Emergency Reassessments (When Bigots Fall Out)

‘I could do the wall over a longer period of time.

I didn’t need to do this.’ 
– Donald Trump to press, 15 February 2019.

‘Look, the only national emergency 

is that our president is an idiot.’

– Ann Coulter on KABC talk radio, 15 February 2019.

Inside twenty minutes 

of declaring a national emergency

over the imaginary crisis at the southern border

just so he can build his stupid wall,

President Trump in the Rose Garden

mentions in passing to the assembled press

that it’s not actually an emergency.

Oops. All over the USA,

Nazis are swopping their straight-arm salutes

for face-palms, and even Ann Coulter remarks 

that he is an idiot.

It’s all a horrible shock

for poor, Trump-trusting Ann,

so I guess she and I see things differently.

For me, given that Trump

is a vile, bigoted,

self-aggrandizing, mean-spirited,

grudgeful, thuggish, 

lying, mercenary,

grasping, groping con-man

(and all the rest that goes with

being an unprincipled narcissist

to the Nth delusional degree),

I’ve always thought that his idiocy 

is probably his best feature.

© David Bateman

'Our President Is An Idiot’: Trump Facing Both Sides Over Emergency Declaration

David had his most recent book, Shtum: The Stutter Poems published by Iron Press, 2016. It’s available from Iron Press, Amazon and elsewhere. ‘punchy poems... told with wit and invention’ – The Crack Magazine.

Peaches

‘...everything’s peachy-dory...’ – Donald Trump, 10 January 2019.

‘...vote for money for the wall, the barrier, whatever you want to call it... They can name it whatever; they can name it peaches.’ – Donald Trump, 11 January 2019.

Donald Trump wants something

– a big, tall something – 

to stop brown people

from getting in.

Call it a wall,

call it a barrier,

call it a fence.

Call it peaches.

Then he can make America

all gleaming white again:

as white as the skin

of the mighty White House.

Call it hunky-dory,

call it hunky-peachy,

call it peachy-dory.

Call it peaches.

But just now there’s something

on soft footsteps approaching

along the empty corridors

towards the Oval Office.

Call it a subpoena,

call it an indictment,

call it an impeachment.

Call it peaches.

© David Bateman

New subpoena signals Trump’s legal woes will outlast Mueller

David Bateman had his most recent book, Shtum: The Stutter Poems published by Iron Press, 2016. It’s available from Iron Press, Amazon and elsewhere. ‘punchy poems... told with wit and invention’ – The Crack Magazine.

Trumpageddon (Paradise In Germophobia)

Trumpageddon (Paradise In Germophobia)

In all the forests

they will rake away the leaf-litter,

and take it away for hygienic disposal.

All signs of insects

and smaller or larger life

will be cleansed

by petrochemical fumigation

and the remains burnt away

till the face of the Earth

is at last sterile.

© David Bateman

Trump orders end to disaster relief for California unless they get out and rake the leaves in their forests

Seventeen Lawyers

Seventeen Lawyers

Seventeen lawyers

and Trump still wants a wall,

seventeen lawyers

and Trump still wants a wall,

and if one bent lawyer

should flip and seek a plea-deal,

there’ll be sixteen lawyers

and Trump still wants a wall.

To be continued.

© David Bateman

Trump hires 17 lawyers to protect him from Mueller investigation, while federal workers go unpaid during shutdown

That Which Is Caesar’s

In his rallies

he leads chants to jail his enemies.

Nobody ever told him

to treat others

as he would be treated.

Beside the road to power

the bodies are buried.

He treated others

in just exactly whatever way

he thought he’d get away with.

And now he appoints

his thuggish lieutenants

to their places of power.

He says everything before him

was broken.

He says he is making everything great

like never before.

He has made a trail of crime

like seldom before.

The bodies beside the road

now point their skeletal fingers.

One by one

the thuggish lieutenants

are used up.

Even senators are whispering.

And now the oval walls

of his bunker seem

to close in like deadly conspirators

to crush his greatness,

but really it’s the law.

And, after due process,

everyone can see what’s coming,

except for the biggest thug of all.

Alas, my country

does not deserve me!

A nation of traitors!

He tweets and he bawls.

And they render unto Caesar

that which is Caesar’s.

© David Bateman

SE Cupp: ‘The walls are closing in on Trump’

David Bateman had his most recent book, Shtum: The Stutter Poems published by Iron Press, 2016. It's available from Iron Press, Amazon and elsewhere. ‘punchy poems... told with wit and invention’ – The Crack Magazine.

Upended in America

All Sales are Finally

Bannon cannons

to the dollar store

no Muslims at his counter

another stool lost a leg

to the Book of Kelly’s

illuminations

new White House Gospel

tied in decorative knots

of no more open house

no more divided mouths

no more lily white sails

in the fertile garden

of golden opportunity

c’mon

the sign’s in the cloud

the open gate

colors are rich

in our United States.

© Lavinia Kumar

Trump gets rid of Stephen Bannon, a top proponent of his nationalist agenda

Lavinia Kumar’s new poetry book, The Celtic Fisherman’s Wife: A Druid Life, is on Amazon (US & UK). Her website is laviniakumar.org.



Beautiful Walls And Statues

President Trump
tells me he is sad at the loss
of beautiful statues,
even though they are statues of people
who fought for slavery.

I remember too
how happy he was with his plan
for a beautiful wall,
a beautiful wall between the people
of next-door nations.

President Trump
is sad now, and just a little angry
there isn’t more beauty
with which to dazzle the people,
the people he so loves.

© David Bateman

Trump defends 'beautiful' Civil War statues

David Bateman’s most recent book, Shtum: The Stutter Poems (Iron Press, 2016), is available from Iron Press, Amazon and elsewhere. ‘punchy poems... told with wit and invention’ – The Crack Magazine.

The Gone-Green Gangrene Obscene Bluey Green Blues

There once was a time when I didn’t care
That when I drove my car, it polluted the air
But now I’ve invested in an ethical share
I’m a catalytic convert & I’m eco-aware
I’ve got a sticker there
Stuck square on the screen
So that everybody knows
That I’ve gone green

I’ve got the gone-green gangrene obscene bluey green blues
      (Seen whose got those green blues)
So I can ditch my rich kid image whenever I choose
      (Been there, bought those, what’s news?)
& I put on my green make-up, & I put on my green shoes
      (Well, green wellies, actually)

You Save The Whale; I’ll go one better
Gonna campaign to Make The Rain Forest Wetter
Look, I already spent eighty quid on the sweater
& I write to my MP – Well, I sent one letter
I’m a real go-getter
You’ve seen I am
I’ve got badges on my badges
Saying just how green I am

I’ve got the gone-green gangrene obscene bluey green blues
      (Seen whose got those green blues)
I exude my eco-friendliness just like a gluey green ooze
      (Seen that green slime? That’s mine)
Emerald’s my birthstone, & crème de menthe’s my booze
      (I drink two pints
      Then I recycle it)

I’m an ozone clone full of greenhouse gas
& I can’t tell my belly from a bio-mass
But at least seeming green makes me seem less crass
As I drive to the corner to recycle my glass
I’m as green as the grass
I’ve heard the call
Ten green bottles
& I banked them all

I’ve got the gone-green gangrene obscene bluey green blues
      (Seen whose got those green blues)
So keen on green that I need to be seen in the news
      (I’m so sincere, I cry green tears)
Green forever’s my endeavour, till I find some other cuter line to use
      (Been there
      Bought shares
      Done that
      Sold out)

© David Bateman

George Osborne and the Treasury attacked for hostility to green policies
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David was Liverpool Poetry Slam Champion 2007, and still hasn’t got over it. His one proper book is Curse Of The Killer Hedge (Iron 1996). He also writes stories and teaches some creative writing.

A New Universe In The Basement

“It looks like it would probably work. It’s actually
safe to create a universe in your basement.”
– Alan Guth, physicist

As long as the weekly washing is done,
they never wonder for even a moment
about my secret science...
so upstairs the washing machine rumbles
and the television talks to itself
of ordinary Saturday lunchtime worlds
while down here, I do bigger things.
Amongst the clutter of basement apparatus
I make tiny adjustments,
stare deep into the heart of a small glass jar,
then flick the final, vital switch.

A small flash flashes, leaves a single dark spot
in the centre of my vision –
and then otherwise, all is as it was before.

Not quite.

For the fleetingest of moments, I have pulled the huge forces
from beyond our own small universe
into my little jar – a crashing together of things
from the eleventh dimension, never more
than a millimetre away – created
a new universe: tiny in the instant of its making,
but growing at the speed of light,
flipping out of our own universe in that same instant
to become itself.

What galaxies, stars and planets may grow there?
What worlds and lands and creatures?
Will they worry about work and school on Monday?
Will custard-shaped somethings
fall in love and live forever?

I write my careful notes,
then return upstairs to the washing machine.
Somewhere another universe makes its new beginning.
In this one, I check that the clothes are clean.

© David Bateman

Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
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David was Liverpool Poetry Slam Champion 2007, and still hasn’t got over it. His one proper book is Curse Of The Killer Hedge (Iron 1996). He also writes stories and teaches some creative writing.

We Are Sorry (But...)

“Police chiefs fear the lack of loo breaks is
behind complaints from members of the public
of ‘incivility, impoliteness and intolerance’.”

We are sorry – Mail Online, 20th July 2011

We are sorry about the incivility
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about the impoliteness
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about the intolerance
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about the baton charge
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about going a bit mad
in that beanfield in Wiltshire that time
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about Jean Charles de Menezes
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about Sharpeville
but we were dying to go to the toilet.

We are sorry about Dachau
but we were all really, really
dying to go to the toilet.


© David Bateman

Riot police demand toilet breaks 'to stop them from wetting themselves'
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David was Liverpool Poetry Slam Champion 2007, and still hasn’t got over it. His one proper book is Curse Of The Killer Hedge (Iron 1996). He also writes stories and teaches some creative writing.