day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY SIX

compassion

the wisest person
I know told me
the most important

thing was
compassion
and it got me thinking

companies
can’t have
compassion

companies
rob the soul of
compassion

when an employee
needs compassion
the company

looks in the rules
and measures out
the measure

of compassion that
is fair for all but
don’t realize

what is fair for all
is fair for none
compassion

knows what
each person at
each moment needs

companies
can’t give real
compassion

companies
need to go
if they don’t

compassion
will be
forgotten

and the
revolution
will destroy

us all

--Thomas R. Thomas

day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY FIVE

flush twice

when the will

of government

outweighs the will of its people

then you know

the fix is in

or maybe it always has been

this country’s goose is cooked and inedible

the republicans have gone too far

the democrats never go far enough

and in between the people are always fucked

the stench in washington d.c.

the stench in the media

they get so bad at times

that all you can do is wretch into the toilet

squirt out diarrhea democracy

get up from the can

wipe your dirty ass clean with all of it

wait for the pain to kick you in the gut again

but if you see one of those

jowly, smiling red white and blue motherfuckers

swirling around in the bowl

with the shit and the piss

be sure to flush them down

flush them all down

flush twice

just to make sure

they’re gone.

--John Grochalski

WineDrunk SideWalk : ShipWrecked in TrumpLand week FORTY NINE wrap up

Well.....i guess as long as that fat, orange moron stays in Florida and Golfs the rest of us can' breathe easy....unless I''ve spoken too soon.  That said I spent the year being pissed about how my tax dollars were all going to that shithead playing golf at his crappy "resort." But...you know what? Fuck it. Whatever keeps that moron quiet...he's like a child in that way.

Although I imagine everyone in Washington D.C. is going to be quiet as we let the horror of 2017 slip into what will probably be an abysmal 2018. One highlight.....we did have Obama for president for at least 19 1/2 days this year.


Anyway...it seems a pretty quiet week...if you don't count Roy Moore and his failed bid to file a lawsuit against a legitimate election....one would think with school being out Roy would be casing malls instead of filing lawsuits....or DOUCHE complaining that the Russian investigation makes the U.S. look bad....sure it does....and so does having a rapist, racist reality TV game show host as president.

or how about Trump holding DACA ransom so he gets his wall.

my one wish when this nightmare ends....I wish Donald John Trump NEVER has a moment's peace when he is a private citizen. I wish his waning days are spent in turmoil and torment of his own doing.

but....wish and one hand and shit in the other and see which on fills up first.  It's like George Carlin said...rich assholes always find a way to survive.

All the same...I was going to go though a list of the things that Trump has done...but doing so made me throw up in my mouth and it gave me the shits....so....

But what a year, huh? With the quiet of this week I was going to also write a post about art and movies and books, and things that we can use to keep some distance from this Trumpian horror show...but then I realized that's one perspective of looking at things...yes, i can watch a Star Wars film or lose myself in Netflix or a book....i have that luxury....for now....but millions of people do not. The damage that this administration has caused....well....i dont think we've even begun to see...that said, millions of people out there living in these United States....are being hurt....their families are being torn apart...from the coal and steel workers that Trump lied to, to the Dreamers, to Haitian immigrants, all the way to Jeffy the racist Sessions this week giving the nod to what are essentially debtors prisons...the Trump Administration has been an abomination domestically and globally...the sooner it ends the better off the world is.

though if you need to... lose yourself in Netflix... and if you can....read that book.

but...DO NOT GIVE UP....DO NOT GIVE IN....DO NOT LET THESE BASTARDS DRAG YOU DOWN.

I'm going to be here through the dark days of 2018....are you?

Darkest before the Dawn.  We will rise.

today you get me and tomorrow frequent contributor Thomas R. Thomas is going to close out 2017 for us. Then we dust off and begin again.

but 365 days next years is a long time....you wanna fight? you got something to say?  send me your poems...your fiction...your rants...your essays...your photography.....again...i don't care if it's Trump related or not....we resist through ART here on WineDrunk SideWalk

SUBMIT2RESIST: winedrunksidewalk@gmail.com

see you in 2018 

day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY FOUR

TRUMP WORLD


We've packed all the
Suitcases
Taken the children
Out of school
Fallen out of
Love with the
Idea of what
Was once
America



Moving to Scotland
Maybe France
Canada is looking nice
The passports
Are ready


People just don't
Understand
Family just doesn't
Understand
Even though they
Watch the news
Avoid it
Avoid
The truth


And I often wonder
At times like these
Where is God
Where are all
The just people
The good people
Of the world
Why isn't anyone
Doing anything?
Doing something
Anymore
To stop Hitler in
The second half


We've
Lost all
Our dignity
And respect
And all we get
Are promises
And words
Words
Lies
Just like in
The past
And we tell
Ourselves that
History never
Repeats


Because
There is
No Superman
No Wonder Woman
And Captain America
Has disappeared
For good


Dictators
Move in
The shadows
Where they
Slowly create
Death


Propaganda


Dictators
Don't stop
Until they are
Finished and
Will take the
Whole world
Into hell


But
No one
Believes
It's happening
Right before
Their own
Eyes


We have
To go now
Before it's
Too late


At the
Airport
Our passports
Have been
Revoked

--Talon (R.M. Engelhardt)

Talon ( R.M. Engelhardt)  is a poet/author who over the last 20 years has been published in such journals as Thunder Sandwich, Rusty Truck,Writers'Resist, Dry Land Lit, Hobo Camp Review & many others.

He currently lives & writes in Upstate NY where he runs The Troy Poetry Mission.

day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY THREE

Onagrocracy (for John Grochalski)

christ, I’m discouraged

Jay, I know exactly how you feel

we knew it wouldn’t be

four years of winning

maybe we thought shit

would get worse more quickly

but the banana republic

still can’t tell their ass

form a hole in the ground

small consolation at least

I don’t know why worse quickly

would have been better though

maybe after the hell of 2016

we are up for a fight

our blood up after another

slash and burn election

instead its been a barrage of ineptitude

things getting worse but slowly

a barrage of policy changes

some in secret some in the open

some buried on Friday so not to

ruffle the feathers of the nightly news

its hard to keep the outrage up

when everything is outrageous

everything is this is not my country

everything is hey America

you could have had a real democracy

there is a term from Fascist Italy

Onagrocracy, it loosely translates

to a society run by asses

to say that one must acknowledge

the tumble down to Fascism

America has become

maybe we’re too late

maybe we woke up too late

Christ, I’m discouraged too

Impeachment dreams

and tax bill cons run

through me, and I wonder

why I care this much, a country

is a social contract and a country

is fiction, we all drank the kool-aid

even as we learned to take each

Horatio Alger American Dream platitude

as they are, which are lies

over the last years I’ve been running

those classic American narratives

through my head seeing how fast

they get debunked, caught in lies

it made me angry, but I

always knew they were lies

and I’ve always been angry

I’m still not angry enough

we’re still not angry enough

christ I’m discouraged

I still got a bad case

of it can’t happen here

even as it happens here

jay, I know you’re discouraged

goddamn, so am I

but we still need our voices

we still got a fight

or try to fight the ways we know how

we still have to believe

in the ballot, in change

if there was any mistake it was

teaching us that was the truth

not a lie, if we give up

then democracy

is rehearsing

for retirement

--Jason Baldinger

day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY TWO

Fuck You Donald Trump

you're fired, motherfucker
get the fuck out of the White House
with your treason and your decadent
fascist crusade go back to television
and entertainment and building big
flea-bag Trump Towers and fuck
you Donald Trump for not combing
your hair correctly and continuing
to fucking get away with it you are
a delusional slumlord who needs
to be removed and we can find
peace of mind and a mutual
progressive vision of harmony
and civilized freedom and let
snake oil lizards like you
Donald Trump you fuck, you
fucking piece of dangerous
shit it's time for the
Emperor's New Clothes
fuck you Donald Trump
you're not the president
of the United States,
you have high-jacked
the country and are
pushing it toward
gruesome slaughter
of the poor and
the middle class
so get ready you
fraudulent bully,
we want your
ass out of office
and branded a
National Emergency
as though a WWF
wrestler had
wrangled hold
of the executive
office of the
United States
with the help
of the Russians
fuck you yet again
i hope you go to
prison and become
somebody's bitch.

--Kevin Ridgeway

day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY ONE

sarah huckabee sanders gets paid $165,000

to lie for donald trump

to stand there spewing bullshit for

an orange-colored monster

to berate the press and make up facts

about immigrants and visas

and whatever other crap she can stick to the wall

sarah huckabee sanders gets paid $165,000

to sell her soul from the moment

she wakes up until the moment she goes to sleep

to turn a blind eye to history

and democracy and the basic truth

satah huckabee sanders gets paid $165,000

to stand at a podium and not believe women

who’ve accused trump of sexual assault

to not defend senators when trump degrades them

to swim in a swamp of sewage this country may never drain

but sarah huckabee sanders gets paid $165,000

to have so-called liberal men

call her ugly and fat and a fucking whore online

to have so-called liberal men in the press

call her a “chunky soccer mom”

because so-called liberal men

still know how to use the patriarchy to their advantage

still sarah huckabee sanders gets paid $165,000

to be only the third woman to serve

as white house press secretary

and though i don’t have anything else nice

to say about her that’s a feat in and of itself

so the next time

that sarah huckabee sanders gets paid $165,000

to go on live television

and spew lies for trump and try to tell people

that he’s not a racist or encouraging violence

or is the secret grand wizard of the alt-right

i’ll just shut the tv off and think to myself

well…at least i found one good thing about her.     

             

-John Grochalski

day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY

As visions of sugar plums dance in your heads....i offer another oldie but "goodie" for this day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY 

walking 5^th avenue christmas blues

santa trump nazis

blasting hate talk

and yuletide jingles

out of unseasonably warm

rolled down windows

honking horns

an orchestra or gridlock and anger

their gray faces melting faster than polar ice caps

sixty degrees in december

feels more like columbus day

the sweat collects in my boots and on my balls

forty one years on this boiling planet

forty one christmas seasons

is enough to make anyone hate anything

yearn for something just a little bit more subtle

as the overworked honk

and honk and honk and honk

scream tender mercies into the water-tipped air

as if it’ll get them anywhere faster

on these clogged corrupted streets

i think they should put electric shocks on car horns

meaning if you’re gonna use it

you must really mean it

but on the sidewalk chalk people move like slugs

in the dance of jingle bells blaring out of store fronts

old people shuffle taking last steps

babies wobble taking first ones

everyone getting in my way

and i’ve got nothing to blast them with

except another futile sigh and the wane promise of a new year

forty one spins and i’ll probably end up dead

on the shitter at work in full-on santa party hat mode

what years i wouldn’t give up

for a little bit of eternal sleep

moving along this baklava-scented avenue

where every world collides

menorahchristmastreefatjollyelfkwanzaa

passing papaya box mountains

and avocado sculptures made for god

some drunk collapses into the middle of the intersection

curls up busted like islamic calligraphy

and i swear

i daydreamed

a new america.            

--John Grochalski                         12.11.15

day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY NINE

'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS...Trump Style

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the White House
Not a creature was stirring, not even this Louse;
The Tax Scam was hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that gutting entitlements soon would be there;

The interns were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of “grab ‘em by the pussy” danced in their heads;
And Melania in her thong, and I in my steak and ketchup stained cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's bout of Fox News induced insomnia,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see if a militant Islamic terrorist was the matter.
Away to the window. because of red meat, I could barely dash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of teen beauty queen pageant contestants to objects below,
When, what to my perennially wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so slovenly and sick,
I knew in a moment it must be Steve Bannon....er, St. Nick
More rapid than eagles that attack me on video his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now, POCAHONTAS! now, CROOKED HILLARY! now, LITTLE MARCO!
and LYIN' TED!
On, ROCKET MAN! on JEFF FLAKEY! on, CRYING CHUCK and LOW ENERGY JEB!
To the top of the porch! to the top of that big beautiful wall!
(that Mexico is still going to build)
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane in Puerto Rico that I didn't give a shit fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, like getting 60 votes in the Senate, mount to the sky,
So up to the White House-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of Secret Service guy's little hoof.
As I drew in my small orange hand, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in high luxury Ivanka brand fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Trump Steaks he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler or a dangerous illegal immigrant just opening his pack.

His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! 
SAD!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! 
LOSER!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
BAD!

The brim of a  MAGA hat he held tight in his teeth,
And the stench it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of diet-coke soaked jelly.

He was chubby and plump, an ALT-right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of an inability to see humor myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread...except impeachment

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings with winning; then turned to face this Orange jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the mother of all missiles.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL STILL MERRY CHRISTMAS BECAUSE THIS IS AMERICA AND WE SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA!

By Clement Clarke Moore with help from John Grochalski and Jesus Christ