1) I tried to sit out on August Postcard Poetry Month. Needed to give that part of my brain a month of rest. Then Aretha died and I wrote a poem for her in spite of my plans. Today I am reviewing haiku from previous Augusts. Walk with me. 2) First line has five beats.
But isn’t that Japanese?
Heck! Translation fails.

#SundayHaiku

The Day Lady Died
BY FRANK O'HARA

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days

Anarchy, by Elihu Vedder, can be found in a small foyer at the entrance to the main reading room of the Library of Congress. Look very closely. She's standing on a scrolled document. It has become a foot mat. It is the Constitution. Look again. There is a burning document in her right hand. Might it be the Bill of Rights? Her left hand holds a chalice. God only knows what she's drinking.

There is something very weird, very strange about this reported Trump tape. The MSM is all over it, including FOX, which leads me to believe it is nothing but a distraction. The question is, what are we being distracted from? What would “they” rather we not see? Let’s be rational here. It’s an illegally produced tape that was illegally acquired. So it will ever hold up in any court. Plus it was about an event that happened 12 years ago. What is REALLY happening here?

Events of this week are making me re-think the 2nd secret of Fatima (my Portuguese and Catholic friends will know what I'm talking about). More on this in connected tweets to come. In the interim, check it out for your self. #2ndSecretofFatima catholicism.org/russia-convers…
"The Mother of God, in 1929, forecast to Sr. Lucy, the Fatima seer, that if Russia were consecrated to her Immaculate Heart by the Pope and the world’s bishops in union with him, it would be converted."

A tweet-storm of the #DeclarationOfIndependence, July 4, 1776. Part Two. establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

A tweet-storm of the final text of the #DeclarationofIndependence, July 4, 1776. Part One. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth,

I had to look up "sealed indictment." OMG. Stuff is about to hit the fan. I had to look up "George Washington Crossing the Delaware." It is a very symbolic and inclusive painting with its own interesting history. Check it out in Google.

Watching today's #WHPressConference. It's pretty obvious to me that journalists don't really understand what is going on at the border. I have worked at a couple of visa windows, so let me break it down for them here. There are some 8 or nine US consulates throughout Mexico, along with the consular section at the US Embassy in Mexico City. Not all countries have US embassies throughout the world, but every country in Central American and in South America has US embassies and consulates.

Some #micropoetry for the #SummerSolstice (1 of 4)

Empire Sunset

At the end of time
sunset will seem
to last forever - Some #micropoetry for the #SummerSolstice (2 of 4)

a thin red strip
on the horizon,
thinning, flickering

in its futile attempt
to stay, to widen
to reverse time itself –

1. I have a contrarian idea about the way things are. Thinking about testing it out in a Twitter thread. There are things that don't add up in the current set of equations. So I wrote a poem late one night that explained it all to me. That explanation is what I am sharing here. 2. OK. There is a deep state. It's an idea/concept that originated in Turkey, but also found expression in Italy, Egypt, and now, the U.S. But it is not aligned with a particular political party, although political parties may want you to think there is. There is not.

LET US DESCRIBE.
Let us describe how they went. It was a very windy night and the road although in excellent condition and extremely well graded has many turnings and although the curves are not sharp the rise is considerable. It was a very windy night and some of the larger vehicles found it more prudent not to venture. In consequence some of those who had planned to go were unable to do so.

The evolution of a poetic idea. 1896. Paul Laurence Dunbar, American. "We Wear the Mask."

Happy birthday, #WaltWhitman!

The last three stanzas of #ASongOfJoys pretty much sums up life's meaning:
(1 of 6) "O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!
To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!
To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!
To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with
perfect nonchalance!
(2 of 6)

My wife and I have different ideas about what happens to #TheAmericans tonight. Unfortunately we lost FX and won't see it tonight. But fortunately, we'll catch it before work tomorrow morning on #AmazonPrime. Further, I've been forbidden from "watching" Twitter tonight during the show. But I might take a sneak peak, just for shits and grins.

Loving the Cicero quotes on Twitter. Here's a thread.

"A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city." (1) "But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself." (2)

Reading the Grassley-Graham memo that came out last night. Of course, this memo was written by lawyers for lawyers and I am not a lawyer, just an amateur poet with a different relationship with/to words. But for what it's worth, here are the passages that stood out for me: (1) "On the face of the dossier, it appears that Mr. Steele gathered mush of his information from Russian government sources inside Russia." (2)

OK. I try to be a reasonable guy. But let me get this straight. An incumbent political party pays a retired foreign spy to gather op research, then dresses up that op research as official intel to authorize surveillance of folks in the opposing party. Did I miss anything? (1) I remember Watergate. I was in high school but I followed it closely. This is way worse that Watergate. The only thing worse would be to hire someone to gather op research on a foreign head of state, then dress it up as intel, and use that intel to go to war. Y'all hear me? (2)