Just do it

Hey there Nationalistic Ned!

Yeah you man,

you freedom loving sports fan.

You just go ahead and burn your 100 dollar Nikes,

yeah you just go ahead and

Just Do It.

Burn all your overpriced sneakers

in protest of Colin Kaepernick’s

million dollar endorsement

too

Just Do It.

Yeah Patriotic Peter,

you just go and burn

all your t-shirts and shorts,

your headbands

and ankle socks

covered in swooshes

too!

And while you’re at it

constituion clutching Chuck

why don’t you

just shred those Air Jordans and

flush that number 23 jersey down the toilet.

Dump those Kobe Bryant Mamba Hyperdunks

in the polluted sewers flushing out into the poisoned Pacific.

And while your at it tell your wife to

sell off all those Serena William’s Court Power dresses

to some psychopath trolling around on Craigslist.

Yeah Man!

Go ahead and

Just Do It!

Get it done with

once and for all.

You go and show your true

red, white and blue

in the face colors.

Yeah, you too #2ndAmendment Sally

go ahead

and

Just Do It

burn those synthetic swooshes into toxic ashes

and then get on with

your small minded nationalistic

clickbait lifestyles choices.

Cause the freedom that

you claim

to hold so dear and which

allows you to do just about

anything in the U.S.A.

is a freedom that

thousands of American black men

never had

a chance to feel

and never will

ever will

be able to

Just Do Anything

because they

are dead.

So yeah, you just

go ahead

and

Just Do It.

Do what you gotta do folks.

Cause Colin is doing

just what he

needs to do

too.

Go for it.

Go ahead

and

Just Do It

And when your done with it

go on down to

the Wal-Mart

and buy yourself

a new pair of

New Balance

or Reeboks

to keep polished as white

as your backass assumptions

about freedom

actually are.

© Joshua Baumgarten

Nike's support for Colin Kaepernick protest has some destroying their shoes

Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.

Students of the American Educational System

Students of the American Educational System

get up out of your chairs and walk out of your classrooms.

Stop being sitting ducks for these stuffed shirts with all the big bucks.

Walk out of your schools

and revolt

against the amendment that keeps you in its crosshairs.

For there is

No

Rational

Argument

any more.

Children of the American Educational System

you have been failed and are being taught to live in fear.

Your peers, soldiers of misfortune

your blood bought and sold like buckshot.

Why have your elected civil servants taken

No

Reasonable

Action

against these corrosive elements that

plague your playgrounds.

Teachers of the American Educational System

how long will you tolerate being bodyguards

and human shields for unformed minds.

This is not even close to being covered

in your pay scale.

Overseers of the American Educational System,

what you have done to stop all of this insanity is

as if

No

Reaction

At all

will make all the pain

go away.

© Joshua Baumgarten

Parkland students say, 'We are going to be the last mass shooting'

Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.

There ain’t no travel ban on the dance floor

The poisoned populist perspectives

the peepholes in our collective consciousness

the underdogs being denied coverage

the delusions of grandeur of the gloryhole demi-gods

and the claim that some cop in Arkansas actually saw a pig fly

but there still ain’t no travel ban on the dance floor.

Cultures being gutted by greed

the chaos of choice spread from an angry voice

blind conviction leading the redefinition

the patriot caught with his pants down

and well, hell might be freezing over

but there still ain’t no travel ban on the dance floor.

The disasterous diplomatic decision making

Mother Nature leaning back and waiting

in the end it will be the people quaking

the panic room propaganda

has got us all shaking

once in a blue moon orange faced political faking

but there still ain’t no travel ban on the dance floor.

Religion in retrogradation

the spectre salivating over a smorgasbord of imaginary salvation

humanity held in a head lock

the hindsight that will haunt us in the all

too late hours

and maybe just maybe one day the sun will rise in the west

but for now, boys and girls

there still ain’t no travel ban on the dance floor.

© Joshua Baumgarten

Elephants in the room: 7 things Trump didn't talk about

Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.

Double Trump

The New Normal

The new normal at odds with its own issues of self restraint

mouths running as if their tongues were in desperate need of a good kiss

opinions pierce into brains dumbed down into pin cushions

the bought and sold bigotry of the MLB, NFL and the NBA

just a modern day slave trade,

our leaders have lost the plot and

most artists will sell themselves out

and all of this passive aggressive sexual prowess

ain’t getting nobody properly laid.

© Joshua Baumgarten

'Shame on Trump!' World reacts to Trump's 'shithole countries' remarks

Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.

On Shitholes

A place becomes a shithole

when someone digs a hole and shits in it

Someone like you, Donald Trump,

and all the rulers and raiders

and tin-pot dictators

the speculators and devastators

the extractors and the malefactors

Shitholes, however unpleasant,

at least serve a purpose

It is better to bury your shit in them

than to let it flow in torrents

out of your mouth

every time you open it

© Janine Booth

Trump decries immigrants from 'shithole countries' coming to US

Janine Booth lives in Hackney, East London. She writes and performs poetry, and has had three slim volumes of poetry published. Janine posts poems and political polemics at www.janinebooth.com

There were dreamers once but modern medicine helped cure us of that

There is more cash to be made
with incarceration
than there is in curing

this we already know.

an infinity of illusions
laced within its anaesthesia
anaemic attempts at truly understanding

the opiate.

criminal till it crashes through
the gold plated gates
of white suburbia

wait till the sheriff’s wife gets hooked.

concern becomes crisis
when caucasian words
scramble for control

medicine cabinets and childrens carousels
replace street corners.

prescription mobilisation
zombification is one way
to debilitate the working poor

healthcare doesn’t care to cover those already hooked.

overdoses in shopping center
parking lots in leased SUV’s
and an infant suffocating in a car seat
in the mid summer heat

addiction a tragedy for any family.

and the powers that be
wanna know,
that it has escaped the cities

label this crisis,
a social disease.

© Joshua Baumgarten

Vaccines for opioid addiction nowhere close to reality, experts say

Joshua is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.

sense of it

 whirling redwhiteblue yellow communitcation
spewing smokestack open mouths
screaming justice heads on stakes
 wound up maniacal states
stampeding boulevards flame filled pothole dreams
 all you can devour cannabilistic buffet
open 24hrs.

we are
all in the becoming.

borderline patients
 madhouses revolving doors
cause effect little relevance
fingers chewed down to knuckle

the ruins

 someone today
got got
again.


Missouri teen shooting.

©Joshua Baumgarten 
Joshua is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist. 

'Beaten to death by an olive branch'

The soldiers with their mellow hats
Shading the summer sun
From faces the perfect age
To be taught to be so fierce.

If you look close enough
You can see the wrinkles
Already forming like
River tributaries of spilt blood
And anxiety
Trickling down stream
To a truly dead sea peace.

In a world where you can get
More blood from one stone
Then one would expect
And the bodies of children are piled
Like sandbags against the relentless
Tides of tanks and combat boots.
The enemy portrayed is
A double sided carnival mirror.
Twisted and contorted faces
That believe their own truths to be eternal.
Each reflection their own inhumanity
Towards the other and their own.

The victims have no say
Never have.
The warlords on both sides
Have it their way.

The peace dove lies in the dust
Behind a bombed out falafel stand,
Beaten to death by an olive branch.

Ceasefire collapses

©Joshua Baumgarten

Musket to Machine Gun

The family members never forget
We the public viewing
from a comfortable cable television distance
We tend to
over time.

For us little league games go into extra innings
Friday night services continue to be buoyant sing alongs
Trips to the mall are family nights out filled with pizza and pepsi
Strolls down main street are slow and steady, secure.
Though shadows now seem to linger longer and longer
as if we were all being followed by ghosts.

And over time
Front page news ink bleeds as the headlines become faded.
Cotton in the ears of the old grey and newbie politicos
deafens them to all the anguished cries.
Soundbites like shark bites leave gouged out holes in
Our deepest moral codes.

The bodies the graves the unwarranted dead
Americans executing Americans
a birth right of violence.
Our mountain of murder beginning to
pile higher than the standards
We hold the rest of the world up to.

Sympathies to all those who survived and are left to forever rewind.

A moment of silence has become
Way too short a life span to
Even begin to contemplate
This musket to machine gun catastrophe.

But eventually
we all
must.
Oregon shooting
© Joshua Baumgarten

This Belief

This belief that lies upon my skin like a winter sun burn kiss.


My consciousness
an idealist seeking beacon
searches through an overcast evening.
I curse the cloud cover and
street lights
that hide the the mystery of
the Northern Lights,
 
as I look for the illumination of reason
and the majesty of chance
amongst conflict shadows
and my continuous disbelief
dancing dying starlight
across the Aurora Borealis
of my brain.

I take a series of deep breathes,
Like rescue divers
Recovering drowned tourists
From the bottom of the Italian coastline.
Khaki wearing passengers
who bought last minute tickets
and ended up
on the wrong all inclusive cruise.
Unbeknownst to them that it
was going to be their last trip
to the all you can eat buffet.

While in Syrian side streets
Children collect bullet casings
In between democracy classes
As fathers clash draped in flags
And mothers cry inside
burning hot burkas
And tanning salons in Castricum, Chicago, and Cardiff
Are having half price winter sales.

Meanwhile in a
small town suburban Dutch market,
skeletons from a forgotten graveyard
are uncovered where
city council voted upon and approved
underground garbage containers
were to have been placed
to help promote recycling.

While an ocean away
God hovers over
southern Florida
wondering what sort of blunder
his clinging conservative followers
will make next.
Cause we shouldn't be
surprised when a guy named Newt
turns out be another self serving
christian political chameleon
in sheep's clothing.

And tomorrow I will awake and
Senegal will still be clamped down
under a dictators gold tooth
and Youssou N'Dour won't be singing
and I won't be too shocked by the report of
another stabbing
outside of a  bar in Amsterdam, New York
or London
after all the weekend warriors
have settled their bar tabs
been set loose and sent home.

While I sit here at 2:30 in the morning
Djing in a hard rock cafe in
Haarlemtown Holland,
spinning what freedom has given me
and pondering if the next track will
finally get these fuckers dancing.

© Joshua Baumgarten

Romney and Gingrich attacks get personal ahead of Florida vote

Senegal Elections: President Cleared To Run For 3rd Term, Pop Star Not On Ballot

17th body removed from cruise shipwreck

Editor's note: This poem covers several issues and, although it was submitted last week, it is a fine example of a poet finding inspiration in the different aspects of the news.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist. 

Spoiled Sport

Riots Rage at the Kick of Pig Skin

the space between
middle eastern goal posts
is combustible
flames rise higher then
religions reach
Allah ashamed
turns off the television
as the pitch is torn to shreds
and the supporters revel in chaos
the final tally of this competition
regardless of the score
left injured or dead
will always be
a draw.

© Joshua Baumgarten

Egyptian health ministry: 74 dead, hundreds injured in soccer riots
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.



Egypt

freedom reigned in the Arab Spring,
as the government fell,
no news from Egypt,
the revolution quietly advances,
until riots and deaths at a soccer match,
the europeanizing of Egypt  almost complete.

© Douglas Polk

Egypt mourns soccer riot victims; thousands march in Cairo
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Douglas is a poet from Nebraska. He has published three books of poetry; In My Defense, The Defense Rests, and On Appeal.

Oh, Iowa

Oh Iowa,
I shed a tear for you.

How do you tolerate all the
men in collared shirts and sweater vests,
polished SUV’s and perfectly combed hair
clogging the streets of Mason and Sioux City
with CNN fatty acid news feeds of politicians
spewing cholesterol filled slogans,
slinging hollowed out hot dog promises?

Oh Iowa,
you are the
artery choked heartland of a country in coronary arrest.
Your commonplace street corners over run by
wide eyed crusaders calling out for your right wing conservative votes.
Proclaiming the need to put God back in the White House and every other house
schoolgunstoreshoppingmallgasstationrehablibrary
weightlossprogramfootballstadiumboyscouttroop,
where men and women with perfect sparkling white teeth proclaim that belief belongs.

Oh Iowa,
bologna on white bread miracle whip
ancestors of Anglo Saxon immigrants
home to the Amish, the Quakers, the Mennonites
the German Pietists and Transcendental Meditationists.
In the name of Slipknot we call out to you,
death metal citizens of Davenport, Sioux City and Waterloo.

Oh Iowa,
Des Moines, safe and sanctity
capital city
overrun and pillaged by spin doctors
spitting out false prescriptions for healthcare,
painted faced politicians
fevered and frothing with sound bites
reporters roaming rabid dog expectations
swing votes like small prey
making them anxious
heating their loins.

Oh Iowa,
how do you handle it with such poise
When the devils come dancing down the corn rows?

© Joshua Baumgarten

Transcript of CNN preview coverage        
Romney narrowly wins Iowa race
-------------------------------------------------------------
Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.

Thanks Irene

Irene you stole the thunder of our grand entrance
And made sure the spotlight was on you
For the first dance
Thanks Irene,
Because of you there will be no Motzi from Uncle Murray
No toast from the best man who was finally going to admit
to my mother, that he is to blame
for the “wrong” turn my life took
Oh so many phases ago.

Thanks Irene,
Because of you there is three quarters of a wedding cake
Sitting on my mothers kitchen counter
Headed for the garbage bin.
My father hording a salvaged platter of chilled shrimp, crab legs and crudite’
For himself, with a plastic cocktail fork keeping us all at bay.

Thanks to you Irene,
There will be no vodka bar, slice meat station, regional wine tasting
Or cheese’s from diverse European nations nibbled upon.
No pigs in blankets, hamburger sliders,
fried calamari in tempura batter or
caprese salad on a skewer.
No cocktail hour small talk
No family secrets whispered over high end whiskey
No past grudges quietly toasted and forgotten.

Thanks Irene,
You imposing blustery bitch,
Because of you the Hora will not be danced
And the ice cream bar will not be scooped.

Thanks Irene,
For not only raining on our wedding day
But for flooding the neighborhood
Causing the bridges and tunnels to be closed
And twisting the power lines into Bavarian pretzels.

Thanks Irene,
The ultimate uninvited guest
Not only did you crash my wedding day
You could have at least given us a gift.

© Joshua Baumgarten

New York recovers as Irene passes
Editor's note: Joshua writes from New York, "Here with my wife to celebrate our marriage with the American side of my family.  Due to Irene it never happened.  The big party was cancelled due to the storm.  Which luckily for us, the hype was worse then her bite."
------------------------------------------
Joshua is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.

We will all meet as one, when the word can eventually overpower the gun

Why is it that I only hear
About the great men amongst us
upon the day
of their slaughter.

Beings who actually
Seemed to understand what it meant
To be
God damned human.

To talk about them
In the past tense
Is pain enough
I don’t need metaphor.

I am angry today
Because murder has stolen
From our mist another
Diamond soul.

Our world seems to spin
On an axis of pain

Some, try to see further
Than the circumference
beyond the difference
of our scattered ways

why are they repeatedly stolen from the world

add another name to list

Facundo Cabral
Juliano Mer Khamis
John Lennon
Martin Luther King
Ghandi

A list that seems to stretch back
to the beginning
of time
a list that reaches out towards tomorrow
As if death needs the angels for his own arsenal

The streets of Argentina tear
For the troubadour who
Sang for the soul
and is now
abruptly still.

The tongue can be silenced
But the song can not
Be murdered.

Today I also feel as if
I’m not from here of there
Or from anywhere.

© Joshua Baumgarten

Final farewell for Argentine folk singer Cabral
--------------------------------------------------------
Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.
He says: "Sometimes it is hard to get ones head around the large scale and it is only when it is broken down to the one, the individual do we or at least I feel pulsed. So was it when I heard about the murder of Facundo Cabral. Someone I had never heard of before, but after researching the life of the man and listening the songs and the laughter and cheer from the audience, I realized once again the world has devoured another..."saintly" soul. With no religious overtones."

The show must go on even as the ghetto rages in flame

A cold blooded murder
in the heated sand strewn streets of Jenin.
An execution
in front of the affirming doors
of the Freedom Theater.

God was a blind eyed nonpaying
Member of the audience that day,
Seemingly a critic of his own creation,
It was said that he left after the first and only act.
Which portrayed the slaying of a proud man
who had breathed
and now bled,
struggling through a divided life
with only one want
one artistic vision
to produce peace
upon a ghetto stage.

By pursuing freedom,
through
the release of creation,
the liberation of performance
the safety and sanity of the theater
as a relief from the chaos
and out of control insanity
of the daily drama portrayed beyond
the theater doors.

read more here...

© Joshua Baumgarten
Actor Juliano Mer-Khamis gunned down in Jenin
-----------------------------------------------------------

Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.

Gaddafi, Scrambled Eggs and Capital Gains

Ghosts of past plagues
Swarm between the words
Of printed paragraphs
Portraying pariahs in military boots.
Soles imprinted
Into cracked foreheads and
blood stained soil
Front page black and white
By morning halogen overhead
Lamp light.

Rise, fire drenched slogans
Burn in the shadows
Of oil field infernos!
March down streets pock marked
And scarred
the face of a nation
Scathed and battered at dawn,
Awaken.

On the television screen
Another dictator’s eyes
Attempt to glow omnipotent
Covering up an exasperated impotence
the morning news rattles on
the weatherman shares his forecast
a chance of democracy
with partial clouds
and intermittent showers of bombs.

Protestors take to the streets
A revolutionary sunrise
While western nations scramble eggs
And wonder about capital gains.
Imported coffee brews in the pot
Steam rises and escapes,
while yet another nation swipes
the butter knife blade
back and forth
across the aching neck of another
slice of toasted regime.

© Joshua Baumgarten

Libya: Allied air strikes secure Misrata for rebels
-----------------------------------------------------------
Joshua Baumgarten is an ex-pat New Yorker living in Holland. He organises the Irrational Library evenings - nights of poetry, rock n roll and casual chaos, and performs as a Standup Spoken Word artist.