Vox Populi
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Jeffrey Harrison: Stalinesque
After Mandelstam
We don’t recognize our own country,
and our words don’t carry more than ten feet,
but the snippets that can still be made out
are all about the Emperor Felonius.
His fingers thick as giant slugs,
he rains down leaden diatribes on us;
his coiffure’s as light and sticky as cotton candy,
but his stinking diaper sits heavy in his pants.
Surrounded by oligarchs and sycophants,
he beguiles them by dangling cabinet posts—
one croaks, one parrots, and another Tweets,
while he jabs his finger, bangs his pudgy fist,
and flings a series of orders like dinner plates
at groin, eye, temple, and forehead.
He will jail his enemies, he spitefully insists,
puckering his small mouth like an anus.
~~~~
Jeffrey Harrisons’s books include Between Lakes (Four Way, 2020)
Copyright 2024 Jeffrey Harrison
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Jeffrey captured the mood perfectly. How frightening. How prescient. And yes, it can be very exciting, freeing and mind-opening to explore other places to live.
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Thanks, Mandy. You are my inspiration!
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Excellent, Jeffrey. You capture the existential dread.
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Like an anus. Well done, Jeff.
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Been waiting for someone to re-do this one. Good job, Jeffrey x
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Dr Dread. And those who would pull the strings are worse. I think they bank on the fact that he is more and more dement, and that Vance will take over with Musk in his hair and the Project 2025 crowd shouting orders.
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I fear you are right, Rose Mary.
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An expression of disgust, well done!
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I think Jeffrey has captured what many of us are feeling about the president-elect.
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How do we evade his anal-extensive ravage?
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I’m renewing my passport just in case things get any worse in this country. In the meantime, we need to support organizations like women’s shelters and civil rights groups that may minimize the effects of the GOP policies. Any other ideas?
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Ah, where can we go?
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I renewed my passport this past Spring. Women’s shelters and other similar places of refuge can always use the help. food banks too. I just re-joined, after a fifteen year hiatus, the Freedom to Read Foundation.
There will be so many pressure points for oncoming tyranny and information overload. The first two difficulties will be lowering anxiety, as we pay attention. A tough duo. Paying attention, may mean each developing their own expertise in one area of the glut of mayhem, while broadly knowing the big picture in a more general way.
And writing (or more broadly communicating in powerful ways) has always been a necessary antidote to tyranny. Like Vox Populi and those it illuminates)
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Wise words. Thank you, Jim.
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Careful. He’ll be coming for you next…
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Yes, he will.
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