From lrobpoet at sonic.net  Mon Jul  6 05:57:50 2026
From: lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson)
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2026 05:57:50 -0700
Subject: American Nightmare - Thomas Smith
Message-ID: <1D8EFC10-0CB7-4281-BE5A-9F95487B6BE3@sonic.net>

American Nightmare

I'm in bed with America.
America is writhing and moaning in her sleep,
twisting the bed sheets around her
as if coiled in the grip of a giant boa constrictor.
America whimpers in her sleep
and turns her head to the left and to the right.
America is having a nightmare.

America is dreaming that the Inquisition
 is back with its old, unimproved tortures.
America is dreaming that the British won
 the Revolutionary War and that Franklin,
 Washington and Jefferson were hanged at Valley Forge.
America is dreaming that she must increase
 her nuclear arsenal because being able
 to destroy the world 5,000 times over isn?t enough
 if Russia can destroy the world 6,000 times over.
America is dreaming that the southern plantations
 have risen from the dust, and the whips and manacles
 the torch and the hood and the noose.
America is dreaming that water is rising
 around her house and she can?t get out
 because the EPA has boarded up the doors and windows.
America is dreaming that drinking melted polar ice
 has changed her children into Syrian refugees.
America is dreaming that her babysitter
 is a registered sex offender.
America is dreaming that her real parents
 are dead and impostor parents are forcing
 her into the family business of carnival geeking.
America is dreaming that Lincoln has just
 shot everyone in Ford?s Theater.
America is dreaming that she?s feeling faint
 after drinking the cup handed to her by Putin.
America is dreaming that she has nothing left
 to eat but the money dragged from the vaults
 after the last billionaire committed suicide.
America is dreaming that Whitman and Emerson
 have pulled up their grave plots and
 relocated them to Ontario.
America is dreaming that all the blood shed by patriots
 in her wars has congealed into a malignant tumor
 kept in a secret room in the White House.
America is dreaming that Henry Ford has
 returned from the dead to help the President
 rewrite the Constitution in 144 characters.
America is dreaming that when the Pilgrims
 go out to the woods for the first Thanksgiving
 all they can find to shoot are skeletons.
America is dreaming that the Italians and Irish
 and Poles have been sent back where they came from
 across the Atlantic in individual wooden washtubs.
America is dreaming that beneath the site of the World Trade Center
 are anti-towers deep underground where
 the real masterminds of September 11th
 are plotting a new attack.
America is dreaming that the President has hacked
 Jesus?s twitter account
 and is repealing the Sermon on the Mount.
America is dreaming that a tiny severed hand
 is creeping along the floor like a pale spider
 toward the Button.
America is dreaming that a vast stone head
 from an exploded planet?s Mount Rushmore
 is hurtling toward Indiana.
America is dreaming ? STOP!

America, can you hear me?
(I?m shaking you by the shoulders.)
I wouldn?t be in bed with you if I didn?t love you.
Spare yourself this nightmare.
It doesn?t have to be this way.
There is still time.

America, dear America, please wake up!

	- Thomas Smith
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From Lrobpoet at sonic.net  Tue Jul  7 05:21:49 2026
From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson)
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2026 05:21:49 -0700
Subject: American Dream - Max Reif
Message-ID: <48327450-BE8F-49CB-8624-4DB2658C3E4D@sonic.net>

American Dream

American Dream, 
American Nightmare
America the beautiful,
prophecy of Blake,
democratic vista of Whitman,

harbinger of a new humanity,
melting pot for Europeans,
Russians, Asians, Middle-Easterners,
Latinos, Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists,
Christians, Jews, Santaria,

Where are you bound?
You future is in your own hands,
grappling with each other 
in grim clinch,

The White Mask, inflexible?
not even white, really, 
more like ?pinko-grey?,
as Kipling said ?
firm against the Rainbow?

But is it not all One Spectrum:
under God, indivisible,
and some day with

liberty and justice
for all!

	- Max Reif
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From Lrobpoet at sonic.net  Wed Jul  8 06:31:47 2026
From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson)
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2026 06:31:47 -0700
Subject: Carrie Newcomer - Making Sense
Message-ID: <61A9F185-81A0-43AF-BD6C-121DF5A03E43@sonic.net>

Making Sense - or I pledge allegiance
 
I pledge allegiance to a drop of dew
Wobbling on a broccoli leaf,
To the silver pattern on a zucchini frond
A perfect spiral at the center of a cabbage head.
I bow my head to the licorice smell of fennel filagree,
The taste of rounded peas 
The perfect dun of barley hay.
And the tasseled promise of knee-high corn.
I namaste a row of growing beans,
To garlic scapes and turnip greens
To the sweetness of sweet potato vines
To the last red radish and first blueberry.
I lift up my face to the summer sky
The sound of larks
And the feel of dirt
To all that keeps making sense
In senseless times.

	- Carrie Newcomer
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From Lrobpoet at sonic.net  Thu Jul  9 06:00:27 2026
From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson)
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2026 06:00:27 -0700
Subject: Grass Beginning July - W.S. Merwin
Message-ID: <A046BA64-8C15-45FD-9DA1-4F1C124520EF@sonic.net>

Grass Beginning July

A pause at the top of a leap
a pause in the sun
itself as we say
east wind drifts up the steep hillside
on the mountain the heat of noon
has dried the full-grown
manes of the grass
the late-running herds
they run among the yucca
yellow daisies cactus flowers
they run past rocks waiting on the slope
and prayer flag clothes drying 
on the way to the trees
all of us moving together

	- W.S. Merwin
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From Lrobpoet at sonic.net  Fri Jul 10 05:26:35 2026
From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson)
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2026 05:26:35 -0700
Subject: This Stumbling Heart Has Broken Strings - Rebecca Evert
Message-ID: <9685DCA5-E32C-4D10-9E12-C746BD2E4F7E@sonic.net>

This Stumbling Heart Has Broken Strings
 
This stumbling heart
softens with rain
roots in embers
a rambling spring
genuflects in grief
 
This stumbling heart
grounded in silence
a fallow field
raw with humility
hammock of sorrow 
 
This stumbling heart
sheds tears of stone
aches with unknowing
seeks worthiness
is wordless
 
This stumbling heart
alive with astonishment
weeps with kindness
bows in awe
lives within circles of beings
 
	- Rebecca Evert
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From Lrobpoet at sonic.net  Sat Jul 11 06:39:17 2026
From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Larry Robinson)
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2026 06:39:17 -0700
Subject: July Prayer To Survive The Summer - Robin Walter
Message-ID: <29D34CA0-97BC-4797-826F-7BA3F79B0F22@sonic.net>

?July Prayer To Survive The Summer

Today was the first day I saw
the father of the chicks
come to the antlers?First,

he landed on the doorframe?looked at me
hard?before making the short flight
to nest?

The mother came busily on his tail-feathers?
a small grey worm in her beak?
ushered him out of her way?

                                    *

I wonder about the day
these birds will first
take flight?

which instincts they?ll suspend
& which they?ll trust?which of the tiny birds
will last the Fall?

                                   *

I am ahead of myself again?wanted
to tell you about instincts?how sometimes
they betray the body?no, sometimes
I betray the body?
 

                                  *

The father is back again?nothing in his beak.
Their chirps are so much louder today?almost like tiny bells,
or water spilling?

 

                                  *

Here, there is a father.
There are not always
fathers?

but always, birds,
& sometimes, yes,

a window.

                                  *

My mind flips to a line
I love: You can fall a long way in sunlight.
You can fall a long way in rain.

	- Robin Walter




"Be joyful though you have considered all the facts."
    - Wendell Berry
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From lrobpoet at sonic.net  Sun Jul 12 06:47:07 2026
From: lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson)
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2026 06:47:07 -0700
Subject: Answer July - Emily Dickinson
Message-ID: <30998634-487A-4E3C-AE18-DE79298A8961@sonic.net>

?Answer July

Answer July?
Where is the Bee?
Where is the Blush?
Where is the Hay?

Ah, said July?
Where is the Seed?
Where is the Bud?
Where is the May?
Answer Thee?Me?

Nay?said the May?
Show me the Snow?
Show me the Bells?
Show me the Jay!

Quibbled the Jay?
Where be the Maize?
Where be the Haze?
Where be the Bur?
Here?said the Year?

	- Emily Dickinson
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