-The death trinket-

I’ve noticed that the cat

when approaching something new

laid upon the rug will step forward with

a hesitant posture.

It seems as though this is true for just about all cats.

European kids will instinctively kick

any idle ball within a foot’s reach.

In my Country, the default mechanism is to throw it.

As for the domestic parakeet when

considering its cage, well, it seems

as though the inside is as good as the outside.
Perhaps the bird disagrees.

––There comes a man to a nation, spewing

a mouth’s-full of sneers through any open portal.

This man is inflated across the waistline like a 19th

century Daumier cartoon buffoon. –– This man is vulgar.

A scalp-full of fool’s gold is spray-fixed in place

by handmaidens specializing in filament dynamics, and

––if Rube Goldberg himself set down a design for a man,

this is the man he’d build,––comically ridiculous, unnecessary, absurdly

exaggerated without the inherent charm of Rube's usually absurd exaggerations,

exhibiting the pomposity of Mussolini, and he'd be coldblooded, and

intellectually hamstrung singing "God Bless America" from amplified

megaphones stationed all over town on a never-ending loop.