Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems Day 26 #TantrumTanka

As cabinet pick after cabinet pick gets confirmed, I imagine things went something like this, with Trump pointing fingers and rabid fans going wild:

 

Major donor? Un-
experienced? Sycophant?
Wanna raze guv’mint?!?!
You get a Cabinet post!
You get a Cabinet post!

 

© David Siller– 2017

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*****

For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author.

VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!

Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.

Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

*****

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems Day 24 #PhotoHaiku

Tonight, a #PhotoHaiku, to be “read” as you see fit. We are all in this together. #Resist

welcome
street
curb

 

© David Siller– 2017

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For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!

Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.

Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

*****

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems Day 23

For today’s poem, I simply include the note from the poet herself:

The story behind this poem is two fold: First, it was in response to artist Jackson Pollock’s work ‘Untitled. C.1950.’ This poem is also in response to the recent ban on immigrants and refugees, and a growing increase of intolerance in the United States. According to Carl Jung, everyone has parts of themselves that they suppress and ignore. These parts make up what Jung referred to as our shadow. Jungian scholars pose that just as an individual has a shadow, so do societies and nations. According to Japanese author Haruki Murakami, ‘At times, we tend to avert our eyes from the shadow, those negative parts, or else, try to forcibly eliminate those aspects. No matter how high a wall we build to keep intruders out, no matter how strictly we exclude outsiders, no matter how much we rewrite history to suit us, we just end up damaging and hurting ourselves.’

 

A link to the referenced artwork can be found at: Jackson Pollock, Untitled (c. 1950)

 

we are a land of shadows


sometimes they break through
the veil
dark, dense and outside
the light
black winged things
swishing saurian tails
dancing
encircling
containing
what we cannot reconcile
thought and memory
blur
incite 
the primitive
to rise 
a fevered frenzy
of feathery trails
engulfs us
lifts and carries us
not above our own wounds
but the world’s

 

© Mary Katherine Creel – 2017

Bio:

Mary Katherine Creel lives in the foothills of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband and their animal collective.  Her poem ‘we are a land of shadows’ first appeared in What Rough Beast. She has worked as a journalist, freelance writer and counselor, and currently serves as communications manager at an art museum. Her poems have been published in Paper Rabbit, Tar River Poetry, Pittsburgh Poetry Review and Avocet. Her first poetry chapbook, Exit Wound, is forthcoming.

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*****

For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!

Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.

Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

*****

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems Day 22

As we mentioned yesterday, the Museum of Modern Art has joined in the voices against the Trumpet nonsense. With each plaque accompanying the art you read

“This work is by an artist from a nation whose citizens are being denied entry into the United States, according to a presidential executive order issued on January 27, 2017. This is one of several such artworks from the Museum’s collection installed throughout the fifth-floor galleries to affirm the ideals of welcome and freedom as vital to this Museum, as they are to the United States.”

Today’s poetic response is to [Composition-40-2011] by Shirana Shahbazi, a German artist born in Iran in 1974. It is a chromogenic color print from 2011.

space-painting

 

 

 

Standing on a Ridge on Callisto,
Gazing toward the Sun

“Of course, it’s easy to see
the Red Planet, Mars,
God of War, guardian of agriculture--
and next to him the terrible Deimos,
as if war needed an escalation,
and just beyond is Luna,
that bright white moon doing
all it can to hide the blue dot behind.”
 

        And what is that, exactly?


Nothing worth the trouble--
separated by puddles
they still fight over myths &
borders & trinkets &
colors.
So wrapped up in themselves
we are able to remain here,
unknown
unbothered
uninvaded  
and the sun a kilomètre zéro, blazing bright center,
lighting our way to more,
            far beyond the blue, wet contentious stone.

© David Siller – Photo and Poem – 2017

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*****

For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!

Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.

Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

*****

 

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems Day 21

Even the nation’s most important cultural institutions are in the struggle against the cacophony of crazy from Trumpet and his minions. The Museum of Modern Art recently installed work to add voice to the chorus of those of us protesting and fighting. With each plaque accompanying the pieces you read

“This work is by an artist from a nation whose citizens are being denied entry into the United States, according to a presidential executive order issued on January 27, 2017. This is one of several such artworks from the Museum’s collection installed throughout the fifth-floor galleries to affirm the ideals of welcome and freedom as vital to this Museum, as they are to the United States.”

Inspired by this, today’s poem will be the first of eventually several ekphrastic pieces responding to some of the works in the MoMA’s collection. The poem, untitled at the moment, simply bears the name of the artist and sculpture. Photos of the piece are the author’s own.

 

prophet-back-1
prophet-back-2

 

 

The Prophet 1964
Parviz Tanavoli, Iranian and Canadian, born 1937
Bronze on wood base

I. The Profit
Eyes downcast
 this blockhead leaning or falling back
  hands worse than tied: stopped locked and boxed
   such constraints only propel the reverse
    this is the devolution, where capitalism
     trumps democracy, where regression
      brings a high ROI, at least to the top
      (lean back enough, you’ll see up there)
       hands worse than tied: unable to reach the ballot box
        from this prison of our own (though not the majority of us)
         making the stench in the air comes from the refilled swamp
          a reminder that money does(n’t?) buy democracy

                                                      The Prophet II.
                                                    Eyes high & wide
                                               arms folded & strong
                                         we lean into the future
                                       lean into the struggle
                                    our queer straight immigrant
                                  citizen shoulder to the wheel
                                 you see hollowed stomach,hungry holes
                               this is how we feed ourselves,
                             that pit yearning for freedom
                           this pit to be filled with justice,
                         that with equality, this with light,
                       those with shared bread, shared love,
                     shared dream
                    this is the revolution,
                   where, like comic book heroes,
                 we stand firm, we plant ourselves like a
               “tree beside the river of truth,
             and tell the whole world, No, you move
           because for the struggle forward is the only way


through walls & bans & backroom bargains
through bought pols & bought polls & 
bought nominations & bought abominations
the power of a prophet always mightier than that of the profit

 

prophet-forward-2
prophet-forward-1


© David Siller – Photos and Poem – 2017

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*****

For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!

Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.

Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

*****

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems Day 20

Day 20. One-fifth of the way through. Eighty days to go. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the (mis)administration so far, it is that money is, indeed, the grease that gets the gears of this government going.

Thoughts from the Mad Sonneteer:

Dollars and Sense

Some will deny facts; refute evidence;
Censure prophets whose message fuels outrage;
Ignore inevitable consequence;
In defiance of danger, disengage;
Celebrate dividend distributions
Over the desiccated bones of Earth,
And trumpet their only contribution:
Endlessly monetizing nature’s worth;
Squeezing every dollar from land and sea;
Placing short-term profit ‘bove common weal;
Assuming no blame for the bill they’ll leave:
A world’s future condemned without appeal.
   Disbelief does not make science untrue,
   But will compound the penalties accrued.

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© Bud Koenemund – The Mad Sonneteer – 2015

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You can find The Mad Sonneteer on Twitter at @TheMadSonneteer.
His blog is located at  MadSonneteer.blogspot.com

*****

For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!
Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.

Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

*****

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems Day 19 #TantrumTanka

Let’s do one more #TantrumTanka. This is one tweet I’d like to see from the so-called Trumpet-in-chief.

I am FUCKFACE von
CLOWNSTICK and I am truly
#TERRIFIC,
#REALLYGREAT! I’m the
Original. Great. Orange. Hope.

clownstick.png

© David Siller – 2017

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*****

For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!

Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.

Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

*****

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems Day 18 #TantrumTanka

The so-called president has been flooding the twitterverse with a number of gems in the last few days–many disconcerting, many outright frightening. In grappling with those, though, it’s sometimes an older tweet that catches the poet’s eye.

 

How come “Every time I show
anger, disgust or impatience,
enemies say I
had have a tantrum or meltdown-
stupid or dishonest people! ?”

tantrum-meltdown

© David Siller – 2017

.
*****

For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!

Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.

Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

*****

Posted on by waxyandpoetic

#100Days100Poems Day 17 #TantrumTanka

If toddlers have their terrible twos, does this mean Trumpet is having his atrocious seventies? Not a day goes by that we don’t get one of these! Today’s #TantrumTanka isn’t found, but inspired by.

 

This judge is way too
judgy for me, and I judge
“the opinion of
this so-called judge…ridicu-
lous.” And sad! Like his black robes 😦

 

trump-judge-tweet

 

 

© David Siller – 2017

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*****

For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!

Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.

Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

*****

Posted on by waxyandpoetic · 1 Comment

#100Days100Poems Day 14

In an alternate universe, where he told the truth, Donald Trump would channel former president George W. Bush, saying, “I’m a divider, not a uniter. I mean, I’m really terrific at dividing. Just terrific.” Lucky for us we all have what’s necessary to fight that division.

 

 

Build That Wall

A cursive signature
of aggression, barbed
wire ink pierces

the refugee dream
of safe haven,
the breathing space

of sanctuary, of hope
secured for families
and all our children.

America made better.
Murky snake oil
for these end times

of walled hatred,
deportations of love,
security, of common sense.

My only pledge is to no flag; it
rests in the warm hand
of humanity.

 

 

 

© Kersten Christianson – 2017

Kersten Christianson is a raven-watching, moon-gazing, high school English-teaching Alaskan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry through the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2016. Kersten’s recent work has appeared in Cirque, Tidal Echoes, Inklette, Sheila-Na-Gig and Pure Slush.  Her book Something Yet to Be Named by Aldrich Press along with a chapbook titled What Caught Raven’s Eye by Petroglyph Press will be published in 2017.  Kersten co-edits the quarterly journal Alaska Women Speak.  When not exploring the summer lands and dark winter of the Yukon Territory, she lives in Sitka, Alaska with her husband and photographer Bruce Christianson, and daughter Rie.  She blogs at www.kerstenchristianson.com and tweets with @kerstenak.

*****

For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!
Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.

Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !

*****