The Trump years
A ledger swings like a carnival ride,
numbers screaming up, then plunging wide—
green arrows flash, then bleed to red,
while talking heads insist “ahead, ahead.”
On Main Street, shutters learn to close,
cardboard blossoms where no seed grows,
a man folds winter into his coat,
counts loose change like a lifeboat.
High above, in mirrored glass,
profits bloom as people pass—
two worlds drift but never meet,
one dines warm, one haunts the street.
Engines roar in distant sands,
maps redrawn by unseen hands,
names dissolve in desert air,
flag-draped silence everywhere.
At borders lit by sterile light,
families fracture in the night,
papers judged, existence weighed,
mercy stalled, and fear displayed.
Sirens hum a colder tone,
a state that chills you to the bone,
where justice flickers, thin and frail,
and whispers echo through the jail.
Voices rise from podiums tall,
smooth as oil, concealing all—
truth bent thin, then stretched apart,
a practiced, almost casual art.
Allies once at table near
step away, their signals clear,
handshakes fade to distant nods,
trust dissolves in silent odds.
And through it all, a restless drum—
of what has been, what may become—
a nation riding its own divide,
unable yet to step aside.
— Adam Donaldson Powell
Nighthawk.
Primal ritual cries of reveille
from innumerable cricket tribes,
during the wake of nocturnal
nigrescence, beckon the
Children of Nyx from
crepuscular seclusion.
A momentary hiatus in the
mesmerizing rubbing of wings
divulges the faint slitherings
and slinkings of creepy-crawlers
and creatures of night, in
exodus from nature’s underworld.
And keeping watch over the
order of things in no man’s land
is a vigilant nighthawk,
whose stark eyes piercing
through the darkness stir
horripilation amongst the meek.
— Adam Donaldson Powell
Saturn’s blues.
when the moon is in Fresno
and the sun sets a purplish
haze over early-autumn skies,
the cold winds of Hell
breathe heavily against
the hopes of local heroes
and the women who made them.
farmers stare off into the fields
without realizing, and housewives
pull their young close to their
bosoms – suddenly and
without explanation.
intuitively they sense the onset
of a long and severe influence;
a time of hardship and hindrance
when the faith and courage of
more than a few good men
and women are put to test.
the carousel is out-of-control,
and in the whirlwind confusion
crops will fail, loved ones will
pass away, jobs will be lost
and the simplest of dreams will
be stifled by saturn’s blues:
a mocking nursery rhyme telling
of horror and despair, and sung
over and over again with endless
variations on the same cruel theme.
— Adam Donaldson Powell
The drama and chaos makes many
wonder how much is real; and the
democracy is now unrecognizable.
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