Two Haiku Lead Ins...

 

Trauma at 55

© April 3, 2023, the Griot Poet

 

Graduation day.

No child smiling because we

Lost Martin Thursday.

 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on Thursday, April 4, 1968. Our graduation was scheduled for [that] Friday at Bethlehem Community Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

 

After our teachers told us what happened, I remember crying until eleven, then getting dressed for graduation. Out of 36 children, none of us smiled. I recall thinking, “We’re not kids anymore!”

 

April 4, 2023, was the day my employer decided to have “active shooter training” 55 years later.

 

Devolution (Post-Cold War and 9/11)

© April 4, 2023, the Griot Poet

 

I did duck-and-hide

Drills, kids as cold warriors:

Now, active shooter.

 

My granddaughter celebrated her fourth birthday yesterday. She’s going to pre-K in the fall and will probably be introduced to her mortality sooner than I would like her to be. And now you know why I write poetry so fervently.

 

Short stories with these haikus are in a blog post titled “Innocence” at www dot Physics and Nano (one word) dot com.

Ode to Tuck...

 © April 26, 2023, the Griot Poet

Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson:

He and his brother,

Were abandoned by their MOTHER,

What mother leaves her babies?

Sis saw the Damien Thorn Bob-see twins,

And she probably had “Omen II” flashbacks!

She probably went into the witness protection program,

She might be wearing a wig and mustache.

Wouldn’t you jet if you caught Tucker the first time,

He belted that fucked up laugh?

A cackle so evil it would creep out Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix.

 

His father married the next unsuspecting Mrs,

The heir to the Swanson TV dinner fortune,

(A correction from the last poem),

 

Tucker was so weird,

The Central Intelligence Agency passed on his application!

(He must have mentioned his fetish for M&M candy.)

He was on CNN’s “Crossfire” with Paul Begala,

The precursor to our current left and right media landscape,

 

Jon Stewart, host of “The Daily Show,”

Pointed out that they were both injurious to our federal republic,

CNN’s management canceled it,

Paul survived; Tucker didn’t.

 

Tucker had a brief history on MSNBC,

A show called “The Situation.”

While CNN’s Wolf Blitzer added “Room” to it,

Wolf’s still there; Tucker isn’t.

 

And finally, Fox.

A pink slip trifecta!

He’s managed to get fired by every cable news outlet.

Tucker followed the illustrious 8:00 pm host lineup:

 

Glenn Beck,

Megan Kelly,

Bill O’Reilly,

 

So, I’m not holding my breath that Fox Propaganda will get “woke” and course correct.

 

Tucker was a Nielsen rating bonanza,

The problem is,

Unlike Beck, Kelly, and O’Reilly,

Tucker didn’t have ANY advertisers!

It’s BAD when your remaining advertiser,

The “My Pillow” guy, Mike Lindell, starts giving you the “side-eye!”

Beck, Kelly, and O’Reilly,

“War on white people,” “Jesus and Santa are White,” and “War on Christmas.”

Were the “gateway drugs” to authoritarianism,

 

Tucker is pure evil and fascist.

Sixty minutes of this vile filth,

Pumped nightly through three million frontal cortexes,

You only need three-hundredths of a percent to launch something like January 6th.

 

Notice:

It wasn’t the obvious racism, sexism, homophobia, and fascism that was the “straw that broke the camel’s back,”

It was that Tucker cost Rupert considerable cash,

It was the fact that the Dominion payout was 56 times the cash he shelled out for Bill “Loofah” O’Reilly,”

And Smartmatic’s next!

 

Regrettably:

So long as blogs and podcasts exist,

He’s still a danger to the republic.

His public comments 56 hours after his layoff were to blame “mysterious forces” coming after him,

In order words: casting himself as the victim.

He was careful not to blame Fox directly, or Rupert will keep his 40-million-dollar severance.

 

“Do not cry for me, Argentina.”

And not for Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson:

 

Charge him with “sedition by stochastic terrorism” and get on with his sentencing!

 

Until then 

“American Psycho” can file unemployment claims like the little people.

The “Great Replacement” guru has been replaced!

“And karma keeps receipts!”

 

Bloody Paws...

 © April 19, 2023, the Griot Poet

[This] is America:

 

Ralph Yarl,

16-year-old saxophonist and honor student in Kansas,

Plans to major in Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M in College Station,

He was shot ringing the wrong doorbell,

He was off by a block,

Picking up his younger twin brothers almost was his death knell.

An 84-year-old court jester, Andrew Lester, entered a plea of “not guilty.”

 

Kaylin Gillis, 20,

A young lady in Sarasota, New York,

A passenger in the car with her boyfriend,

Again, they didn’t divine the driveway he used for turning around was the WRONG one.

She lost her life because of it.

65-year-old Kevin Monahan, with a straight face, pled, “Not guilty!”

 

Two high school cheerleaders in Elgin,

Heather Roth, Woodlands Elite, who tried to apologize,

And Payton Washington, Round Rock Independent School District,

The girls made an honest mistake in an HEB parking lot,

Tired after a cheering workout,

Getting in the wrong car got them both shot,

The shooter?

25-year-old Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr.

We can assume that he doesn’t think he’s guilty.

Critically injured, Payton was airlifted to Austin on a Star Flight helicopter.

Her spleen was removed.

 

24-year-old Robert Louis Singletary,

Shot at a six-year-old baby,

And her mother and father,

In Gaston County, North Carolina

Two hours from Greensboro,

Because of the basketball she and her father were playing with,

Bounced in his backyard,

So, World War III, the baby?

We don’t know what Robert’s plea would have been since he was on the run from authorities, picked up in Florida.

 

Recap:

Four men: Two white, one Hispanic, and an African American,

Summary: Gun nuttery is [obviously] ecumenical!

 

America is a danger to its children.

Kids are depressed because they’ve been practicing “active shooter drills” since kindergarten!

We passed laws to mandate seatbelts for kids, only for them to die by gunshots.

This insanity has to stop,

But, no sooner than Rupert Murdoch,

Drops 787.5 billion dollars in the Dominion settlement,

 

Chief propagandist,

Tucker Carlson,

Heir to the Tyson chicken fortune,

A double entendre if there ever was one!

Tuck doesn’t have to work another second,

Lookalike for Christian Bale in “American Psycho,”

Tuck was gaslighting his gullible audience.

On the same night of the Dominion verdict,

Lying about yet another “race war” conspiracy theory,

A far cry from Bill O’Reilly’s “War on Christmas.”

We don’t even get “Festivus.”

This war is on the rest of us.

 

When will this bullshit stop?

Who’s going to be shot next?

 

The Census taker?

The Real Estate agent?

The door-to-door satellite TV salespeople?

The door-to-door get-out-the-vote volunteers.

Poll workers?

Girl Scouts selling cookies, and Boy Scouts selling popcorn since you’re so afraid of babies.

 

How much will we let Fox “Not News” lick from its bloody paws?

STOP!

 

Fox is a propaganda outlet.

Like their slave-owning ancestors,

They want women barefoot and pregnant to have more workers!

 

We lost a million citizens/workers because they were lied to about Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine during the COVID pandemic.

They lie about climate change when other topics aren’t trending.

All these people who shot our babies,

Probably watch this bullshit daily,

Driven by fear [to] support a failing gun industry,

By convincing them that America is an on-fire hellscape!

 

(Be afraid, be very afraid: always!)

 

Ban books, ban history, ban women’s bodily autonomy,

Those Asian people, brown people, queer people, women, immigrants, and children are [obviously] superhuman!

That’s why they’re armed to the teeth to fight “Demographic Armageddon!”

 

Here are my suggestions:

 

Since they’re not a news outlet:

Their press passes should be rescinded,

Their FCC license should be shredded!

 

Every gun owner needs liability insurance.

If you want an arsenal, get coverage for it.

Every state requires us to have liability insurance for autos.

And just like cars:

If you or your guns are involved in a massacre, you’re responsible,

Legally and financially,

Once we clean out a few bank accounts, gun massacres will drop exponentially!

 

Every gun owner needs a biometric safe.

In the military,

When we annually qualified with the Glock 9-millimeter and the Mike-one-six,

When we were finished,

We checked them back into the armory, where we GOT them!

No one took a single weapon home!

We didn’t see them again until the next qualifying session or deployment!

 

We need Universal Background Checks and red flag laws.

Don’t tell me the government can't create a database.

Try driving a car off any sales lot like a good libertarian without registering with the state.

I’ll wait!

 

Turn in your cable box.

The bundle you buy from AT&T and Spectrum,

Is their main source of revenue,

In other words:

You PAY Fox’s bills whether you watch them or not!

Get a Roku and start streaming what you want.

I reduced my cable, power bills, and blood pressure by doing it.

 

As a bonus:

You won’t have to see Tucker looking like a lost “Scooby Do” puppy,

Every time he asks a stupid question.

 

Fun fact:

Fox has never won a “Pulitzer, Emmy, Peabody, or Edward R. Murrow Award for journalism on the merits of its work.” (Snopes)

Because the industry knows that they’re a joke!

Because journalism has never been Rupert’s focus!

 

I want this boycott to go viral!

We can all do this act and save a few dollars.

 

And

Don’t forget to vote!

Restore the bodily autonomy of women!

Get government out of our bedrooms!

CRUSH the gun culture in every election!

We need to save the future for our kids from ghoulish fiends like the Murdochs.

 

We can do this!

And I approve of this message!

Insurrection Insurgency...

"The January 6 Insurrectionists Aren't Who You Think They Are," Robert A. Pape, Foreign Policy

© April 8, 2023, the Griot Poet

The second insurrection post-secession and Civil War was not on January 6, 2021.

 

On March 16, 2016,

President Barack Obama,

Nominated Merrick Garland,

Then, the Chief Justice of the United States Court of Appeals,

As his pick for Supreme Court Justice,

 

To replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia,

Who had unexpectedly perished,

The court, for the first time, would have been a liberal-leaning 5 to 4 majority,

Garland was seen as a moderate,

Mitch McConnell denied it.

“Moscow” wouldn’t even give him a hearing,

That aberration of The Constitution was the first salvo in the modern insurrection.

Article II, section 2:

“He shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States”

 

The Senate utterly ignored it.

 

“Evil Turtle,” said the next President should have the duty to appoint the next Associate Justice.

 

Unless, of course, that person was Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

 

The Republican Senate was willing to keep the seat open, in perpetuity, until the election of a Republican president!

 

If not 2016, then 2020.

If not 2020, then 2024.

“On, and on till the break of dawn,”

Until The Constitution is in tatters,

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat in this alternate reality would also be absent.

 

The political punditry has blown off this fact,

By blocking the appointment of Merrick Garland,

The GOP had already staged an unprecedented attack on The Constitution,

An insurrection and insurgency,

 

It was a bloodless coup in 2016, then,

“Moscow Mitch” blocked any attempt to mention outside Russian interference,

Facebook, Twitter, Social Media manipulated by the GRU in the Kremlin,

Now: TikTok is a gaslight distraction tinged by Asian racism.

Putin pumping out propaganda and spreading lies,

Chief purveyor:

His compromised “Manchurian Candidate.”

Before “The Big Lie,” a free and fair election was stolen.

And, we’re worried about the “useful idiot’s” collusion?

 

Stoking the fears of “great replacement,”

By demographics and immigration,

On Fox “Not” News,

Railing about,

Groomers as LGBT and drag queens who don’t exist,

But missing priests and ministers posing as "profits,"

 

Fascism is like a slow-boiling crab or lobster,

Each thrown in a bubbling cauldron,

Whether creature or republic, the changes in temperature are slow and subtle,

Lobsters and crabs, in this metaphor,

When one of the creatures tries to escape the death trap,

 

The one is pulled back,

Probably hearing, in crustacean language:

 

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Everything’s fine.”

“All is well!”

 

When the crustaceans or society realizes the danger,

They’re already in hell!

 

Joy Reid, on her TikTok, sounded alarm bells.

Paraphrased:

Don’t get complacent if you’re not black, Hispanic,

Or, you are, and are affluent,

Or white women,

Or LGBTQ in the majority,

They are coming for you next!

 

Overturning Roe vs. Wade makes sense to force women to have babies,

They want to stop all immigration except [from] Scandinavian nations,

 

North Carolina, with a turncoat Democrat switching parties,

Now has a veto-proof Republican majority,

It just repealed the need to get a permit to buy a weapon.

Meaning: any lunatic with the money can get them.

Right after the Tennessee shooting,

Right before Louisville, Kentucky,

Florida did the same thing.

Look for the next gun massacre in my home state.

 

Their goal is to terrorize citizens,

Their goal is to make us constantly fearful,

 

At school, at the mall, at the movie theater, at work, at the bank, at libraries, at worship, at parks, at clubs, at book signings,

Breonna Taylor died while sleeping!

 

Because when you’re afraid, you’re not rational,

It’s why they oppose history and education,

So we won’t have a framework or information to fight them,

 

George Carlin: “Governments don’t want a population capable of critical thinking. They want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.”

 

They are reconstituting slavery in the 21st century.

The first forced births of this nation were my African ancestors,

This time, they’re applying diversity, equity, and inclusion!

 

Congresswoman Michelle “crazy eyes” Bachmann,

Wanted to eliminate the minimum wage.

Because why would you pay wages to re-enslaved people?

Her party has been on a rampage since 1981,

When Reagan said, “Government isn’t the solution: government is the problem.”

This snag is the reason why they oppose reparations.

The only gods they worship are Mammon (greed and avarice) and Moloch (sacrifice children on “cremations of care,” or in the modern, gun massacres).

 

Octavia Butler’s prophecies in “Parable of the Sower” and “Parable of the Talents” are coming to pass.

Democracy, however, doesn’t have to be on its last gasp.

We used to skip the off years and vote in the general,

Don’t sit out voting for [dog] catcher!

 

Humans have spent most of our existence under the rule of kings, sheiks, emperors, potentates, authoritarians, psychopaths, despots, and demagogues.

 

Democracy matters!

It’s not “self-evident” or automatic!

Bring Moscow Mitch and these insurgent insurrectionists to their political Appomattox.

 

The only way they come to their senses is by losing winnable elections.

The only way they diversify their party is to see racism isn’t profiting.

The only way we stop this dystopian nightmare is to vote them into irrelevance!

Tennessee...

 

The "Tennessee Three": Justin Pearson, Gloria Johnson, and Justin Jones. The Tennessean

© April 6, 2023, the Griot Poet

My big sister was a Civil Rights Activist,

She’s retired. Her name is Mamie Douglas.

She’s not in any history books,

As women in the movement were ignored, discarded: and overlooked.

 

Think about how sad she is that,

All that marching,

All the high-pressure water hosing,

All the bricks that were thrown,

All those police batons and dogs biting,

All the arrests my Frat brother, John Kenneth Lee, bailed her and her Winston-Salem State University classmates out of,

It doesn’t look like their activism amounted to anything,

 

In Tennessee,

Democracy went on life support on Maundy Thursday.

Before the day commemorating Christ’s crucifixion,

 

They voted to expel three Democratic lawmakers:

 

Knoxville’s Representative Gloria Johnson, a former teacher who witnessed the terror of her students, survived a school shooting.

Representative Justin Jones, Nashville, who got shoved by a Republican member,

And Representative Justin Pearson, Memphis, where Dr. King and Tyre Nichols were murdered,

He managed to channel Martin and Malcolm simultaneously in his eloquence,

They were all backbenchers in a lower chamber until this incident.

 

Representative Lamberth told the truth:

“It’s not about the rules.”

 

You can’t ban books fast enough!

You can’t criminalize drag shows fast enough!

You can’t rip away the bodily autonomy of women fast enough!

 

Tennessee: congratulations! You just put “woke” on steroids!

 

When they expelled Jones and Pearson, two black men,

The descendants of Klansmen probably called them “uppity,”

Keeping Gloria Johnson was a ploy to sow division.

“It might have to do with the color of our skin,” she said.

Gloria Johnson, my fellow teacher, is standing with them.

 

Racism is a simple formula:

Racism equals prejudice plus political power!

We know that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

So do Republican supermajorities,

North Carolina has one since former Democrat Tricia Cotham switched parties in Kristen Senema fashion,

I wonder how much dark money Trish received to make that happen.

The only black man who died in Covenant was its custodian.

One of the children slaughtered was the pastor’s daughter.

The Principal killed was a friend of the First Lady of Tennessee!

 

And yet, before that,

Bill Lee signed his open carry contract with hell at the campus of a gun manufacturer!

Governor’s office? Crickets!

 

Tennessee,

It's the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan,

After cross-burnings,

Burnings at [the] stake, and taking pictures for sadistic postcards,

Castrations,

Cutting ears and noses and fingers as souvenirs!

Hanging men and women (some pregnant),

Yet, they’re not designated, domestic terrorists.

Nashville used to have a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest!

The first grand dragon of this evil empire,

A statue that many racist lawmakers didn’t want to part with,

 

I was wondering why the Republican legislature,

Didn’t parade from the floor in full Klan regalia,

The confederacy was proto-fascism.

In this undemocratic action,

Tennessee showed us exactly what “MAGA” means!

 

Hitler got some of his most sadistic ideas,

From the example of the so-called “United States,”

Some were so depraved the Nazis couldn’t mimic them,

But they sure took eugenics and put it on steroids,

Six million people were exterminated,

Right after they burned books before Auschwitz,

Its modern analog is book banning,

Check this:

You can exterminate a people when you destroy their history.

 

Think about how sad my sister is,

All that marching,

All the high-pressure water hosing,

All those police batons and dogs biting,

All the arrests,

All the near misses with death,

“Make America great again,”

It is a return to Confederate fascism!

My sister and a lot of activists didn’t think they would be successful,

 

It was in that darkness,

One of our Civil Rights ancestors,

US Congressman John Lewis,

He got his head cracked on the bridge named for Edmund Petis,

A grand dragon of his Tennessee coven,

Despite that:

We got the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act in succession.

 

African Americans, Asian-Pacific Islanders, Immigrants, Hispanics/Latinos, LGBTQ, Women,

 

A better world is coming!

The right is going crazy because they know they can’t stop it!

 

If he were alive in Tennessee today, Dr. King would have called the Tennessee legislature the “children of darkness.”

 

The “children of darkness” inadvertently propelled “The Tennessee Three” to international prominence.

 

The Third Reich was defeated.

Lord Palpatine was pitched into the abyss by his apprentice in “Return of the Jedi,”

A double entendre on the ascension of Luke Skywalker and the redemption of his father, Anakin,

Civil Rights went from movement to legislation.

By the way:

We also need to kick off the Supreme Court, the corrupt, oligarch-bought Clarence Thomas; just saying!

 

Justin Pearson said:

“Resurrection is a promise and a prophecy from the cotton fields.”

The “children of darkness” will be defeated,

The true “children of light” need to keep voting and fighting!

“Don’t get weary in well doing.”

Keep grinding,

Keep demonstrating,

Keep posting,

Keep motivating,

Keep getting in “good trouble” for our brother, John Lewis,

And keep VOTING!

Rename that bridge in Selma for him,

I have never had more confidence that:

You will save the planet!

My sister passes the torch to a worthy generation.

Go out now, and first save this nation.