August Dog

I keep telling myself

This town is always a ghost

In August

Caesar’s month

Not Julie Seize 

But the chubby nephew

On I, Claudius

I read both books

Before BBC made the series

Didn’t help

They all got it in the end

Killed off like innocent Summer

By the frost that comes late in the night

I could feel Helios

Withdrawing his blaze

From the not as long days

Now the Sun drops like a sailor’s pants

On an internet date

And I’ve got to put down

My baseball bat

And go face second grade

Teacher wore more makeup

Than Bozo the Clown

The horror of what too much hope

Can do to a pleasantly plain face

Good lesson there

Never believe magazine ads

Or TV commercials

No toy is fun 4 long

And no shampoo

Will end your loneliness

Soldier on

Through wars that run as long

As the Simpsons

Or are over before you can spell the place

There are no trends

In American politics or culture

Just fads to get us in trouble

And make us pick teams again

Every other generation

Now farmers and factory workers

Are Republicans

And billionaires donkeys

Really? 

The parties conventions 

Are straight up informercials

I listen to the dirt and I’m gonna

And wonder if my sandwiches 

Would taste better grilled

There’s only one way out of here

And it’s all up hill

Hell, I don’t know

If we can even fly to freedom

And what is freedom anyway?

Trump looks like 

The oldest teenager in the world

And Biden’s Methuselah 

Pence is the whitest man 

Who ever lived

And Kamala 

Is every minority rolled into one

I can’t even remember 

What race or gender I am

I’m just old

Pre-internet

Pre-social media

Pre-cellphone

I spoke to people

In the same room

Or within sight outside

Masked up on Halloween

Extorted candy into a paper bag

How will we know it’s Halloween?

How will we know Summer’s ended?

If everyone wears a mask

All the time

Don Arrup

Satire1

Church Work School Riot

Wrapping up the first night of the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump Beard Jr. summed up his comparison between the Disneyland the Republicans would deliver and the Democratic disastermare we will surely suffer under Joseph Stalin Biden with a now viral phrase: A choice between church, work and school and riot, looting and vandalism. 

Satire1, suspecting controversy, took to the corner of Elbow and Riverside in Manhattan’s Upper West Side to sample the public’s take:

Skateboarder

“What’s the difference between school and vandalism? Adults are stealing our childhood just to get us out of their house long enough to come back with money and take care of them.”

Big Hat

“Anyone who thinks there’s a difference between church and a riot ain’t been to my church Sunday morning.”

New Suit

“If the school is college or a private school in a large metropolitan area the tuition may not technically be vandalism but it’s definitely highway robbery.”

High Heels

“In most large companies, workers are having their healthcare whittled down to funeral expenses while the fat cats play stock buybacks and boards votes themselves raises. So what’s this difference between work and looting again?”

Don Arrup

Satire1

God Says She's Cool With Biden

God held a rare press conference today as a raging flame that didn’t consume the floating monitor suspended above the entrance to the United Nations on First Avenue just above 42cd Street in Manhattan. She/He/Te/They spoke in what many took as a feminine voice with an accent mix of rural Louisiana, Boston street hawk and Brooklyn Jew.

Major news organizations around the world were notified by dead celebrities appearing as apparitions who unlike Holly and Bollywood depictions were naked and un-groomed. Explained one ghost: “Even if there was a ghost clothing store we don’t have any ghost money.”

Editors note that you can not honestly quote God since God’s voice is heard in the most understandable tongue to the listener; therefore quotation marks are neither accurate nor appropriate. 

God:

Though your current president portrayed his election opponent as against me I am speaking to you directly since many religions have disgraced themselves of late and your president is Tweeted out. I’ve known Joseph Biden for over seventy five years and he has never been against me. He’s not always with me and I’m not always there for him but he’s never been against me. We are not enemies.

He comes to my house most Sundays with his family and neighbors and they talk to me and ask for favors like people do at all my homes. Joe’s had both great blessings and crushing losses. Like about half of your kind over the globe. 

Presently, he is shamelessly teasing Democratic liberals, minorities and women with his choice of Vice President. Even I don’t know who it will be. I doubt Joe does. I wonder if the person even exists. In the same note, who is presently the Vice President? Pence? Dense? I understand he invokes my name often but I’ve no knowledge of him. From the papers he appears to have a good tailor.

The only reason I knew who Biden was when he had the VP job was his gaffs made for the funniest Youtube video ever.

And yes, I did, indeed, hear about Kamala Harris. Now can anybody tell me who she really is?

Your young people are upset because you’ve been fools for too long again. I’d appoint some prophets but the good ones don’t look good on TV so you’d never listen to them and you wouldn’t like what you hear anyway.

I do recommend that every eligible citizen vote. Both parties will find ways to trash half your ballots and no one will accept the results anyway but that is no reason not to perform your civic duty even- no! especially during a pandemic.

Wait until 2022, when all the votes the Supreme Court has validated are counted. Hopefully not too far into the summer. 

And please, please, please wear masks when you go out. It looks like all of you have tape over your mouth and fulfills my fondest wish for all of you to finally shut up.

Don Arrup

Satire1