Agent Orange Head in the White House
is only the most obvious external symptom
of the cancer on the presidency
growing ignored, undiagnosed, untreated
since long before Watergate or Iran-Contra
its shadow side the impeachment of Clinton
and impeachment “off the table” for Bush
(and his invasions, torture, assassinations
and mass surveillance) and of course Obama
told us he was looking forward, not back
so what could he possibly see except
clear sailing as his whole administration
sunk in a sea of torturers, assassins,
mass murderers, a cabal of fervent spies
of everyone, of everything except the crooks
the fraudster bankster Wall St. crew
Obama installed to deal with the biggest
rip-off in human history of Ponzi scheme
bubbles where buy that and they’ll sell
you another tulip bulb South Sea island
Brooklyn Bridge where the bagman
for the kleptocracy will be there waiting
for the dramatic moment to say “you’re fired”
over and over until they’re all gone, so long gone
into the pyramidal mountain deep state
where the FBI is still investigating
the orgy of drug money, sex industry money
human trafficking slavery money
all coursing through condo real estate
deals on the right, deals on the left
how can they strain poor Agent Orange Head
in the White House, out from all those
oligarch plutocrat crime boss klepto-crats.

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop, which his Labyrinth titled poems are based on. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.