Tag Archives: Trump

Perspectives

By lytspeed Posted in Original Poetry, Poetry Leave a reply

(This poem was inspired by a post on Drew Myron’s website.)

Perspectives

I am from a southwest past
from mountains and trailer parks,
from cactus and chiles and columbines
from sagebrush and snow and shame and guilt

I am from a frightening present
from Trump and chaos
from Putin and Assad and Kim Jong Il
from walls and racism and leaks and fear

I am from a bygone future
from Bradbury and Heinlein
from BASIC and DOS and Lotus 1-2-3
from Kirk and Solo and Reynolds and Sheridan

I am from a simpler time
from Skinny Minnie and Lyledy Dyledy
from Judy and Bruce and Tuffweetie
from Ralph Edwards and Dick Van Dyke and NBC and CBS

— Stace Johnson, 2017

February Word Challenge, Day 25

By lytspeed Posted in February Word Challenge, Prompts Leave a reply

(If you’re wondering what this is about, read this.)

My five random words for today’s exercise are rose, shopping, high jump, mistake, waltz.

Chosen word for free association: waltz
3/4 or 6/8, dance, twirl, rise and fall, frame, The Band, Walt’s, walltz

Exercise:
“We’re going to make a waltz, the biggest waltz you’ve ever seen. All the finest waltzers will be there. That old guy on Dancing with the Stars? He’ll be there. He doesn’t know it yet, but he will. And we’ll make the orchestra pay for it. We’ll make ’em pay. Look how they dress, and at all those instruments. They can afford it. Don’t believe the fake news about them; they have money pouring in. This waltz is going to make all the other waltzes look tiny. It’s going to be huge!”

February Word Challenge, Day 8

By lytspeed Posted in February Word Challenge, Prompts Leave a reply

(If you’re wondering what this is about, read this.)

My five random words for today’s exercise are toast, giant, cliff, caper, senator.

Chosen word for free association: cliff
fiscal, sheer, wall, tall, fall, winter is coming

Exercise:
It seems to me that something shifted in 2016. I posted on Facebook in June that it felt like the world was at a tipping point, and that the security of everyday men and women around the world was rattled. It certainly was a strange year, with Brexit and Trump and numerous celebrity deaths flooding the series of tubes that is the internet.

When I wrote that post in June, I think I may have been feeling the looming Zeitgeist; if I had to identify exactly where the tip happened, I would probably have to say it took place on election night. That night, it felt like the world closed itself up, like a roly poly bug, individual nations and people retreating behind their armor and walls, even as talk of even bigger walls burned up the ‘net.

In June, I wrote that if there was ever a time for us to exercise compassion, it is now. I still firmly believe that is the way through our current global debacle.

February Word Challenge, Day 5

By lytspeed Posted in February Word Challenge, Prompts Leave a reply

(If you’re wondering what this is about, read this.)

My five random words for today’s exercise are composer, coronation, prank, brooch, fax.

Chosen word for free association: fax
alternative, archaic

Exercise:
Watchdogs have figured out how the new Trump administration is circumventing White House cell phone security rules. Conway says they are using “alternative fax.”

(I’m tweeting that one separately, I think.)