Notional Security

Newer brainwashing commenceS

Outrage faked still bursts through fences. WE

Tend to still be fooled, you C

Influenced, we tend to B. YoU

Overcome? We tend to sigh, oR

Nestle selves on the lanaI

Acronyms DOGE and LSMFT

Linger in the mind so timelesslY

..

The battle for hearts and minds has gone both nuclear and digital. The Notions I mention in this double acrostic, DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) and LSMFT (Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco) seem poisonous to me. A Department that leads to the end of the Voice of America, which promoted Liberty American Style, and USAID, which fought valiantly against world hunger and disease, has inefficiently cost much more than it purported to save. As for Lucky Strike meaning Fine Tobacco, the shortening of lives via lung cancer, COPD and emphysema seems far too agonizing and ugly to be fine.

You’d think we’d be more savvy after more than a century of an advertising industry based on smoke-and-mirrors deception. Alas, the Lizard portion of our brains never wises up.

My Sweetheart Donna Sue has a box of square scrap paper which I have lately found useful for doing acrostic poetry roughs. Today I did three, “Goal Post” successful enough to compel me to add a thumbnail illustration.

Goal Post

GRASP ye Soul and ye shall reaP

O for yodels oleO

As it snows so winter creepS

Leave ’em Loved. Á bientôT

..

I like the spareness/economy of “Goal Post” that nonetheless includes (with necessarily enormous gaps) an entire life cycle, even to an optimistic “see you later.”

Here are the other two, which were OK as exercises but less worthy as showpieces.

..

Deeper & Deeper

Deployed & then exploiteD

Entangled & ne’er to be freE

Erased & forgot save by ToynbeE

Prepared & embalmed while asleeP

Exacting & final, his starE

Remorseless & in situ & faiR

..

Service Surface

Seasons change. Bring on the showerS

Enter fall and maybe flU

River ruined: effluent souR

Vile a’purpose is no gooF

It’s corruption run amok–A

Con concocted here ad hoC

Ethics elsewhere–pad the LockE

in the dark is when something dire is happening

and it is being kept from you

..

in the darker is when you think it’s happening

and you dodge the certain knowledge you may get

..

in the darkest is here and now

it has never been as dark as now

and doom is all but certain

but for you and what you do

..

so pull

pull yourself first

out of the darkest

by knowing more about the darkness

up from the darker to the merely dark

and then out of the dark and into revelatory light

to find

YOU don’t want to be complicit in war crimes

YOU don’t want to be an agent of injustice

YOU can do a lot better than nothing

when it comes to easing misery

and taking a stand against hatred

and making mincemeat of the monsters of greed

..

you have a voice

you have a heart

and you know better than any other

what YOUR next step must be

so there you are

and someone is watching you: YOU

so, hey, make history

and glow

with your darkness-dispelling accomplishments

alef hant

africa

lantana

eastern

forest

..

Notes

Alef: First letter, or, metaphorically, primal. Leader.

Hant: Variant on “Haunt,” used as noun or verb.

Africa: Where non-Asian elephants come from.

Lantana: Tip of the cap to Blaise Lantana, musical director of KJZZ for many years. I left Phoenix but will never forget her due to my elephant’s memory.

Eastern: An airline, a direction, a hemisphere.

Forest: A section of flora that may contain one or more elephants.

This poem reduces the double-acrostic form to its most rudimentary. It also horribly defaces an elephant’s forehead, adding to the crimes of “humanity” against beasts. Such crimes are beyond number.

It all started when I wanted to draw am elephant today.

Photo courtesy of WordPress Free Photo Library

Chastise Complain Confront

CacophoniC story arC

Hiss and boO and make a mark. O

Anatomic Mocking’s fuN

Slapstick Pleases everyone. IF

Taunting Leaves a nasty scaR

It’s coarse for Adolescent par. O

Save us from Indignant shuN

Engage iNstead in kick pass punT

..

Since 2007 I have made acrostic poetry my own private playground, but it isn’t all fun and games. At times it’s a lot like trying to sculpt with a sledgehammer, with a shoehorn for a chisel. I have written a handful of these with exact rhyme and meter and (using Excel spreadsheet software) exact number of characters per line. Those were at best stilted and at worst excruciatingly bad as far as cohorence of content went.

My megalomanic goal is to become the best acrostic poet of all time. In furtherance of that goal I periodically create acrostic puzzles of great difficulty and then try to solve them. This time I took three theme-related eight-letter words starting with a C and searched for the trochaic-tetrameter lines that would as nearly possibly rhyme in couplets. To make it work I had to start the next line on the previous line.

I flatter myself to think that thousands of exercises like these have made me a hell of a poet, in a novelty-item sort of way. If not–well, it passes the time, and it’s better than Solitaire.

L O’D

Lounging with a bottle O’

All the while by scrolling own’D

When the pundit truths us sO

Roping thieves with covers blowN

Each indictment fires a kilN

Nightmare text engraves the stelE

Commentary leaves a chilL

Ends denial–makes things reaL

..

Lawrence O’Donnell has fought an heroic battle against high crimes and misdemeanors in high office. The sheer depth of ignorance and corruption makes it seem as though he is a Don Quixote who cannot win; still, his majestic perseverance has built a record that historians of the future will no doubt regard as a strong voice of Reason in a time of madness. I salute him and I hope he wins.

Photo by Donna Atkins

Here is my latest drawing. It is not finished, but the unfinished nature of the drawing may make this stage of completion superior to what would follow. I’ve dated it “October 2026” just in case I work on it some more; but after October 31st, nothing further.

Photo courtesy of WordPress Free Photo Library

boys will be thugs

boys will be rapists

boys will be thugs

boys are rewarded

with wristslaps & hugs

..

boys will go on

to be coaches & screeners

felons who plead out

to slight misdemeanors

..

boys are a shame

to our spiraling nation

let’s vote for women

and quell the predation

..

Historical note: Two years ago seven fraternity brothers from the Ivy-league elitist institution Cornell University gang-raped a young woman under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Despite damning evidence, a sizable contingent is coming to the rapists’ defense, including the President of the United States, who hopes they “get a fair shake.”

here lies a man in an inn’s queen-size bed

he isn’t quite naked and isn’t quite dead

he’s beat to the bone from a ten-hour drive

he’s thankful and lucky to still be alive

..

accidents happen in autos and pants

sometimes one leads to another by chance

but first was a near-miss and now is a quandary

where in the heck in this burg is the laundary??

(freely adapted from actual events)