Enigma...

 

Image Source: Twitter/Mark HarrisNYC

© December 30, 2022, the Griot Poet

 

Is George Santos’s real name even George Santos?

I’m not sure HE’S even sure!

 

We’ve been gaslit since 2015,

It was inevitable that we’d get a spate of copycat con men and women,

Who wanted to take the mantle from Jack Napier,

AKA the original name for The Joker,

And rule a world that has become Arkham Asylum.

 

He’s not Jewish: he’s “Jew-ish.”

Violating the creative copyright for the sitcom “Black-ish.”

So, let’s push the envelope (a bit):

 

He divorced a woman in 2019 before coming out: “gay-ish.”

Marjorie Taylor, “Secret Jewish Space Lasers,” supports him,

Meaning he probably gets a seat in Congress,

Because Kevin McCarthy is more of a totem than the Speaker’s gavel he hopes to grasp,

Like his clown car party,

George Santos is “Republican-ish.”

Leaving open the possibility of switching to being Independent,

A tactic now called “pulling a Kyrsten Sinema,”

 

Umair Haque opines that we’re in “the golden age of con artists,”

Desperate times call for desperate measures,

Which gives rise to snake oil salespeople,

Charlatans and hucksters who prey on the fearful,

You find them in businesspeople, social media influencers, politicians, religious figures,

Not as often in artists, comics, poets, and scientists,

One group preys on your Pollyannish frailty,

Promising Brexit is better, or to “Make America great again,”

Neither Nigel nor Boris hadn’t a clue about Brexit’s consequences,

Or Trump how to deal with the Coronavirus,

 

Artists, comics, poets, and scientists,

“Tells it like it is” so that you can deal with what’s coming,

 

Reality:

In November of 2022, we crossed the Rubicon of eight billion people on the planet,

The Earth is reaching its breaking point in sustainability,

Its spherical volume doesn’t matter, just the number of its inhabitants,

We have no superluminal warp drives in progress,

We need fewer boorish billionaires and more sharing of resources,

 

So, expect the rise of con artists,

Like Sam Bankman-Fried, Boris Johnson, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump,

Who promise you the Moon (or Mars), as part of their grift,

But don’t have a clue how to do it,

 

Through the slow-motion train wreck of Twitter,

We’re getting a clearer picture of how Martian colonies would fair if Elon managed to talk a few of us into doing it,

Bernie Madoff made the mistake of conning the obscenely rich,

These new snakes are different.

 

Howard Dean, self-described “from the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party,”

Took no big money from Wall Street like Third Way Democrats

Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin,

He raised millions in two to five-dollar increments over the Internet:

That became the framework of the grift,

 

What started on the Left as declared independence,

The Right stole and perverted,

George Santos went from being bankrupt,

To pay his campaign $700,000,

 

We are in the age of con artistry,

Phishing emails,

Vishing phone calls,

Multilevel Marketing,

Cryptocurrency,

Billion Dollar lotteries,

And “reality TV,”

 

Because the monied elites have broken society,

Racism, sexism, homophobia, and misogyny,

Are tactics by the 1%,

The actual thieves clearing the shelves of the Earth’s bounty,

And WHY you don’t have the rent,

Student loans are the only ones you can’t declare bankruptcy on,

Because Bank of America and Goldman Sacks require it!

 

They are suffering from Hoarding Disorder:

 

Selfish desires are burning like fires.

Among those who hoard the gold

As they continue to keep the people asleep

And the truth from being told

Racism and greed keep people in need

From getting what’s rightfully theirs

Cheating, stealing, and double-dealing

As they exploit the people’s fears

 

Now, Dow Jones owns the people’s homes

And all the surrounding land

Buying and selling their humble dwelling

In the name of the Master Plan.

The Last Poets, E Pluribus Unum

 

Hulu has FINALLY streamed Season 1 of Octavia Butler’s “Kindred,”

A metaphor for our time,

As Dana, a reluctant time traveler, attempts to save Rufus Weylin,

Destined to rape her great-grandmother,

Making Rufus also her kindred,

And important to her existence,

Anthropology and biology say that we’re all 8 billion distant cousins,

Who has allowed some of the group to elevate their self-importance,

Species survivability is going to mandate SHARING resources,

We’re too immature for warp drive: we’d be spreading empire and war over parsecs.

 

The hoarders call themselves:

Billionaires, chiefs, Popes, priests, kings, queens, “wolves of Wall Street,” plantation owners, Sheiks, and oligarchs,

And they hire,

Willing squires,

To carry out their orders in the halls of World governments,

Don’t expect them to give a wit about democratic republics,

 

Is George Santos’s real name even George Santos?

I’m not sure HE’S even sure!

He’s either a pathological liar or a [really] good kidder,

I am sure that whatever he HAD of a soul, he’s already sold to the highest bidder!

LSATs...

 

Image Source: Kaplan

© March 10, 2022, the Griot Poet

 

Tucker Carlson,

Heir to the Swanson frozen foods fortune,

Trust fund baby was a CIA reject,

He should question why his parents gave him,

A first name that rhymes with “fucker?”

 

Tucker Carlson has “mommy issues,”

A Freudian slip that’s self-explanatory,

He’s the epitome of willful ignorance,

His privilege puts blinders on during Black History Month,

Throwing up racist tropes like shit,

Seeing what on the Nielsen rating wall sticks,

 

Here’s a history Tucker Carlson hopes that you missed:

 

Ketanji Onyika Brown-Jackson,

Her parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown,

Working for the Peace Corps in West Africa,

Wanted a name for their daughter to honor their ancestors,

Ketanji Onyika means “lovely one”

(And can’t be rhymed with an epithet),

Graduated Harvard College Magna Cum Laude,

Harvard Law School Cum Laude,

Was an editor of the Harvard Law Review,

Like “Cancun Cruz” and President Barack Obama,

Yet, along with Judge Brown-Jackson,

And the 44th president,

You use this racist trope

To question her qualifications,

 

Yet,

You didn’t ask for Cancun’s LSAT,

Nor January 6 “fist up” Josh Holley’s,

You didn’t ask for Neil Gorsuch’s,

You didn’t ask for Brett Kavanaugh’s over beers,

You didn’t ask for Amy Coney Barrett’s,

Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Sam Alito,

Hell, you didn’t ask for Clarence Thomas’s!

 

108 of the 115 Supreme Court Justices,

Have been exclusively white men,

Thurgood Marshall was the first African American nominated,

After “Brown vs. Board of Education,”

HIS credentials were questioned!

We can argue if Clarence Thomas is the second,

(Nobody at the family BBQ claims him)

Sandra Day O’Conner was the first woman,

Nominated by Saint Ronald Reagan,

Ronnie probably couldn’t be a Republican,

In the party’s current “Putin’s puppet” state,

I don’t recall Reagan asking for Sandra Day’s LSAT,

As a matter of fact,

He nominated her BECAUSE of her gender,

To quell the angst of Republican women,

When he turned his back on abortion rights,

 

Racists go to the trope of standardized test performance,

Because of the Stanford-Binet test,

The foundation of the SAT, GMAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT,

It was designed to engineer a society

Where Tucker’s tribe is ever on top,

It’s why he’s nightly calling for “tribal warfare,”

Not that “trust fund” pacifier sucker would help fight it,

 

Question:

Why did the other trust fund baby,

I gave the pejorative Orange Satan,

Sue the military academy where he played a soldier in high school,

During Vietnam discovering bone spurs,

(Which foot he can’t remember,)

As someone who has suffered them, they’re hard to forget,

Why did he sue his high school and his college,

To keep his grades and HIS SAT scores private?

 

Maybe Mango Mussolini isn’t a “stable genius?”

His attacks on a black president jealousy, and projection,

His abject stupidity needs deflection,

He needed a foreign power to steal an election,

(“Russia, if you’re listening?”)

 

Nightly, Tucker’s spouting Russian talking points,

Jonathan Karl of ABC news pointing it out,

To the point where the Russian dictator has a credible plagiarism lawsuit,

Except, like the poster child of Adult Depends,

“Useful idiots” like Tucker meets his ends,

 

November 9, 1989,

The Berlin Wall tumbled down,

After Reagan challenged Gorbachev to tear it down,

December 26, 1991,

A day after Christmas,

Saw the dissolution

Of the Soviet Union,

For a certain KGB chief,

This fall was a catastrophe,

 

Putin,

Doesn’t want to go back to before 1989,

He wants to go back to 1975,

When the United States failed in Vietnam,

The one “Bone Spurs” failed to serve and faked to avoid?

 

But,

Let’s talk about LSATs,

Knowing that you won’t block Judge Ketanji Brown’s ascent,

To Supreme Court Justice,

Just on Democratic senators,

She’s got this!

And, she’ll get a few republicans,

The reason you need to see them is,

You’re a scowl-faced white supremacist,

Just like Charlottesville Tiki torch racists,

I’m not Putin, but I said it!

Just like Dumbo Gambino,

Who wanted to see Obama’s transcript,

Simultaneously moving to hide HIS two subpar lack of effort,

Dumbo is the guy,

By the way,

Who gave us COVFEFE,

Tucker, you are

Nightly duping the rubes who watch you,

Feeding them Russian propaganda instead of news,

For the only altar of your and Rupert Murdoch’s worship:

Nielsen ratings.

 

You’re a trust fund baby with “mommy issues,”

A CIA reject,

With a cackling laugh that would make the Crypt Keeper spit,

You used to be a decent journalist,

Until grift became your nightly nourishment,

I end this takedown with this:

 

Ketanji Onyika means “lovely one,”

You can’t make that an epithet,

Her husband is Former Speaker Paul Ryan’s cousin,

Even Ryan admits she’s more than qualified for the position,

Tucker rhymes with “fucker,”

Your problem is “mommy issues.”

Societal Suicide...

 

Paper: Veiled Women: Religion, and Cultural Practice, Sarah Slininger

© September 17, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

The Economist said:

“Nations That Fail Women Fail.”

You’re neglecting fifty percent of your population,

Decisions in such municipalities,

Have the distinction

Of being chaired by,

Cisgender men,

Whether white males in Texas,

Or Taliban in Afghanistan,

Harsh penalties meted out

For the jealousy of something that we can’t do with our bodies: the gestation of life,

We plant the seed, and we think we’re finished,

We behave more like roaming polar bears than responsible citizens,

Once you make a baby, you’re on tap until you leave the planet,

If you levy penalties for fetal heartbeats at six weeks,

Levy child support payments to the lust pipe-slinging, irresponsible miscreants,

 

Such societies, Taliban, or Texas, tends towards violence,

From Dr. Strangelove to “Enduring Freedom,”

Very few if any women at the decision table,

Generals playing great games on grand chessboards,

Or more primitively: action figures with GI Joe’s,

Oblivious to the reality,

These sons and daughters exist,

Because a woman birthed each one of them on the planet,

They are the reason why the human family exists,

Yet they have no seat at tables in deciding war or peace?

 

What are you afraid [of]?

Perhaps that there would be fewer wars,

And fewer avenues to make profits,

From Jining up false bravado and patriotism,

Jingoism, and sloganeering,

Southern aristocracy penned through their lawyers,

The articles of secession,

Yet not a single one fought in the

“War of northern aggression,”

They made sure they got reparations,

After the conflagration,

Rachel, north, and south was weeping,

Because if their children did not return

With missing limbs, or shell-shocked,

They were “no more.”

 

Fifty percent of the population,

Isn’t at the decision table,

For decisions on their bodily autonomy,

For peace or war,

For the distribution of the common good and public services,

For universal health, free college, maternity, and paternity leave like Denmark,

Like reparations for plantation slavers,

We seem only to have time for tax cuts.

 

Boko Haram and Islamic State

Promise their followers “wives” for their allegiance,

Seventy virgins after a suicide bombing

You have to admit it is an excellent gaslighting trick,

Sheiks that can afford harems,

Frustrate 99% bachelors beneath them,

Oligarchs have honey pot orgies,

On yachts with airbrushed models and silicone booties,

China aborts the female fetus as useless,

To the chagrin of frustrated bachelors,

Quote from The Economist:

It’s “no coincidence

“That Kashmir has one of the most

“Unbalanced sex ratios in India,

“Or that all of the 20 most turbulent countries on the Fragile States Index compiled by

“The Fund for Peace in Washington practice polygamy,”

 

You didn’t spontaneously subdivide in a Petri dish!

The superpower of women,

Is every soul in existence comes FROM them,

I repeat:

Societies that suppress women have a propensity towards violence,

David’s seven wives, and three hundred concubines,

His son, Solomon’s preponderant one-thousand,

It’s no wonder Israel had wars:

There were no women left for the frustrated and poor males left!

 

Much [is made] of Joseph accepting Mary’s pregnancy,

He could have her stoned to death, in commitment to stone age lunacy,

But: nothing made of Jesus and his siblings raised by a single mother after Joseph’s apparent passing,

 

Warren Jeffs had several underage wives in West Texas,

Polygamy, as practiced by proto Mormons,

Shooed away younger men from their homes,

This act was violence.

Because older pedophilic miscreants didn’t want the younger competition,

Many confused young men with little education and fewer life skills,

Wound up depressed, opioid addicted, and homeless,

 

Suppressing the rights of women is societal suicide,

Women are seldom at peace talks, we’ve rarely tried,

Because there is for a sociopathic few more profit,

In making young women, and men dead soldiers,

But each of these soldiers is somebody’s child,

Societies that depends on fraternal bonding,

Choose the women their sons will marry,

Usually based on bribery dowries,

It’s no wonder they still see women as property,

It’s no wonder slavery existed 400 years in old and new Egypt,

It’s no wonder “peace on earth” is illusory,

With men having power over women’s bodies.

From the Height of Mt. Olympus...

 

© July 28, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

Sha’Carri Richardson,

Lost her mother,

After qualifying with one of the world’s fastest times on the track,

In her grief, she reached for a blunt,

Probably from a close friend,

Some would [just] get drunk,

Alcohol does not enhance performance,

But THC is that “loco weed,”

We’ve all learned to fear since the 1950s,

The proto “war on drugs,”

Then, and now targeting people of color,

The mostly-male IOC mistakes weed for Popeye’s spinach,

 

Naomi Osaka,

[Pulled] herself out of competition,

To protect her mental health,

In the French Open,

Out of self-preservation and her [own] initiative,

Losing without an Olympic medal in Tokyo,

To Marketa Vondrousova,

The haters’ parrot Laura Ingrate on Fox Propaganda:

“Shut up and dribble,”

Applied to tennis,

She has something more precious than gold:

The wholeness of her soul.

 

Simone Biles,

Olympic Gymnastics’ greatest of all time,

GOAT on the shoulder of her leotard,

“Still I rise” from poet Maya Angelou tattooed on her collarbone,

Abandoned by her mother, who struggled with addiction,

Raised by her grandparents outside of Houston,

One of the many abuse survivors of sexual predator Larry Nasser,

Her brother was arrested for a triple homicide in Ohio, awaiting arraignment in the state of Georgia,

And you’re wondering why she’s off her game?

She pulled out because of “the twisties,”

A phenomenon where an athlete loses control of their timing,

Split seconds can make the difference between the quality of life, death, or paralysis,

Ask her predecessor, Elena Mukhina, about this,

Forced by the Soviets in 1980 to compete after not fully healed from a bone break,

She landed on her head, broke her neck,

Quadriplegic at twenty years old from then,

To her death twenty six years later, at forty-six,

 

The International Swimming Federation rejected the “soul cap.”

Quote: “it does not fit the natural form of the head,”

Black hair in Olympic pools causing a flap,

Prejudice ruling out afros, braids, and dreads,

 

Add to all this,

The Norwegian Handball Team

Penalized $1,500 for NOT wearing bikini bottoms,

As the lusty, mostly-male IOC executives would have wanted them,

The musician Pink promised to pay it,

That’s not the point,

The chief affront:

Most in the front office are not athletes, four out of fifteen women,

 

Ninety percent of athletics is mental,

You see the goal before you attain it,

You rehearse the act before you [actually] do it,

In martial arts, it’s called Mushin: no mind,

Action in real-time conditioned to instinct,

Your vision can’t be clouded by sexism,

Worries about family members,

Or, whether or not athletes are wearing thong bottoms,

 

Not one male athlete has to go through this!

Not one of you has any daughters or kids?

What about sportsmanship and fairness,

Health and wellness,

Participation in athletics is supposed to give?

 

Southern plantation oligarchs,

For their amusement, and a lark,

Made the slaves participate in games,

During the holidays,

It kept down rebellions,

And escape on the Underground Railroad,

Is this just the global equivalent of the previous model from the antebellum?

 

Were your high school annual photos in the special,

“Chester, the Molester” section?

The entry: “destined to be charged with sexual harassment?”

 

You can’t tell people how to grieve,

You can’t tell athletes to push their pain away and dribble,

You can’t act like you have agency over their bodies,

Like your plantation oligarch ancestors,

You can’t tell athletes they’re not wearing pants that aren’t skimpy enough,

For your [mostly] lecherous male lust,

 

I’ll tell you what:

The IOC can say and do all those heinous things,

If the mostly-male executive board

Instead of business suits,

You all wear thongs to the closing ceremonies,

Revealing the ruin of your pathetic bodies,

Then ALL of you quit!

It can only be an improvement,

 

What’s that I hear?

You don’t LIKE being objectified?

 Et Tu, hashtag me too? Aww.

Ahmed Ali said:

“Bullying successful women is a coping mechanism for mediocre men,”

 

“Turnabout is fair play” has a karmic chagrin,

 

It’s probably the reason why on Star Trek, most of the high-ranking flag officers are women!

Pleasant Center...

© June 2, 2021, the Griot Poet

 

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet,”

Thus said the Bard,

William Shakespeare,

In the tragic love affair “Romeo and Juliet,”

 

At the time of his existence,

There were festivals,

Jousts,

Jugglers, mimes, and jesters,

Archery competitions,

Fencing for high sport,

Duels to settle deadly scores,

Not behemoth entities,

Through radio, television, and the internet,

That beam in billions of eyeballs,

To gawk,

And armchair-judge your talents,

Reality shows condition citizens,

Every opinion is relevant,

Without a comparative experience,

Or expertise,

On which to make judgments,

Just instinct, kismet, the “gut,”

Inexperienced nincompoops,

And empty-headed peacocks strut,

 

Naomi, etymology, Hebrew, meaning “pleasant,”

Osaka, the commercial and cultural city center in Japan,

 

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter et al,

Empower sociopaths,

That has a problem with her youth,

That has a problem with her biracial status,

Typically racists,

Some of them elected house members and senators,

Many of them,

Charter members of the TTPC:

Teeny, tiny, penis committee,

Armed to the teeth with weaponry,

Sending their best missives to cyberspace

In soiled and semen-stained underwear,

Sitting like Gollum in mother’s basement,

 

She was a teenager

Thrust into this caustic cauldron,

There’s been no guidebook ever written,

Muhammad Ali on ABC News’ Wild World of Sports winged it,

He was an exceptional athlete,

Won Gold at the Olympics

Before becoming a professional athlete,

Spoke out against the Vietnam War,

And the irony of making

People of color

Fight people of color

On foreign shores,

He was a natural loudmouth, overconfident,

His [own] best PR agent,

Gadfly philanderer, and narcissist,

He was the greatest,

But this doesn’t mean,

Every athlete has this particular talent,

 

Naomi Osaka,

[Grew] up in the shadow,

Of Ora Mae Washington,

Althea Gibson,

Arthur Ashe,

Zina Garrison

Venus, and Serena Williams,

Each enduring hellish attacks, and double standards,

Discussing their bodies,

Their abilities,

Like they’re commodities,

Or thoroughbred stallions,

Climbing up a tennis ladder,

Rife with boobytraps

To taint or take their well-earned crowns,

And minimize their status,

 

On these shoulders

Naomi saw inspiration and support,

She’s human,

Like a lot of us,

Vulnerable to isolation in this pandemic,

Vulnerable to the unsympathetic among us,

That feel empowered that their screeds

Can reach their targets with light speed,

Revel in the pain they generate,

Oblivious to the destruction they create,

The FIRST to cry for help when THEY need it,

 

The French Open

Acting like plantation oligarchs,

Like Naomi Osaka is THEIR property,

That she doesn’t have agency,

Or a say in her mental health,

Just because her name means “pleasant,”

Doesn’t mean she lacks inner strength,

Or foresight on her condition,

$15,000 is a small pittance,

For wholeness,

An obligatory press conference,

It is analogous to an auction block,

Slaves nor horses had much choice,

Stand for inspection,

Answer questions on-cue,

Like Trigger,

The Sports Industrial Complex (SIC) is about profits!

 

Who controls a sport: the businesses that organized the competition or the athletes who play it?

 

Leagues turn press access to an athlete as an additional source of profits,

 

Think “show, and tell” with dollars.

 

Since the descendants of plantation oligarchs,

Pull strings in SIC boardrooms, and sign the checks,

They feel empowered to call the shots,

Of every aspect of athletes’ lives,

Laura Ingrate: “shut up and dribble!”

Ask how that worked for Michael Fred Phelps II,

After 28 Olympic Games Medals in swimming,

Setting a record,

The most decorated of all time,

Is now a spokesman for Talk Space,

 

At the beginning of every athlete’s journey,

Before they reach the apogee,

Of 0.03% in their respective fields,

They were children with noble dreams,

Their participation based on sheer joy,

[Which] is why they should be treated as individuals with agency,

The activity for which they’re paid handsomely focused them and kept them calm and centered.

 

That dedication to their craft should be honored and respected!