By Roland Michel Tremblay
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Marginal
27 October, 2009
Capitalist planning
Only do something if one can make a dollar
And certainly don’t do anything
If one cannot make at least a billion dollars
Isn’t it amazing?
For simple minded people
Like me, like us all
Living in a simple world
At a time when no one is working
At a time when no one is doing anything
Such wasted essential resources at hand
Such short sight from our leaders
Is amazing
By Mankh Walter E. Harris III
Axisoflogic.com
Friday, Oct 9, 2009
Editor’s Note: We bring our original 2008 publication of Mankh’s poem back to celebrate the extraordinary announcement that the Nobel Peace Prize is being given to Barack Obama, even as he bombs innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Any questions you may have ever had about the credibility of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and the true value of the prize should now be laid to rest. – Axis Editorial Group Continue reading
by Ed Ciaccio
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
Sept 10, 2009
(to the tune of “Proud Mary” by John Fogerty)
Left health care up to the Congress,
Corporate lackeys workin’ evr’y night and day,
Insurance heads don’t lose one minute of sleepin’,
Knowin’ who they had to bribe and pay. Continue reading
By Gary Corseri
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
September 5, 2009
I forgot to pay my phone bill
So they shut off my phone.
So when I saw the Terrorist
Assembling his bomb
I couldn’t make the call
To Homeland Security.
by Ed Ciaccio
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
Aug. 9, 2009
“Analysts Expect Long-Term, Costly U.S. Campaign in Afghanistan” (Washington Post, Sunday, August 9, 2009):
“As the Obama administration expands U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that the United States is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will probably eclipse that of the Iraq war.”
I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag
by Country Joe McDonald
(only slightly updated by Ed Ciaccio) Continue reading
by Ed Ciaccio
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
Aug. 1, 2009
We were cheering in the streets,
With our children at our feet,
And we thought our worshiped morals all had won.
But the men who spurred us on
Still control what’s going on.
They decide and politicians sing the song.
by Ed Ciaccio
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
July 14, 2009
(With apologies to Woody Guthrie)
This land was our land, but now it’s their land,
From coast to coast, a most unfair land.
From the redwood forests, to the gulfstream waters,
They stole this land from you and me.
The Wall Street banksters and corporate cronies,
The weapons makers, the Congress phonies,
The liars and lobbies, and radio ranters,
They stole this land from you and me.
This land was our land, but now it’s their land,
From coast to coast, a most unfair land.
From the redwood forests, to the gulfstream waters,
They stole this land from you and me.
In halls of Congress, where Corporate Tools lurk,
To serve their masters, while all us fools work
To feed our families, they count their campaign checks.
They stole this land from you and me.
A bleeding soldier, dying in foreign sands
Wonders why she was sent to far-off lands,
As Exxon’s profits set all-time records.
They stole this land from you and me.
This land was our land, but now it’s their land,
From coast to coast, a most unfair land.
From the redwood forests, to the gulfstream waters,
They stole this land from you and me.
A young man dies in an E.R. ward,
Health care payments were too high to afford.
Insurance CO’s jet to the Caymans.
They stole this land from you and me.
This land was our land, but now it’s their land,
From coast to coast, a most unfair land.
From the redwood forests, to the gulfstream waters,
They stole this land from you and me.
The native people have always known how
Their land was stolen, so what we feel now
Is the cost of “progress” for corporate rulers
Who stole this land from you and me.
This land was our land, but now it’s their land,
From coast to coast, a most unfair land.
From the redwood forests, to the gulfstream waters,
They stole this land from you and me.
By Brant Lyon
Dandelion Salad
July 2, 2009
Hot dogs agog hot dogs a-gag
godblessamerica how you love to eat!
Except the Japs’ rising son’s
been whipping us into shape
and taking the belt a WWF cinch
girding an impossibly thin waist
for all that conveyor belt abundance.
Continue reading
by Ed Ciaccio
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
June 29, 2009
Our President, Mr. Obama,
Governs with cool, never drama.
His sweet words can thrill,
But his policies kill.
Fine language won’t hide bloody trauma.
Pakistan Calls for End to Drone Strikes After US Attack on Funeral http://news.antiwar.com/2009/06/25/pakistan-expresses-concern-after-us-drone-attack-on-funeral/
687 civilians have been killed in 60 drone strikes since January 2008
“Since early 2009, Barack Obama administration officials have been claiming that the predator attacks in Pakistan have killed nine of 20 top al Qaeda officials, but they have refused to disclose how many civilians have been killed in the strikes.
In April, The News, a newspaper in Lahore, Pakistan, published figures provided by Pakistani officials indicating that 687 civilians have been killed along with 14 al Qaeda leaders in some 60 drone strikes since January 2008 – just over 50 civilians killed for every al Qaeda leader.”
(CIA Secrecy on Drone Attacks Data Hides Abuses by Gareth Porter http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2009/06/12/cia-secrecy-on-drone-attacks-data-hides-abuses/)
60 Americans die every day from lack of health insurance
22,000 Americans die every year from lack of health insurance. That is an average of 60 preventable, avoidable deaths every day (study from the Urban Institute: Uninsured and Dying Because of It: Updating the Institute of Medicine Analysis on the Impact of Uninsurance on Mortality. http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411588_uninsured_dying.pdf)
President Obama, as head of the Democratic Party, must tell House Speaker Pelosi, House Majority Leader Hoyer, House Majority Whip Clyburn, and Senate Majority Leader Reid, loudly and clearly:
“If there is no public option health care plan, any health care ‘reform’ bill arriving on my desk for my signature will be D.O.A.”
That means WE must tell Obama that same message: no health reform without a public option. And the only public plan that truly includes everyone and saves money is single-payer: H.R. 676 and S. 703.
Contact the White House now! http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Contact your Representative and two Senators now! 202-224-312
see
Deadly Reasons to Oust Incumbents in 2010 By Ed Ciaccio
Deadly US air-strike on Afghan village
Obama’s Emerging Legacy: Wars, Bankers and For-Profit Healthcare by Glen Ford
No Reason to Favor Private Health Insurers by Joel S. Hirschhorn
Imran Khan on US Drone Attacks
Like Killing Flies by Bruce Gagnon
***
By Gary Corseri
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
June 14, 2009
CHORUS: Go down to the Valley Forge, Tom Paine;
go down to the Valley Forge:
four thousand ghosts of an idea stand
guttering in the siege of winter,
slow-jigging in their ragged socks
while the Master General broods;
while the Master General writes and begs
aid from the wavering French.
Go and be prodigal; seal:
the holes in their blankets with words;
knit: the soles of their shoes with courage;
write: on a drumhead by the fire’s crackle,
drum-beaten words for their wounds,
balm for their wondering wounds:
PAINE: These are the times that
try men’s souls.
The summer soldier
and the sunshine patriot
will, in this crisis
shrink
from the service of their country;
but he that stands it now,
deserves the love and thanks
of man and woman.
By Gary Corseri
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
May 25, 2009
I am sick of the voices of heroes!
They cry from maniacal graves:
By Roland Michel Tremblay
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Marginal
24 April, 2009
In history
At some point or another
Someone just reaches critical stardom
Preaching some sort of distorted love
Some sort of distorted truth about the world
This is referred to
As going through a Jesus-Christ’s phase
Many people die as a consequence
And the star eventually usually regrets
Ever going through that phase
I think I have just reached
My very own
Jesus-Christ’s phase
I’ve grown a beard
I’ve grown long hair
I no longer brush my teeth
Boy, do I smell!
I’m a preacher
Please bring me blood!
I am now preaching
To the whole world
All sorts of things
Making absolutely no sense
And when I wake up the next day
With such a hangover
From too much alcohol
From too much hallucinogenic drugs
I curse this existence
I curse the world
I curse this phase I’m going through
I curse my Jesus-Christ’s phase
All very well
That I will save this world
All very well
That I will show you salvation
All very well
That I will open up the door to the Heavens
All very well
That I will bring peace upon Earth
Without alienating the world
Without bringing destruction
Without causing a nuclear third world war
Without annihilating us all
I’m a preacher!
Please bring me blood!
All is very well
I’m just going through
My Jesus-Christ’s phase
Please pay no attention
I’ll eventually wake up
I’ll eventually understand
This world is beyond salvation
I’ll get back to Earth
Buy myself a cheesy sandwich
In Toronto Central down Church Street
Feel shame for my Jesus-Christ’s years
Just like all the hippies out there
And all those religious priests
I will see the light
As I will bring you the God of Light!
And be shot right after
No matter
How much destruction
Is required
For such a miracle
I’m a preacher!
Please bring me blood!
Oh my God!
Jesus!
I wonder
I truly wonder
Will I be able
To reach the toilet in time?
I need to get this thing out of me!
You know
I’ve never seen a flower before
What does it look like?
Please not in so many words
Remain simple
For simple minded people
Who’ve lost their mind a long time ago
Going through
Only a phase
Their very own
Jesus-Christ’s phase
Don’t you just love
To be Jesus-Christ?
Does it not feel great
To be off your head!
And save the world
In your mind?
I’m a preacher
Please draw blood
Shame it’s only a phase
Shame we’ll be ashamed of it one day
What were we thinking of
Bringing more genocides to the world?
Through our very own Jesus-Christ’s phase
After all, it was only a phase
***
“Without irony, this life would hardly be worth living.”
Roland Michel Tremblay, A Poet for Human Rights
http://poetsforhumanrights.ning.com/profile/RolandMichelTremblay
see
Genocides are no surprise in a world built on hate By Roland Michel Tremblay
By Gary Corseri
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
February 14, 2009
My wife, my lover, my mate, my friend,
Till death do us part (or the heart
Finds an escape clause)-inseparable as
My own self’s clone (where I extrude, though,
You invert), think you nothing without me (and me
Even more nothing without you).
Think we are one living pulse, one beat
Of the Eternal Beatnik. In all the hoary annals
And canals-we sing singularly.
We are je ne sais quoi and sine qua non.
We are what we are-only more so.
Let me not volley your praises to the sun.
Let me not whisper the shadow of your namecard.
I have your number at number.com.
I lie upon my chocolate escutcheon
Sighing the impossible, unwavering love-note
That manages somehow never to screech,
Beseaching in nooks and crannies and fields,
Finding you somehow year after year
Familiarly reassuringly
Dappled and dewy in the great melange.
Gary Corseri has posted/published his work at hundreds of venues, including Dandelion Salad. His books include the literary anthology, Manifestations (edited) and the novel, Holy Grail, Holy Grail. Associate Editor of Cyrano’s Journal Online, he can be contacted at gary_corseri@comcast.net.
see
Sent to DS by the author, the mother of Samar. With our deepest sympathies and condolences to WDA and all of Samar’s family and friends. ~ DS
by WDA
I am seated on rubble and ashes
I don’t know if Aya my doll is still in my arms
I still can hear the talks, the whispers and the crying of latest days
And the laughs of other times
I still hear the familiar call for praying, the sounds of the house …
I hope to see my family and my friends soon
so we can run and laugh as we used to do,
each day a new world…
Now it is all rubble and ashes
and me half seated, half buried in it
My name is Samar, I was six
I lived in innocence
I died in Gaza.
(Written by WDA – Gaza)
see
A Father’s Grief, Uri Avnery, Oren Yiftachel, and Israelis ask for Sanctions on Israel
Israeli FM confronted by Press Club journalists + The war and Israeli opinion
Crossposted at Thomas Paine’s Corner thanks, Jason.
By Vi Ransel
1/1/09
Part One: The Plot Thickens
(or, Why Am I Not Surprised?)
(A Chicago story… A citizen walks into his alderman’s office looking for a job. “Who sent you?” a staffer asks. “Nobody” he replies. Says the staffer, “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.” Who sent Obama? In exactly four years he’s risen from an unknown state senator to president. That only happens when somebody sends for you. – Sam Smith)
The nature of his administration was evident
as he introduced his transition team and potential members of his cabinet.
The individuals selected are fixtures of the economic aristocracy
and the Washington Consensus establishment.
His Transitional Economic Advisory Board consists entirely
of members and representatives of the economic stratosphere –
CEOs, investment bankers, former SEC and Federal Reserve Chairs,
Clinton re-treads, DLC members, lobbyists, slumlords and billionaires.
Dandelion Salad 