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