and sane and honest and clear debate–help a complex nation was not worth choosing over a buffoon, an egomaniac, a man who doesn’t know how to help because he’s not really interested in helping.

Pull it together America. If this happens, each of us is the guilty one, because this is pathetic. We nod about how grand it was that other generations fought for freedom and then we nod along while someone act like dictators who squelch opposition and ignore rule of law and common decency are cool and need to be emulated. Who can live like this?

I don’t know what to say any more. Trump is the opposite of what you need for a functioning democracy. Democracy requires that the society value honesty, fairness, clarity, decency. Trump’s movement is the debauched makebelieve that those things don’t exist–just say any ridiculous thing and I dunno I heard it I’m just saying–, or that no one has them anyway–hey, we’re all slimeballs here, I’m just the best one so I’ll slime the world and you’ll get all the goo my little lappheasants. That is not true: No one does honesty, fairness, clarity, and decency perfectly–they are things-of-degrees. But Hillary has so much more of them than Trump does. Why? Mostly because she at least believes in them and values them. Also, win-win is not only possible, it is the only way forward. Trump’s mix of bluster and bully only works for cheating a little short-time gain here and there–fine for scam artist, but quick collapse for a nation.

I’m so depressed by this. We’ve lost the ability to enjoy one another. Our entertainment is not wholesome. Are debates don’t try to find a plausible assessment and a workable path. We just loudmouth, cluck, and blame the politicians. It’s disgusting. It is corrupt–that’s what it is. It is easier to be heard if you say something corrosive, something stupid, something mean, than if you say something helpful, possible, wise, just, kind. Corruption is when it is easier to do evil than to do good. Our discourse is corrupt. I can’t even stand it anymore. And yet here is where we must make our stand; we must push this discourse towards honesty, decency, clarity, kindness, towards accuracy and workable win-win sustainable plans. Sulking about how rotten everything is just helps the rot to grow. Hmph.

American Pride

American Pride

And the price we pay.

American pride.
And the price we exact.

American pride
because we’re kinder than
the Nazis
the Ottomans
the British Empire even.

And we apologize for our errors
right our wrongs
start over again

Don’t we?

The rebels who have no causes
do no good.
The rebels with causes
spill the beans
fart the world
spit it out.

Who’ll take me home?
I’m thinking of a girl.
That’s all the further
I ever really get.

Who’ll stop my pain?
that’s all the more
my political aspirations
extend.

Who
loves
me?

And rubs me right.

That’s all the conversation
I ever come up with.

And it bores me.

So I ask for something deeper
from the forces that be
beyond the slosh and enclose
of some dark seawater
on the corner
of an old cement dock.

But I guess I’m lying again.
Got to stop lying all the time.
Fuck
fuck
fu

well

Jesus was a sailor
when he walked across the water

Jesus was a hero
when he turned a handful
of tired fish
into a feast
for the thousands.

Jesu was a king when
God called him one.

And now the friends and the followers
walk through the narrow tan salted passageways
brown crumpling bricks on all sides
and underfoot the smooth
gray worn hard cobblestones.

Who’s fault is it?
You think your son should be allowed
to travel
to see the wider world
which he’s anyway
sought
and taken the time
to fill out the paper work.

America
America
where next?
It would be better
for us
if it was
better for you.

But what’s better for you,
mighty ship of state?

You know I can’t leave what I’ve known
your people
your places
your ideas
your myths
and the sentiments that tear them down.

Come on
help me
help us
to really find
a newer world.

AMW

Missing You, who I betrayed

Missing You, who I betrayed

Missing an old friend
who I let drown on the side of the lake.
Could’a jumped in; coulda braved the cold,
probably would’a made it,
didn’t try.

Missing an old friend
who I spent on trinkets.
Could’a stopped.
Could’a turned it around.
Didn’t bother.

Missing you so much.
Wishing there was some way
to talk to you
and make it OK again
as it once was
before it left itself
got out of hand
turned the handle
sorry
sorry
and sorry
but who cares?

I talk to the edges
I call out the sides
I look into the nooks
I realize the nuances.

We’ll not talk again.

Jesus got a raw deal

Jesus got a raw deal

Jesus got a raw deal
and Moses should’ve known better.

Buddha could’ve talked sweeter
and Joan might’ve arched
with more finesse.

I can’t tell the way
I can’t steal the light
I can’t hear the night.

Who will
anyway
now that we’ve found her.

All these pretty beads
of water
reflecting the various
shapes
a cactus
a stone
a Christmas wreath.

You know I love that shit
and I gobble it
with or without
the Pope’s sayso.

You know I follow
those cliffs
bayous
bellybuttons
ringlets
with or without
some kind of
something tight.

You know I kill it
every night
by myself
in the dark
without a spark
always without
and never with
nothing
you know
I do it.

BW/AMW

I conjure you

I conjure you

I conjure you,
come round,
hold my hand,
be my friend.

I conjure you,
take away all this
that falls apart
in noodles
in styrofoam.

I conjure you,
please.

Fuck it
let it go
I know when I’m beat.

I’d tell you

I’d tell you

I’d tell you about the hurt,
but you don’t care.

I’d tell you that I can’t take it,
but you’d gather the soundtracks
proving I’ve said that for 20 years.

I’d tell you it is too much for me
but you’d say that I’m lucky
to have so many good things
and such support.

I’d tell you that there’s
no one to talk to,
but you’d tell me
everyone feels like that.

I’d tell you it screams
so loud inside,
but you’d tell me
we all have our struggles.

I’d tell you I need
a helpmate,
but you’d
pass the window
in the mall,
looking through
the inside-glass.

Whatever!

Race too?

Race too?

I just want some money
and some time

Then I’ll take
the fuck off

I’ll skip
across the world
like a stone
across the pond.

I just want to quit
working and jiving
driving, striving.

I want to take off.

Don’t talk to me
of poverty, of race,
of inequalities old and new.

Don’t talk to me of
strife and reason,
of madness and pleasure.

I don’t want to pretend
I’ve figured it out
or that you have,
that my shoulders
or yours
shrug
with the definitive
insight.

Leave me alone
reformists
and retrenchists;
all I want is a roadtrip
and for the place
to hold together,
to give me

road side diners
in the sun-baked
asphalt
new cityscapes
to wander
a creek where
the minnows
dart beneath
light-flicking ripples.

All your reforms,
your Truths,
your progresses–
but I just want
innocence,
to forget,
to travel wide,
to find a woman
and accept
her thighs
her ideas,
her pride.

Author: Lou the Low-Down Minstrel

You know

You know

You know that I know
that I’m not the chosen one.

You know that I know
that I’m not going there.

You know that I know
that I’m just another round
of chump change for the mill.

You know that I’m lonely
and I talk to myself
all the time
like the madmen
and the prophets.

You know that it is over
for me
as I walk along the
sunny pavement

Down the steep hill
along Glenwood
walking to work at
McDonalds in the
space of fast food
parking lots.

I rose again
only to fall again
into parking lots
and other cement that
glints
and to ducks
shaking their rumps
in brown ponds.

You know I can’t win,
can’t lose,
can’t do anything
so grand so big
so wonder-rich.

Another boy
walking along the
curving edge
of another white
cement dam
holding back
the deep
frigid waters.

How many times
must I confess
what no one
listens to?

I am lonely here.

Who can stop the evil?

Who can stop the evil?

I know it isn’t me.
Is it anyone?
Jesus died and then he dried out on the patio.
So we’re left with the likes
of you and me and the in-betweens,
here in the future.

I know I cannot help
goodness win and turn the tide
against the monster.

But is there anyone
who just might stand
upon the side
where we’d like to be
and help us out?

I know I’ve failed and I need to wait
to die and recycle
so that never-mind can
rule the times
and yell the shout.

But is there someone
who could stop the something
that is corroding?

And while we’re at it,
can you send me back
my friend;
I really miss her.

She kills his hope

She kills his hope

She kills his hope
(Goofing with She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron.

She kills his hope, like children would
of blameless smile and snotty nose.
And all that’s torn in heart and eye
Stretch across her body burning bright;
So fallen in her stubborn thigh
He catches the cold and a fright.

I’m not your baby, not your friend,
Not fodder for your pointless march
had passed the edges of our skins;
But who will hold your upward arch,
And who will fold your sweet crease in
When I must admit I cannot?

Her outlines perk his and capture
what we no longer remember;
Forgive us God, if you can find
within your infinite soul space
A place and path for us lil rinds.

AMW/BW

She walks in beauty
by Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.