The Day After Pee Wee Herman Died 

Trump was indicted in Washington D.C.
The day after Pee Wee Herman died

Two shots of Tequila
One for Pee wee
The other for this political moment

Can I dance on my toes like I meant to do that?

Just mesmerized by the coverage.

I’m having Nixon flashbacks

The  inner child in me
That only understood Watergate as an emotional pastiche
Is being introduced to the grown man following the  coverage of this event
On multiple computer screens
Like a super villain

The paradox that returning citizens can’t vote
After paying their debt to society
But, Trump can run for President with pending charges
In multiple jurisdictions
And pay for his lawyers
With $40,000,000 from his political action committee

The argument that there are two tiers of Justice in America
One for him and one against him

And the promise that he will kill American democracy
Like the cancer that consumed Paul Reubens.

Can we ever be vindicated of he who claims to be
Retribution Vengeance and Vindication itself?

The man who Tweeted from D.C. Playhouse
With a host of loonies as his supporting cast
Who tried to steal Democracy in broad daylight
Broadcast from the mountains
To the Prairies
To the oceans white with foam

Until Democracy became a McGuffin
In Mango Mussolini’s quest for personal
And dynastic power
Featuring Jarad “I want to be a real boy” Kushner
And Ivanka “Why does daddy stare at me” Trump

While his enablers just stared like Pee Wee Herman
In the middle row of an adult movie theater
As American Democracy was transformed
Into MAGA Pornography

Jack Smith come as Justice vindicator of democracy
Ready to engage all conspirators and co-conspirators
All of these miscreants are under One Law
Strike
Stay your hand no longer

You are only striking corpses.

The Chaos of Germinating Seeds

Sometimes dreaming is so exhausting that you have to wake up

Punarmṛtyu — dying again

Punarjanma — and again being born

This guest house of opening and closing one’s eyes
Is like the  opening and closing of a banned book that must be read and digested

cover to cover

To get at the mental nutrition between its covers,

Milk does not come from bottles
It comes from the stars

Nor does butter come from waxen sanitary coverings

Samurdra Manthan — churn the cosmic ocean of milk

and remember: all that is  golden comes from super novas.

Love is neither easy nor natural
It requires work like the churning of milk to separate butter

Or, churning the cosmos to produce this moment.

And speaking of unconditional love
Is like dreaming of churning butter
Without knowing how to actually milk a cow.

Love is the sun darkened necks and chapped hands of farmers

The Forgotten

In our silicon chip facilitated frictionless virtual and virtueless worlds

Where lies can grow faster than the best genetically modified food grains

The chaos of germinating seeds

The arhythmic bursting of husks

Rice shaken and thrown into the air and the breeze takes the chaff

I’m not singing about Shamballha
I sing of America

Wisconsin corn

Arkansas Rice

Kansas wheat

We fly over these states without even saying a thank you

Or saying our grace

O, Embodiments of Sandburg-ian songs
O, Golden husk covered food grains that if thrashed could feed all of our tomorrows

Let me take you into my body so that I can be
Strong enough to both plant
And harvest you

To be strong enough to help America live up
To all of its broken promises.

Hidden beneath the rotted roses and wreaths of heroes
Men and women who have offered their lives for a dream

Democracy slumbers waiting to be reawakened, rediscovered

And reborn.

It is a field in which an enemy has sewn weeds

Do we have the Nazarene grace to separate the weeds from the tares?

Upāya— the skillful means

Can we grow ever larger to include

Martin’s Dream

Gandhi’s Dream

Malcolm’s dream

Baldwin’s dreams

Nina Simone’s Dream

Zora Neale Hurston’s Dream

Maya Angelou’s Dream

Toni Morrison’s Dream

And every other thinker on a list of banned books

In spite of the

Old time American revival tours

Militant generals using Jesus as a weapon

Churches used as MAGA gun emplacements

And the politicians who take our heroes and she-roes names in vain
But won’t allow us to study about them in our schools

Let me be hot pepper and lemon juice squeezed into our culture’s soured milk
And salvage what seems to have gone wrong
With the grace of a mother making yogurt and curds

All milk products aren’t sweet
And all sweet things aren’t good for you

Let the sour, the spicy, and the bitter all abide together
To form something new and unexpected.

Another poem like this?
And another one?
and another one?

This Groundhog’s day contemplation
Let me work Until I get it right.

I salute the epic, dramatic, and inevitable round of this lifetime
And humankind’s role within it

Maybe we will finally learn compassion
By killing enough curlews blithely flying while melodiously singing

Murdering enough deer in the midst of amorous love sport

Bombing enough children in Ukrainian apartment complexes

Shooting enough people when they least expect it

And killing enough young men in our streets under the color of law

The proof of our living as sages would be the simple ability for us to live well together while still disagreeing.

We won’t see anything new;
We’ll only recognize the promises we have made to ourselves

And broken so many times

Samsara is Nirvāṇa
and Nirvāṇa is Samsara
Worlds woven together

Turn the wheel once twice then thrice
We are a part of this world
and not apart from it

And Democracy will appear on the earth

When it is no longer needed.

(By Heidi Lindemann and Michael Perry)

(Image Credit 1: Sheila Machlis Alexander / Smithsonian Museum) (Image Credit 2: Smithsonian Museum)