I'm No Longer a Poet

I'm no longer a poet—I'm a politician,

for a man is what he does.

I no longer write poetry all day;

that's just a thing that was.

Now I'm a politician—I am.

I scurry around seeking votes;

I spend all my money getting elected—

it's sad there are so many bank notes.

A politician I am, a politician,

and the poet has faded to the back.

The poet in me has been silenced;
he's hanging on the rack.

 

 

Nightmare III

When it began, it was known as the Iran War, but by the time it was over, it was named the Great Oil War of 2026.

Okay, I'm just fantasizing, and the dream in my wide-awake mind is a nightmare, dark and forbidding. What started as Iran's blowing up oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, expanded to both sides targeting and taking out any and every oil facility they could in the Middle East.

Pump prices skyrocketed. Consumers suffered mightily. Cars and Trucks backed up for blocks, knowing that recent shipments of oil would soon be gone and they would be left without fuel. Nor was an empty tank the only way customers suffered. We have said the "suffered mightily" and you tell me if this was not mightily: The price of items derived from oil soared even as those items disappeared from store shelves. Cell phones, laptops, certain pharmaceuticals, heating oil, plastic bags, food containers, foam cups, nylon, polyester, and acrylic clothing, fertilizers, solar panels . . .  The list goes on. A modern world cannot survive without these products.

This nightmare is not likely to come to pass but could it. Two warrior nations are each going for the other's jugulars. But there is something good that would happen. Stop to consider that jet fuel would be affected. Yes, passenger jets would be grounded as air flight prices soared. But note also that the jets dropping the bombs right there in the Middle East would be removed from the skies.

Nightmares, Part II

Another nightmare comes to my mind tonight as I consider on news of the naturalized citizen from Lebanon who drove into Temple Israel in Michigan. There are perhaps 4.5 million Muslims in America and we can assume that a share of them side with Iran in the war that is raging.

In my nightmare, Muslim attacks snowball. When one Muslim attacks, others hear of it and decide to join in. Soon there are attacks all over the nation.

Most Muslims are great-- wonderful people, but with 4.5 million of them, there are enough who could decide to commit terrorist attacks. In my nightmare, our land becomes riddled with such attacks.

Drones in the Skies of America

A nightmare flashes in my mind upon hearing of the precautionary warning that Iran has plans to launch killer drones at California. I image Iranian terrorists buying a manufacturing facility in one of our western cities and turning it into a plant to manufacture drones. These terrorists are not so foolish as to launch their weapons of destruction from their plant but build launch sites in spots out in the country that can fold back into the ground-- not to be discovered once the drones have been launched.

The drones whistle into the skies, knocking down passenger airliners. They blow up seats of government throughout the west. They destroy freeways, explode National Guard sites in an effort to add to the number of American servicemen killed, and take out hydropower dams and energy plants.

Could the Iranians pull off such a harrowing nightmare? One wonders.

(Blogs)