Yes, that’s the title for my new and growing collection of “political” poems.  Here’s where the title comes from:  Sam Sifton, a NYTimes restaurant critic wrote ” . . . an America we all wish we lived in, where the pigs are fat and healthy instead of lean and terrifying, and yams taste of the earth and the sky, not marshmallows and despair.”  The newest arriveal is below.  In the meantime, if you like what you read here on oz.com, contribute to our operating costs.  And thank you.

OPENING DAY

Beaner strikes Pelota

with a big wooden gavel

bigger than his head

So it appeared

in color                  above the fold

Yep!                   the girl’s vice principal is dead

the boy’s v.p. is tougher

tougher on everything

it’s the military-ecclesiastical complex

Jack Webb in “The D. I.”                  boy!

I wanted to kill him                           how

could he talk to human beings like that?

Happens all the time

in the military-ecclesiastical complex

Everybody’s an Authority Figure

back                  down                  over                  there in DC

a Critical Mass

of Authority

a

military-ecclesiastical Mass

1/5/11

Some of you may have heard an earlier, notebook draft of this poem a few days ago.  This is the final version.

HOME IN AMERICA, NOVEMBER 2010

Goodbye, America

home of the muscle car

home of the gun

Goodbye, America

home to dismemberment:

see Saw 3D and Postal 2 too

Home of the full-body scan

yet home to secret money

that buys the faithful’s fears

America, bigots ran you for years

the once-upon-a-time Princes

got born, shot and died

The Colonels and Pop-Stars

tried to run you

but the Gun-Makers won

So the Spies ran you for the Billionaires

and by (Iowa) golly!  Billionaires let

the Nobodies take over

So Nobody runs you now

and the muscle-car Nation

blows a valve

Dismembers the drive-shaft

flattens the tires, closes the schools

goes postal with prisons

Drives home on the rims

has a drink

and sits in the car til we’re dead

We being America, goodbye

OK, here it is!  The last blast from the Right for this year!

BUZZCUT FOR SENATE

MFX: HALLS OF MONTEZUMA

GARY:     This is Gary Buzzcut, Tea Party candidate for Senator.  Between my well–paid clandestine missions, people, some of them probably Russian spies, ask me, why should I vote for a former CIA op?  Here’s why – because I’m a trained, professional American asshole.  I get off on danger, violence and covert action.  I’ve paid off warlords and defused roadside bombs. I’ve told ‘em we should execute the Guantamano guys, and I know from personal experience that torture works very, very well. I had Bin Laden trapped in his cave but the General wouldn’t send in the Rangers, the shit–bag!  So if you want a blunt, confrontational, aggressive commando with an addiction to adrenaline down in Washington, get out the vote for me, Gary Buzzcut – I’m no cartoon hero – and I’ve got nothing to lose. This is Gary Buzzcut, and I’ve KO–ed this Mission.

PA:     Paid for by the Committee for a Compassion–Free America.

Hear this one on RFO Monday!  Thanks for the cool comments.  More NewsPoems real soon.

BANANA REPUBLICANS

Paul Krugman says          Op Ed     the Times  today

America’s future is

Banana Republic               no, not the store

A nation run by Colonels like Ollie North

and the on-coming on-slaughter

of Stallone-thug wannabees so secretly

trained to kill               one-at-a-time

in this particularly bullshit war

A compassionless state

where Wall Streeter’s houses are visible

From Outer Space

Slavery returns big-time to fatten,

kill, pick, clean

and I mean really clean in those 17 bathrooms

while farm rats bite the desperate hens

in the face

Rats and hens left alone with Darwin

To max-out some bottom line while

mercenary families

with choppers & whackers           guns & gasoline

make sure they can drive a truck

any damn place on God’s Earth

before they barbeque for Eternity in Heaven

where it’s clean

24 Sept 10

Hello, Dear Friends!  This won’t always be a poetry blog, but I thought you’d like to read the latest “news poem” I read on Oz recently.  The double-spacing makes it a little long, but you can manage that.  Oh, and “rock snot” is an invasive algae.

ROCK SNOT ELEGY

1.

rock snot travels on felt-soled boots

the long-haired man with green eyes

blew his body right in two

got it on my phone

50 dead men all around and

their blood everywhere

mingled with loose change

broken watches

bits of the “cowardly attacker”

(whichever half)

his head stuck on a fruitstand down the block

2.

rock snot keeps moving stream to stream

Southward softly

on felt-soled shoes

the over-dressed windbag with stupid hair

gets a hung jury

so goes Old Chi Town

and down South in Juarez a smear

of red, white and blue blood

thickens on the pavement

policia

loitering

and a woman keens over the body whom

we’ll never know

as the Drug War goes on smokin’

across some desert border grid where nothin’ grows

3.

rock snot

one diatomic cell at a time

takes over

Cape Cod

one day watermelons next day slime

this guy Ramzi bin al-Shibh

doesn’t look like a guy you’d trust to mow your lawn

Bugs Bunny teeth

khol-eyed, droopy lidded, stoned perhaps on

God Himself

a bad bad guy closeted in Cuba since ought-six

who

by now must know which way to face

by the arrows CIA painted on the prison floors

and surely has finished his

lessons

on how

to

apply for a job opportunity in                           Yemen?

here’s the thing

the CIA had that piece of rock snot in a prison

they built

in Morocco

kif capital of the World!

How did that happen?  If I paid taxes I’d wonder . . .

a bad bad Tom Cruiser of a purple plot

a make believe Sly’s still here muscle

man gun car prison human hero movie

all about this guy Ramzi from Old Shibh Town

who

didn’t have a chance to go down

to the local unemployment line

and part himself piously body from soul

because like Bing and Bob the CIA could ship him off

Morocco bound

4.

That’s how the rock snot moves

one long-haired green-eyed bomber at a time

one hung jury

one more body in the street

one bad bad guy

one CIA prison in Morocco at a time

one felt sole

at a time

and when you need “a break from America”

when it gets really scary around your money or your life

there’s always Abu Dhabi

and the Blackwater Princes

that’s where the rock snot dies

on the soles of

tough

leather

boots

David Ossman – from NYT 8/18-19/10