day FOUR HUNDRED and SIXTY SIX

Trump and Literature

Has he ever read
Depressing Plath…or
The certainty of death
Expressed by Camus…

No…he flips his
Jowly face through
The pages of the National
Enquirer…or stares at the tits
In Penthouse…
He tries to comprehend the exotic
Letters—but he has trouble with
Words such as heal and heel….


Donald Trump,
You are an ass-clown
A blowhard who tried to create
An image of suave…but ended
Up being a laugh to those who
Possess a brain…
Literature and poetry never
Show up on your radar…
Except when Spicer read you
Those knock-knock jokes and
You took them as classics…


So, go…Donnie—back to
McDonalds and Kentucky
Fried Chicken…where all
The people love you and
They have the crayons
You can use to write your
Next pathetic lie…

--Dan Provost

day FOUR HUNDRED and SIXTY FIVE

a patient isn’t a piece of meat

take your shirt off

I don’t want to, I’m cold

I need to see your body
see if you deserve treatment

the doctors say I do

your treatment is too expensive
we need to know you are worth it

who isn’t worth it?

the insurance company decides

how can they decide?

they are the ones paying for you

this isn’t about money
it’s about life

this is about profit

how can it be about profit?
how can our lives depend on profit?

your life depends on how
good your insurance is

and if I have no insurance?

then the State decides

and if I have no State?

then you don’t matter at all
your existence is illegal - immoral

how can my life depend on profit?
shouldn’t all money go to patient care?

your life is less important
than profit for a few.

the needs of the wealthy
are greater than the
lives of the poor



--Thomas R. Thomas

day FOUR HUNDRED and SIXTY FOUR

The Garden of Eaten

Everything eats something

and is in turn by something eaten.

Fish eats snail,

bird eats fish.

So where's fair?

What makes this death okay,

that death not?

Seems mostly the Rule-Makers exclaiming

eating is fine, being eaten ain't.

As long as they're the eaters.

History written by winners

while the vanquished dead rot.

The do as I play say

from eater to eaten.

So, what's for dinner?

--Steven B. Smith 

day FOUR HUNDRED and SIXTY THREE

plastic action men

plastic action men

run the world

little autocratic tough guys

playing games with time

don’t talk to me about china or the philippines

that little bitch in north korea

that monster in venezuela

in hungary they hunger

for four more years of it

they lick up the autocratic sludge

then spread their legs for an E.U. payday

in poland puny big shots

are pushing the illiberal democracy

song and dance

state owning the press

trying to take away women’s rights

as putin sits in moscow

taking a healthy stinking shit

farting out syrian chemical bombs

loved by the kids

king of the world

here in america

we got it bad

a racist game show host sits in the hot seat

illiterate rapist-in-thief with his fat grin

THE IDIOT extraordinaire

duping the heartland rubes

a jealous wannabe coastal elite

forced to suck down big macs instead of organic wine

finger fucking the constitution

making america great again

one tear at the fabric

at a time

tweeting out the hate

as kids kill kids in school

as cops fire on black people in the street

as white people wave flags like daggers

harassing their women with such glee

as the arab population ducks

that good ol’ american scapegoat jive

and the latin folks

are all getting themselves deported

back “home.”

--John Grochalski

                                                

day FOUR HUNDRED and SIXTY TWO

GRABBY

                                Photo by John Grochalski

day FOUR HUNDRED and SIXTY ONE

Mona in Amerika #1

in the shimmering emerald rain

of the inhuman dawn

the man in the yellow hat

hunchbacked- weasel featured

almond eyes crossed toward a mauled cashew nose

flits and limps around- fleabag motel

HOME- 35 dollars a night

scraps of chicken wings, beef shreds, ham bone

bundled in newspaper and twine

friends with the butcher’s assistant

they play checkers and drink

belt out dead love songs on a busted six-string

labor ravaged, soul maddened, tragic comic dynamos

too old to live too young to die

slow mutants of inevitability

rooms 206 and 209

where the unwanted go to die

a tinge of disappointment

whenever day breaks or night descends

eggplant child on tricycle

pisses near the swimming pool

indeterminate sex- locked out from the room

of determined sex and food stamp paydays

Mona turned to me asked “…is this Amerika?”

--Mike Zone

day FOUR HUNDRED and SIXTY

Throwing Bones

I close my eyes to window day
hear siren run the black

Power failed fallen torches
lead way to no where back

Hands in pocket, fingers worm
through lint and dust and dirt

Buy now, pay before, pay after
consuming corporate dearth

Have to add theft and bribes
and power slides to budget

When we complain of their greed
they tell us to suck it

Not all blood worms must be food,
there are other slants

You don't have to hurt the chicken
to make it dance

Steps go up, steps go down,
some are steep, some shallow

You can either worship things
or consider spirit hallowed

Heart within, or bling about,
which becomes your steeple?

Sometimes during life assembly
it is best to be two people

--Steven B. Smith

day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY NINE

                                   Untitled

Capitalism
is
brilliant
its
the only
social system
that
actually
manages
to sell
its own
demise

--Jason Baldinger

day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY EIGHT

PONDER/CONSIDER/REMEMBER

                               Photo by John Grochalski

day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY SEVEN

give me a globe
with no lines
no state names

just rivers
oceans
mountains

with people
too small
to see

let me live
stateless
corporationless

free

of the
greed
of power

--Thomas R. Thomas

day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY SIX

All Hail Walmart

I like the way your long lines look

from the back, Walmart

Walmart, I love your everyday

low prices

and your bell ringers, Walmart

I'll give tomorrow

Almighty Walmart

Walmart the merciless

Quaking beneath the shadow

of Walmart

Buying all the AR-15s growing

in the womb of Walmart

All loving Walmart

Food stamp Walmart

I'm wallowing in depression, Walmart

Walmart your prescription medications

have given me erectile dysfunction

Walmart I wait for days for your prescription

medications

Walmart I like how fast you get them done

I like how you Git 'er Done

I like you bloody and beaten a little bit

Walmart

Walmart I'm sorry. It won't happen again

I saw Walt Whitman and Walt Disney in your

pale blue eyes Walmart

Walmart we're full of cliches

Walmart

Walmart the blessed

Hollowed be they name.

--Daniel Crocker

day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY FIVE

Found

There are thoughts that
are beautiful

silent…

Displayed with only
a passing glance that
declares so much love
in an instant.

Then
a hand to hold.

Peace.

Tender–an uncontrollable
urge to weep.

The tears of laughter; man & woman.

We have searched
and found.

--Dan Provost

day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY FOUR

ignorance = fear

which

is just

another way of saying

that

there are a lot

of scared

republicans

out there.

--John Grochalski

day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY THREE

poem as
deliberate crime parade

-for Melania


We confetti. Hearts take
longer wrapped in photograph.

Slovenia, I draw your name
on an airport poster.

Articles of conscription arrive
with the Secret Service

in a Chinese Dragon costume
the length of a train.

Strangers hold the other end.
Reflecting your uneasiness

it isn’t very tall.
We cheer for you.

Your husband or your father
run the other way.

Sleep is to night
as nap is to day.

The clouds are fields of rock
and the sky turned loam.

I can’t hold it over my head
and check the time.

Branding, he said.
His genius is in the naming of things.

He is tweeting 

your eyes look Oriental.

Asking for a minute alone with you
they are calling a deliberate crime.

What does the second
hand say in thirty couplets?

So long. So long. So long.
Torn to pieces

I may not
recollect your face.

--Paul Koniecki

day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY TWO

California Olives

When I think of America, I think of a wormfruit.

a rotten taste and easy bruises,

yet comforting and honest,

like the smell of your own genitals or piss.

When I think of America, I think of an olive

black and without a stone. 

The can is as ugly and mundane as obituaries,

and the olives inside are aching

themselves into tar.

America cannot be pitted.

like the olives from Italy or Greece.

Those olives have a mucusy tree buried inside.

American olives are always hollow like flat tires

you see along highways,

for convenience, for slicing.

I won't throw out the can I bought

for less than a dollar.

It's as big as a monument,

so I'll need a whole month to eat it.

I know it will taste

like bruises, like soft nickels.

--Nadia Wolnisty

Nadia Wolnisty is author of two chapbooks, published by Cringe-Worthy Poetry Collective and Finishing Line Press. Her work has also appeared in Apogee, McNeese Review, Paper & Ink, Philosophical Idiot, Spry and others. A chapbook and a full-length are forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press and Spartan

day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY ONE

they take it personally

as

i’ve

learned

even

the

most

liberal

people

in

america

become

nationalistic

assholes

if

you

push

them

too

far.

--John Grochalski

day FOUR HUNDRED and FIFTY

middle class

the wrong
people cry
socialist

those who take
have lied to
those who make

and lined their
pockets with
our paychecks

--Thomas R. Thomas

WineDrunk SideWalk : Shipwrecked in TrumpLand week SIXTY FOUR wrap up

week SIXTY FOUR....where to begin???? FBI raids or Syrian chemical attacks.....I'd say I'm going to go for the obvious, but in this day and age they both seem pretty obvious.

so....

On Monday morning the FBI raided the offices of THE IDIOT's lawyer and money handler for porn actresses, Michael D. Cohen, seizing business records and files and records of payments to two women who had sexual relations with THE IDIOT before he decided that the best way to bring the United States to its knees was by running for president. The raid was also in regards to that imfamous Access Hollywood tape in which THE IDIOT basically admits to rape....you know that tape....the one that made millions of Americans say, gee, I'd like that man to be my president. Of course THE IDIOT lashed out at the FBI because what can an embattled, moronic, wannabee autocrat DO but lash out at the other strands of government. Like everything else in THE IDIOT's life this "break-in" (even though the FBI had a long-standing warrant) was a witch hunt, and of course, the FBI's actions were disgraceful and "an attack on our country in a true sense."

Honestly I don't find this to be an attack on our country. 9/11 was an attack on our country. Adam Sandler films were an attack on our country. The whole Kardashian family IS an attack on our country.....63 million of you fucking idiots voting for Donald J. Trump to be president of the United States.....now THAT'S a YUUUUUGGGGEEE fucking attack on our country.

also...every time one of these women is brought up I have to put up with the image of Donald Trump having sex in my head...there's only so much vomit you can catch in your mouth per week folks.

THE IDIOT also tossed around the idea of firing Mueller, indicating that "many people" have told him to fire Mueller.  I love this....with THE IDIOT it's always "many people" or "people are saying" I guess considering many of his voters are inbred swine with a penchant for mob-mentality and authoritarianism, THE IDIOT needs to indicate that "many people" are up on this conversation.

As long as Mitch McConnell, that divisive party over country swine thinks Mueller is okay....

and...yeah...call me a coastal elite....if it means I'd rather live free than under tyranny, show me the way to the next wine bar and vegan restaurant then......

Syria.....how do you solve a problem like Syria?  If THE IDIOT had his way he'd pull all of his resources out of the place and hand the whole ball of wax over to his daddy, Putin, but even in these embattled times, the United State cannot overlook a chemical attack that killed dozens of people....so....on Monday, in the middle of his rant against the FBI and Robert Muller....THE IDIOT mentioned something about a quick response to the chemical attack against the Syrian government and Russian and Iran. "Everybody is going to pay a price," our baby-dicked, man-child president* said on Monday. I'm not sure what price will be paid and on what scale. THE IDIOT is already looking for a war with Iran, but he has to wait at least a month before pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal to get that ball a'rollin. With Russia???? I'm guessing no Mother's Day card for Putin. Most likely THE IDIOT is gearing up to drop another one of his Mother-of-all-bombs and then lament the fact that it didn't kill people's families as well as its intended target.

Mark Zuckerberg visited the Capitol building this week to explain Facebook to a bunch of old farts who probably aren't on it, and can't even control the volume of their cell phones when showing each other ugly videos of their ugly grandkids.....but went to Washington D.C. Mr. Zuckerberg went....and what came of this?  Not much from what I read. Politicians did a lot of bitching and Zuckerberg did a lot of 1/2-assed apologizing.

Let's be honest here...87 million people had their data mined for this election, which is probably less per day than the millions who have their data mined to sell us a bunch of junk we don't need. Also...one can blame all the memes they want in terms of Russian interference, but they don't hold a candle to hundreds of years of white supremacy and racism and sexism in this country....those 63 million shitheads who voted for THE IDIOT and against the best interest of their country and the world.....they had their minds made up from the time that orange dipshit slithered down his escalator in his dump of a building and declared his candidacy.

look inward America....it's all rot.

Well.....looks like American isn't going to have this Ayn Randian Wanker to kick around anymore:

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan plans on telling his domestic terrorist colleagues in the House that he plans on retiring from public service at the end of this year. While there's no telling what Ryan will do with all of those Koch Brother bucks he's earned over his 20 years, I for one am taking this news with a grain of salt.  I don't like Paul Ryan. I don't like what he stands for. In fact, I hate his face. But I am a touch alarmed at all of the traditional Republicans that are fleeing come this year's mid-term elections.  Hell, at least these people PRETENDED at one point to give a fuck about their country.  So whose left in  the GOP when Ryan leaves other than Trump and shithead like Devin Nunes who spout Trumpian philosophy.....and this is what scares me a touch.  When you have one of your two major political parties completely turning its back on Democracy, as the GOP seems to be heading, that can lead to a lot of trouble....a lot more than this nation is already in.  So let's hope for a democratic landslide in November, because I can almost guarantee whomever the GOP puts up in Ryan's place the year, that person will look at lot more like this:

rather than this:

Actually.....the GOP really DOES have a genuine Nazi running in Wisconsin.

Getting back to this Cohen/Raid business for a second, it seems that the FBI are also targeting American Media INC in this whole investigation.....for those of you who don't know American Media INC....they publish this piece of garbage:

The National Enquirer is deep in more shit than even I have time to cover in this wrap-up, but let's just say that they're pretty close to Trump and Cohen and you can read all about that right HERE before heading off to get another cup of coffee.

Essentially Donald J. Trump's entire adult life has been about underhanded sleaze.

Well...i was going to end this wrap-up with maybe something about Trump/James Comey and the hypocrisy of THE IDIOT calling ANYONE a slime ball....BUT THE IDIOT along with England and France decided to launch retaliatory missile strikes on Syria for the suspected chemical attack by the Syrian government last week....i say SUSPECTED because nothing has actually been confirmed....you know, i don't want to sound like an un-american dickweed here (but I will), but if I'M going to strike a country, possibly killing dozens of civilians, and pushing my own military and civilians deeper into a civil war and quite possibly pushing my country into another actual WORLD FUCKING WAR.....well....i'm going to make damned sure that I'm not using the word SUSPECTED in front of ANYTHING.

just sayin'

And as the world heads toward the brink of global destruction, we continue our little art protest here at WineDrunk SideWalk with the poetry of Thomas R. Thomas here today at 10:30 a.m., and tomorrow ya'll get me.

Speaking of me....I'm going to be off the radar for a couple of weeks. WineDrunk will still be posting daily poems, but i will be unable to do the wrap-ups....sorry to the three of you who read them. The wrap-ups will be back either Saturday April 28th or the following week.

but....i NEED your work...poetry/art/fiction/rants/essays/vastly detailed dystopic nightmares
you know where to send them:

SUBMIT2RESIST : winedrunksidewalk@gmail.com

day FOUR HUNDRED and FORTY NINE

                                                      A Fedora and a Mustache

referenced by her brother-in-law
she calls me, leaves an awkward
voice message, walking around
what she wants or needs

I listen already somewhat amused
I deal in edible marijuana
not much, enough for friends
enough to take a little off the top
to pay for my own indulgence
because fuck it, sometimes,
no, all the time, this world is too much
we need the edge off

she is in her late fifties, I think
her husband has cancer
she like me in an untenable space
she’s never done a drug deal
I hate thinking of myself
as a drug dealer

I buy cookies from cancer patients
I sell cookies to people with anxiety
chronic pain, cancer or to people
who just want to have a good time
marijuana helps these things
marijuana should be legal
we should all be able to walk into a dispensary
pick up what we need, not through
some underground economy
fuck you America, for making us criminals

a friend of mine died of cancer last year
the pain killers were too much
until the pain got too bad
then there was no choice but painkillers
until that point though
I showed him how to roll joints
how to pack a bong
how to smoke
‘cause these aren’t cigarettes

she’s much the same, nervous as she talks
she says can I say cookies, will alarm bells
rings, will I be arrested immediately
I start to laugh, laugh through the rest
of the conversation, she says
this was something you didn’t
do in my day, the fear of jail was too much
I tell her it’s been decriminalized in the city
even as this archaic government
tries its best now to double down
on what has been proven to be
a far less dangerous drug
than alcohol, cigarettes or caffeine

we set up a meeting, she asks
should I wear I disguise, I could
fedora, I could mustache
I could fake glasses
I say there’s no need
we don’t want to draw attention
we want to make this fast and painless
like the relief her husband will hopefully get

she calls back to change the meeting
I’m going to her house now
she tells me the address
she tells me to look for the house
wearing a fedora and mustache

--Jason Baldinger

day FOUR HUNDRED and FORTY EIGHT

NO FUTURE NO CHOICE

                                                PHOTO by JOHN GROCHALSKI

day FOUR HUNDRED and FORTY SEVEN

Is

Happy is

farm 62 years ago

wild grass and flowers

between the wheat and woods

lying on my back

sun on face

eyes closed

buzz of fly

lowing cow

chicken cackle

whick whick of windmill

distant drone of dog bark

and propeller of plane

growl of tractor

people miles away

no there where to be

all here

all now

all me

Safe is

four years old

lying on back in back seat

soft glow of headlights

and dashboard light in night

late 40's car swaying side to side

motor droning

tires moaning old highway

parents protection in front seat

no fear

no where

no why

no safe since

Now is

rent

food

CEO crooks

death by cop

rape by priest

thug in White House

customer killing corporations

dying body politic

cancer water

cancer dirt

cancer air

movies music TV

no there

no fair

no fly

--Steven B. Smith

day FOUR HUNDRED and FORTY SIX

MY KORA

This is my kora
made of goat gut and great affection,
one grand sigh and every cloud that makes you smile.
It sings with the twang of insects, bird calls,
the hum of a nearby stream entering a river..

Don’t piss on beauty.
Love until it makes you sick.
Pick up your gourd and shake it until you shake the earth.
You didn’t put the monster into office.

You didn’t invite him into your house.

We can change everything.
We can sing until the terrorists in office hear only us.
We are that strong. We are that beautiful.
Open your mouth. Play my kora.
Let its spirit change the way they think.


--Michael Brownstein

day FOUR HUNDRED and FORTY FIVE

the president likes to be spanked

the president likes to be spanked

and pissed on apparently

or he likes to watch hookers piss on mattresses

i can’t remember

it gets so confusing these days

and i can’t even reckon with my own sexual appetites

but i do know that a little ass play

can go a long way

maybe the president

should have his chief-of-staff

give him a sexy crack on his flabby bare ass

every time he talks about that border wall or fake news

have his national security advisor

pinch his nipples

whenever his baby-dick gets hard

over north korea or iraq

they should really get kinky in the white house

hookers with prosthetic cocks running around

at the ready with lube

the next time the government wants to shut down

a whole fleet of johns and whores

waiting in the lincoln bedroom

should duty call

trophy wife number three strutting around

in her high heels and little else

her green card shoved between her tits

or maybe the president’s daughter instead

with the way he goes on about her

you never know

incest could be best in the west wing

all i know is that they need a little something

all that pasty white, racist, xenophobic pent-up aggression

hasn’t been good for the country thus far

so give the president a smack on the ass, mr. speaker-of-the-house

give the commander-in-chief a dildo

put him in his bedroom

without his cell phone or a tv

tell him that he’s a good boy and that he’s doing all right

then let him

shove

shove away

until a smile cracks upon his ugly face

and world peace is achieved

at last.               

--John Grochalski                                               

day FOUR HUNDRED and FORTY FOUR

ZOMBIE POLITICS
“My country tis of thy people you’re dying.” – Buffy Sainte Marie

Oozing pus and dripping viscera
Paranoid zombies rise from the
Well-deserved graves of history
To terrorize anew any attempt to
Move forward into a peaceful future.
The John Birch Society,
The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,
Lingering Confederacy revivalists,
A multiplicity of Nazi imitators,
Sporting swastikas like fresh scabs,
All manner of ranting living dead,
Angry, lurching back driven by envy
And fear, leaping onto the open stage
Of national political discourse.
Is there no past madness which is
Not demanding to be recognized as sane?
Not making a bold bid for legitimacy?

They are not many now but they are loud
And there are many more sympathetic,
Waiting for the right moment to
Emerge from the shadows of shame
Into the bright light of privilege.
They wait to seize their place at a table
Which they then intend to turn upside down.

Within its own damaged heart my country
Is becoming a truly frightening place
As the zombies of hatreds past emerge
To tear apart our present and future.

--M.J. Arcangelini

day FOUR HUNDRED and FORTY THREE

New to Berlin New Hampshire 


I’ve seen too much

sadness in my lifetime

So, I cannot just say stop…

I have walked away from the written

word too many times

to call myself a poet…

My dreams are fables

of uselessness, shame

of isolation…wanting

something from nothing.

Looking, seeing a child

coming home from school

with a backdrop of mountains,

Souls jumping from those mountains...

Frightened of walking out

the door…

Observing from afar…

participation in zero …

No whims or desires to act upon…

Just mumbling and internal torment…

Oh yes, oh yes…it is there…there

for no one to see…walking into

walls…that really do not exist.

--Dan Provost

WineDrunk SideWalk : Shipwrecked in Trumpland week SIXTY THREE wrap up

Before we begin a brief note: the role of president* Donny John in this little tragi-comedy known as American, will no longer be called DOUCHE MOTHERFUCKER. Donny John will simply be referred to on this blog as THE IDIOT or president* or whatever way I can combine the color orange with having a small penis.

thank you.

So.....week SIXTY FUCKING THREE of this shit.  We start off the week with Easter....and April Fools Day....i don't know about you but there's something very coincidental about a day in which we fool and deceive people sharing space with a day that honors the rise from death of a savior by millions of people with a penchant for salted meats and eggs.

That said, THE IDIOT, spent Easter/April Fools watching fake news on FOX and then tweeting up a storm about the cancellation of the DACA deal. Nothing says spending the holiest of holy days by double down on being a racist, xenophobic prick....but Donny John wouldn't be Donny John without publicly reminded us folks in these here "United" of states that he's been one big April Fools joke.....the orange piece of shit actually commented on this outside of a CHURCH, blaming the Democrats and the Mexican government for "blowing it." I'd say I was surprised that the church didn't implode when Donny John and Trophy Wife #3 walked in, but then I'd have to, in part, subscribe to the cult mumbo-jumbo that IS Christianity.

that's right....I said Mumbo-Jumbo

I suppose that if I lived in a country not run by a racist-game-show host and lorded over by a domestic terrorist organization whose thirst for dark money has taken over any desire to have a functioning democracy, one would think you wouldn't let a man who couldn't SPELL tariff....impose them.....but that's exactly what's happening here in the good ol's US of A where chaos runs wild these days......Donny John gets to impose his tariffs and countries like China get to react back by imposing tariffs of their own and U.S. industry leaders get to bitch and complain and stocks drop, yet every single time you see Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan their rubber chicken faces are grinning like runners-up in a beauty pageant

Makes you wish a REAL leader would show up....but never fear, folks, apparently President Putin is angling for a visit. Word on the street has it that when The IDIOT called to congratulate Putin on his bullshit-sham elections he also offered to have him swing by the White House for a summit...and why not? I mean Putin pretty much OWNS the place, so he should be allowed to stop by and check out the drapes. And what's a little spy poisoning and expelling of diplomats between blackmailers and blackmailies anyway? Perhaps a White House screening of golden showers is in the future.....i sure hope Trophy Wife #3 is out of town....hell, since you and I are paying for all of the IDIOTS golfing weekends in Florida, I say why not add a trip to Peru for Melania? She can climb Machu Pichu in heels while Vlad and Donny John watch urine films and dial up hookers.

and....hey....for those of you out there outraged by the Sinclair Broadcasting Group I say.....welcome to the party. Not for nothing but this asshole, alt-right, neo-nazi organization hasn't been secret about their propaganda for years....but I'll say it's kind of nice to have them out there and fully exposed. That said, FOX News has been out there and fully exposed since its founding, and its been the most-watched cable news network since 2002. so.......

.....usa.....usa.....usa.....usa....

Signs of life in what should already be a no-brainer?  Teachers in Kentucky in Oklahoma walked out this week demanding higher pay and more money spent on education....from a personal standpoint I think it's great that teachers, especially younger ones coming into the mix, are beginning to wake up and realize that public schools are not corporate cum-dumps meant to condition this nation's children into zombie-workers, but are actually institutions that are meant to teach and to culturally engage the next wave of citizens. Let's hope more teachers walk out. Let's hope this happens in more states...hell, let the kids start summer vacation now.....months playing shoot 'em up video games have to be much better than studying for some arbitrary test that won't mean shit years from now when they're skipping lunch to punch numbers and fielding texts from their asshole boss when they're home and trying to live their lives....and if terrorist organizations like the GOP want to put a positive spin on these strikes....kids out of school and doing nothing but playing shoot 'em up games could be the next generation of snipers or drone pilots.....just sayin.....America always needs people willing to kill and die for its hypocrisy.

For those of you who like fun facts I present THIS

But getting back to tariffs for a moment.....I'll be honest....I really don't understand this business.  Against the advice of people in his own party and business leaders country-wide, The IDIOT declares that there will be tariffs. Why?  Maybe he did it because he thinks the U.S. is being screwed over worldwide monetarily....Slum Lords tend to think this way, which is way your leaky faucets never get fixed.....Maybe the IDIOT is a smart  business man and is aware of something that NO financial consultant is aware of....or maybe simply mentioning tariffs at his Nazi rallies gets as much whoopin and a'hollerin' from Jethro and Ellie May as chanting "lock her up! lock her up! All the same the IDIOT says they'll be tariffs....but not for certain countries.....then the Chinese react by imposing tariffs on items such as pork and California wine(which i honestly can't believe they are paying for in the first place....sorry....Eurocentric wine Snob Alert....i kid....all the shit i drink comes out of plastic bottles)...THEN...the Times reports that maybe the IDIOT is backtracking on this whole "tariff" business and that maybe, just maybe, these tariffs won't take effect at all....WTF??

Or....THE IDIOT threatens to impose tariffs on 100 billion more in Chinese goods. All along people have been saying the THE IDIOT is looking for his very own Reichstag fire, and maybe these little trade wars that the president* has chosen to pick with the world, and especially China, is looking to be exactly that. In America we love nothing more than what's in our pocketbooks, and we fear nothing more than the loss of money......we let this IDIOT send the economy into a spiral and you may just have that final authoritarian push that Trump and at least 39% of this nation want.

CASE IN POINT

....or maybe THE IDIOT could just have Michael D. Cohen pay out $130,000 to the Chinese for their troubles, since he's trying to fuck them too and deny any knowledge of it.

Hey.....if you need any more proof that you live in a reality tv show disguised as government, let me present Exhibit Z ....of course with a tax scam like that I'd throw away the goddamned script too.

Getting closer and closer to that Golden Shower video being released......

....And last minute THIS which I'll expand on next week, but Donald Trump and Homeland Security are a bunch of fucking Authoritarian creeps

Anyway that's it for my ass this week.....next week we get the repulsive, islamophobic John Bolton in as the new National Security Advisor to THE IDIOT and coming soon is the Senate confirmation of the repulsive, islamophobic Mike Pompeo...let's see how many Democrats stick their tails between their legs and vote that jackass in.

until then....today at 10:30 we have Dan Provost and tomorrow at 10:30 we have M.J. Arcangelini

I NEED YOUR WORK TO KEEP THIS GOING....please send me poems/art/ficiton/essays/photos/rants  SUBMIT2RESIST : winedrunksidewalk@gmail.com

day FOUR HUNDRED and FORTY TWO

A Good Life’s Sleep

the American nightmare continues

the president is a rapist
rubbery lips slobbering all over
his Big Mac and Coke Force One
on his brown leather Barcalounger
behind his golden desk in the Elliptical Office;
special interest groups lobby for the protection
of AR15s, our nation’s most vulnerable citizens;
we have arrived at the upside-down place where
college crusaders in pursuit of social justice
have become in an alarming number of cases
fascists armed with digital indignation
and a year’s supply of virtue signals and SLAPP lawsuits,
willing to instruct the world (at bayonet point)
on what words we may now be permitted to say,
and this morning the Dow Jones school shooting average
this morning is a bull market this morning
and the American nightmare continues;
the president is a racist
opening his loving arms to the bakery owners
who “bravely” refuse to bake cakes for gay weddings;
we have arrived at the upside-down place where
special interest groups lobby for the destruction
of the national forests out in the country
and the National Conference of Catholics
issues a statement condemning Planned Parenthood
and Planned Parenthood enjoys a good laugh, asking
when the National Conference of Catholics
will do anything about the priests who touch children
and the American nightmare continues;
the president is a puppet
with a wooden body and dead eyes dreaming
of a wall tall enough to keep brown people away
while allowing Scandinavian teen models into the country,
and special interest groups lobby for the protection
of the members of President Rape’s cabinet
once it was revealed that fifty percent of them
were actually Russian apparatchiks
retrofitted with accessibility and woke bump stocks;
we have arrived at the upside-down place where
the national anthem is a safe space within which to tinder and snap
and the lyrics are now nothing more than sexual syllabics
hissing and slurring over strip club beats
that the machines contrive
and when you ask where is the love
where is the intelligence
where has thought itself gone
you find yourself on the list,
the red, white and blue dudebro-flavored fatwa,
this is stage one of the very end of it all
we have arrived at the upside-down place
this is page one of the Hollywood reboot of Revelations
we have arrived at the upside-down place
welcome to Sanctuary City,
where you can get a good life’s sleep

the American nightmare continues

--Rich Boucher

Bio: Rich Boucher resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Rich’s poems have appeared in Gargoyle, The Nervous Breakdown, Apeiron Review, Soft Cartel, Menacing Hedge, Cultural Weekly and Tinderbox Poetry Journal, among others, and he has work forthcoming in Street Poet Review. For more, check out richboucher.bandcamp.com. He loves his life with his love Leann.