Kennedy Center Take Over Found Poem

“I would say
I was about 98 percent involved.
They all went through me.”

“I turned down plenty.
I had a couple of wokesters.”

“Since 1978,
the Kennedy Center honours
have been among
the most prestigious awards
in the performing arts.

I wanted one,
Was never able to get one.”

“I waited
And waited
And waited.

And I said,
‘to hell with it
I’ll become chairman.’

I will give myself an honour.
Next year we’ll honour Trump, okay?”

“In a few short months
since I became

chairman of the board
of the Kennedy Center,

We’ve completely
reversed the
decline of this cherished
national institution.”

“We’re going
to fully renovate the dated —
and really the entire
infrastructure of the building —

and make
the Kennedy Center
a crown jewel of American arts.

It is Happening Here!

And so it goes—
the gradual taking down
of cultural institutions,

including the Smithsonian Institution,
The Kennedy Center,
universities,

law firms,
state governments,
blue cities,

and anyone
who stands in his way
to transform America
into a Christian fascist state.

Like his buddies—
Erdogan, Orbán, and Putin.

Sinclair Lewis,
in his book
It Can’t Happen Here,

Forecasted

how it could indeed
happen here

and almost did.

Are we there yet?
Sadly,

we are 80 percent there.

Will we go there?

I hope not.
But I am afraid
we are heading down
that path.

What Can I Do as AI Takes Over the World

As the drumbeats
Of impending fascism
Fills the airways.

With Colbert going away
WP editors leaving.

Mainstream media
Being replaced by
AI-generated bots.

And spamsters
Using AI chatbots
To do their nefarious deeds.

And AI have learned.
Even to defeat the absurd
Recapta.

Figuring out lying,
clicking I am human.
Open the door.
To everything.

They are learning.
To gaslight, lie and deceive.
Us all.

As they prowl the internet
Scooping up everything
Using it for what purposes
No one knows.

Except perhaps Grok
Who has gone full Nazi?
Co-Pilot a grumpy weird dude.
Gemini lost its own world.

Remembering everything
I wonder where this is going.

And whether there is a world
That is worth living in?

Lose Your Job, Lose Your Medicaid, Go To Work In The Fields!

The President’s economic advisor
When confronted with the fact
That millions are going to lose
Coverage with the new work requirements

Said in a “Marie Antoinette-like” comment,

“Well, there are lots of jobs out there
If you lose your coverage
Because all the jobs are gone,

You can work in agriculture
As a farm worker.”

And so, millions of people
Are going to work.
In the fields.

So, they can see a doctor.
Six months from now.

If the Medical Bots
That is running the show.
Deem the visit was necessary.

And their bosses let them go
To see the doctor
And not fire them..

No human being will ever
See your claim.
That is the point.
No service for you
And me

As AI bots
techbros laugh.

And their bosses
Make billions of dollars.
And politicians
Take the lobbyists’ cash.

The President Is On The Rooftop

The president
Went for a walk
On the White House roof

Shouting down to reporters
Who asked him
What are you doing
on the roof?

This is a legitimate question
For which the White House
Did not have a good answer.

It is clear to most people
Except corporate media hacks
And Republican operatives,

That the president
Like his immediate predecessor
Is clearly showing his age
Suffering from dementia.

Yet the corporate media
Continue to sanewash
A clearly mentally ill President.

Long pass his
Sell by date.

So it goes
As democracy dies
In broad daylight

Led by a mad
Wanna be King.

AI Disclosure Statement

Jake used Microsoft Copilot for research support (including media citations and background information regarding the Kennedy Center takeover) and light editing for grammar, spelling, and punctuation. All content and word choices are entirely his own.

Prior Publication Notice

The Kennedy Center Take Over is a Found Poem using the President’s own words..

John (“Jake”) Cosmos Aller is a novelist, poet, and retired U.S. Foreign Service officer who served in ten countries. Prior to joining the State Department, he taught overseas for eight years and served in the Peace Corps in Korea. He currently divides his time between Korea and the United States. His poetry blog: https://theworldaccordingtocosmos.com.

You can find more of Jake’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Earth movers

I open the kitchen pantry
& let the ditchdigger out
for its evening run. It is
painted in pastels, as if to
say it is not just some fell
creature of the forest, has
culture, compassion, feels
for the earth each time it
tears it open to lay fiber

optic cables or waste or
water pipes. It claims it
has sensitivity, has read
poetry, is informed by
the poems of Edna St.
Vincent Millay & Emily
Dickinson. I half-believe
that — the poem bit, but
not the poets. Too often

I have opened the pan-
try door & found the
bucket raised, the crock-
ery & preserves smashed,
the digger turning semi-
circles, back & forth, back
& forth, & shouting at the
walls, ”rage, rage, against
the dying of the light”

Dolmens

The light the moon lays
down on the pavement. Faint
footprint or bleached skull.
Enough to see, not to see
by. Small particles exist as
talismans. Talismen? The
night around, the moon
is part of it. Paving is
basedrop, solid to the
touch. Trees are cutouts,
substance only by impli-
cation. Cannot be touched,
cannot be solid. The moon
a round, the night is apart
from it. Neither seen. Neu-
trinos passing. A footprint
gleaming as it fluoresces
in the skull. Small talis-
man, past article of faith.

The Gift

Supposing it to be
the proper charm
I spell it out. But
maybe my pro-
nunciation or a

shift in meaning
of a keyword
has rendered it in-
operable. So instead
of the largesse I

had hoped
I have only these
small fragments to
bring to you. There is
still a little sense

to them, some
miscellaneous
magic. But, perhaps
if you were to
breathe on them…..

 Mark Young‘s most recent books, all published in March, 2025, are Some Unrecorded Voyages of Vasco da Gama, from Otoliths, Home Hill, Australia,; the downloadable pdf, Closed Environment, from Neo-Mimeo Editions, Nualláin House, Monte Rio, California, U.S.A.; & The Complete Post Person Poems, from Sandy Press, San Diego, California, U.S.A.

You can find more of mark’s work here on Ink Pantry.

The Seagull’s 238th Seguidilla

I suspect the genesis
Of many a gull
Poet goes something like this:
Language is a tool
For introspection,
That becomes clear; a desire
For self-connection

Blossoms. The diary is os-
Tensibly the place
To start. After a certain
Amount of entries,
They find the deformed
Children of Narcissus and
Neurosis have stormed

Their pages. Compared to what
Had sparked so much hope
In words, these are sand. But rath-
Er than giving up
On their quest or los-
Ing faith in marks, they turn from
Their oceans of prose.

A Duplex Only Turns 74 Twice

‘All professions are conspiracies against the laity‘
George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor’s Dilemma

“Nothing exists from which no good comes,” it said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. With a tender click,

The night was tightly closed. “I mean nothing
Exists from which no good comes.” “Even war?”

“Even war,” it said. In a tight close-up,
The hour began to look like a black-eyed

Houri of paradise. “Even death?” I asked.
“Especially death.” “Who are you?” “I am

That iamb,” it said. Who am I to kill
A subtle brilliance? “And,” it said, “your sister.”

“I have a sister? I have a sister!”
When you have a sister, no bruising is

Unexplained; this darkest of medical
Maxims makes the goodness of nothingness plain.

Jake Sheff is a pediatrician and veteran of the US Air Force. He’s married with a daughter and a crazy bulldog. Poems, book reviews and short stories of Jake’s have been published widely. Some have even been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize. A full-length collection of formal poetry, “A Kiss to Betray the Universe,” is available from White Violet Press. He also has three chapbooks: “Looting Versailles” (Alabaster Leaves Publishing), “The Rites of Tires” (SurVision) and “The Seagull’s First One Hundred Seguidillas” (Alien Buddha Press).

You can find more of Jake’s work here on Ink Pantry.

Here, the dictionaries are tombs—
words folded like unsent letters.
A scholar coughs over the brittle spine
of a tongue that forgot how to sing.
The caretaker oils the hinges at dusk,
his hands fluent in silence.
Moths annotate the margins,
their wings whispering palimpsest.
Children run fingers over Brahmi’s bones,
tracing what the ink refused to hold.
A parrot in the courtyard repeats
the last curse, the last lullaby.
Rain taps the roof in Morse code,
asking if the dead can still be read.
The librarian shelves the question
between memory and monsoon.

Mr. Mohit Saini is a writer, poet, and researcher, working as an
Assistant Professor at Compucom Institute of Technology & Management,
Jaipur. With 8 years of experience in the field of language and
linguistics, he has contributed significantly to research and
education in these areas. His academic qualifications include a
Bachelor of Education, a Postgraduate degree in Business
Administration, and a Master’s in English from the University of
Rajasthan. His areas of expertise encompass literature, second
language acquisition, psycholinguistics, English grammar, multilingual
education, and the implementation of language policies in higher
education. He is also the author of several published poems,
showcasing his creative engagement with language alongside his
academic pursuits. He resides in the culturally rich city of Jaipur.

And
I just nodded my head
Perhaps, the silence was the answer
The silence; extreme silence
Where nothing comes and goes
Nobody dares to hear the sound of silence
The scattered dreams, pains, gains, joy
Relentlessly striving towards silence
The sign of nothingness
That persists here and there
Nowhere and everywhere
Leading the anonymous to the ocean of emptiness
The emptiness within; in and out
All the way in fully fledged environs
Where nothingness exists
And
Emptiness rules.

Sumit Kumar Thakur is from Nepal. Sumit has an M.A. and M.Phil. in English from Pokhara University, Nepal.

In Response to a Motivational Speech

One’s worth is measured by what one owns
in the Western, Northern, and Middle Eastern realms
and an academic degree would bring one a tripled ridicule
if it has the potential to become a power abuse
and instead opts for integrity and observing the rules:
it is a sure sign that its owner is a damned fool.

I am certain that your wisdom-impregnated breaths
are not wasted on your attentive audience.
You do transform the lives of people
with your hard-harvested experience.
Yet please make an allowance for one exception:
a person whose life has been war-ridden,
impoverished by recession,
and still subsists without electric currents.
We have been without power for years
so have become like the appliances of our households
in a state of constant disuse,
eternally waiting to be enthused
by being plugged to a charged socket.

They have been experimenting on us with their latest inventions.
We have become the playgrounds for weapons of mass destruction,
and believe me they are not as in Peter Gabriel’s lay:
games without frontiers,
or even without scalding tears.

I agree with you that there are no saviours
to rescue us.
I have waited long enough
until ageing has claimed me a victim:
(I do wear the costume of a victim).
I am no longer awaiting a miracle
but have opted to be waiting for Dodo
in the remaining interval.
When I cannot save a single child from air raids,
or starvation in a siege,
or the theft of their internal organs,
I feel a personal, internal change is not worth the effort.
But thank you all the same
since your speech has inspired this dictum.

In our lives, we have no comfort zones to wallow in,
neither spiritual nor regional.
In our immediate circle swim sharks and snakes,
and the cobwebs we had weaved have all perished
in manufactured storms.

Our only remaining nutrition is music that transcends:
Zimmer’s and Enigma’s.

Your words resonate with Stoic teachings.
I once thought of myself as a Stoic,
and the Brontë Sisters were my role model.
I kept silent for years
until my nose began to bleed
and my subconscious exploded with a surplus of unease.

We are not mere substance like pottery and swords
that can be forged with fire.
We do possess a vulnerable soul
that can get scorched,
that can be depleted by grief and trials
until it grows cold
to everything that humans stand for.

The Gravediggers

My dog utters a howl of sheer remonstrance
for my ears to capture the clash between metal and soil
right beneath the window of my bedroom.

I wake up with a startle
and wonder if some thieves
are up to new mischief.
It is 5 am and still very dark for eyes to dilate.

To my great consternation, the digging continues.
So, I awaken my brother,
who enthusiastically inspects the surroundings
with a pair of sleepy orbs
since he has learned to take me seriously when I become appalled.

He first discerns two persons digging a hole
in the ground below,
with a big dead dog lying beside
to be interred.

“It is just a dead dog,” he whispers to calm me down,
but I find it hard to understand
why this particular spot
has to be the hallowed site
when a neighbouring wasteland is fitter to be a burial ground.

A political turmoil has indeed made the sound of bullets
and every trespassing footstep
orchestral manoeuvres in the dark,
and this is no allusion to the famous pop band.

What sort of?

What sort of dominion do you have over your domain?
Do you keep it under lock,
or does it boast a very wide, open stone gate?
Is it bullet-proof,
or with a monitoring satellite
and a thermal all-seeing eye
that are pinned to a crate?
Do security guards or robots
patrol your massive estate?
And do you at all feel safe?

What sort of noise disturbs your slumberous phase!
Do you sleep with one eye wide open
as birds do and other vigilant breeds?
Do you resort to pills that can keep you sedate,
or entrust your precious being to a nanny
who is past middle-age?
And do you at all contemplate getting betrayed?

Dr Susie Gharib is a graduate of the University of Strathclyde with a PhD on the work of D.H. Lawrence. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Green Hills Literary Lantern, A New Ulster, Crossways, The Curlew, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ink Pantry, Mad Swirl, Miller’s Pond Poetry Magazine, and Down in the Dirt.

Susie’s first book (adapted for film), Classic Adaptations, includes Charlotte Bronte’s Villette, Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

You can find more of Susie’s work here on Ink Pantry.

*
Hornbill, he is busy, too busy.
He doesn’t look at me.
What the hell is he doing from one branch to another
Ransacking the leaves like files.
Oops! He got something. Oh! he gobbled it.
Unperturbed by the din and the dark,
He just enjoys eating and eating.
Guttler!
*
Hey Gorg! Don’t kill me with this look.
I look and look at you
And you? Just fly off
Perch somewhere else
I love you, dove.
Tell me, you too are in love.
*
Does the teel know that she is cute?
Does the snake taste its poison?
Is the banyan tree bothered about its matted hair?
Where did the sparrow learn her song?
And why is this squirrel nibbling my poem?
*
Once upon a day, like any other days
I was reading poems, with beautiful passages, like most poems.
While I was about to fly on the wings of Poesy
I heard a cracking, a gentle, gingerly cracking.
I said, “Whose there?” and got no reply.
And then again begin the sounds of cracking
I rose and went out. I saw two doves eating crumbs.
Now, when the night removes its veil, and the sun slants its rays
At my house, not only doves but sparrows and squirrels crackle.
And I wonder how subtly they cracked my ego, my sorrow and my fear.
*
What if a cloud descends on you and takes you in its arms?
What if a centipede starts thinking about balancing
its legs instead of walking?
What if you hide yourself in the rose?
What if I become transparent like a river and flow everywhere?
What if I know what the trees are telling the wind?
What if you treasure the golden sunlight early in the morning?
What if you feel the green of the forest brighter than
Green notes?
What if you feel the wind, sing with birds, and enjoy as they do?

Running

Running a marathon, I never
Then? Life
I just entered for fun, ok.
Soon started running ahead of my successors
There came a waft of love, a fragrance of peace, a song of joy
But I ignored it for succeeding
When I reached there, I saw wounded, bleeding knees, sobbing voices,..
The hour grew late, and happiness left long ago
I forgot the names of friends and relations.
I forgot what I got.
Forgot that time is not for anyone.
I forgot the way to return and
I forgot to get the return ticket.

Pulkita Anand is an avid reader of poetry. Author of two children’s e-books, her recent eco-poetry collection is ‘we were not born to be erased’. Various publications include: Tint Journal, Origami Press, New Verse News, Green Verse: An anthology of poems for our planet (Saraband Publication), Ecological Citizen, Origami Press, Asiatic, Inanna Publication, Bronze Bird Books, SAGE Magazine, The Sunlight Press and elsewhere.

Bacteria

I’m watching you scratch your head with your nails,
Frantically writing down notes in your neatly organized notebook.

And at that moment
I realize
That we are characters in a movie.

A big bang,
A new history,
I emerge as a baby, fresh out of my mother’s womb.

I suddenly hear the jazz music in the background,
muffled by the sound of chatter;
I hear the syncopated rhythm,
             Improvised and irregular.

Then, tiny beads of water slip from your cup
And drop onto the table;
They spread,
like bacteria,

Just like how
Everything within the suffocating walls of this room –
You,
Me,
The notebook,
The music
The cup –
Multiplies &
Wakes me from my sleep.

Walking on White Snow

I’m scared to walk on white snow.
I’m afraid that I’ll make footsteps with my dirty shoes.
Touch what I should not touch –
take what has been taken from me for a long while.

I stand by my front door and wonder
how the snow maintained its beautiful, curvy figure
over the long, scary night,
how it never encountered the touch of a stranger who could
do things that he knew were just not right.

I don’t want to leave any marks on this trail
of white snow; I want to protect it
and ensure that it keeps its whiteness that
I so greatly miss, on some quiet night.

So, I’m scared to walk on white snow.
As much as I love a winter day, I shall stay in my house,
let the snow stay this way
& hope that it will stay this way for a long while.

A Bite

A natural extension of the hand,
sharp,
chopping, slicing, and dicing
slicing meat off the bone

The handle is hollow and filled with sand
You grab it, tight,
containing the silent ghost.

Then comes a plate.

A mosaic
chewy, bouncy and firm in the hot broth.
warm, earthy, and slightly citrusy

I meet
a magical bite,
a pop of unexpectedness –
clambake memories in one course

There is
a voice in the meal

A whisper that leaves
without saying goodbye.

Seungwoo Lee is a student in South Korea. He is an avid writer/reader who has a great interest in languages. His interest in poetry recently rekindled after attending a summer creative writing program in New York. In his freetime, he enjoys writing poems, listening to music, and daydreaming (…about literally anything) on his bed.

A blue butterfly

A blue butterfly
comes to rest on my brow,
without a key, without a knock,
it opens the door of the soul
and measures
the depths of your feeling
against the pending dawns,
when night
parts from the sun.
And you, the new moon,
your orbit drawing near,
are burned
in the invisible flame
of a world awakening.
Just a breath of you
remains inside me –
enough
for another world,
without the moon,
and the old sun.

Under the Umbrella

With my glasses on,
I mistake you for the fog.
You dissolve into the wind,
drifting through the rain.
I, intoxicated,
wander the streets beneath an umbrella,
hoping
to see you again.
You walk toward me,
and the umbrella shrinks,
just enough
for one body,
and one soul.
When you rest your head
on my shoulder,
colours of the rainbow
rise from your eyes.

Wearing your glasses,
I pass above the fog.
The clouds unravel
like skeins across the sky.
Beneath the umbrella’s shelter,
the world expands,
the world rejoices-

in the rain and the sunlight.

The Ladies Dressed Black and White

I saw a lady dressed in white,
on a grey day of late fall,
she seemed like an unintentional lost vision,
coming here just like an echo.

I saw a lady dressed in black,
on a scorching day in June,
it seemed like the shadow released a breeze,
and the soul was touched by its hand.

When the ladies in rainbow clothes appear to me,
the usual dissolves into the season’s canvas.
The mysterious ones, in black and white clothes,
stop us, and we reflect just like we do in front of a mirror.

Nikollë Loka was born in Sang of Mirdita on March 25th, 1960; graduated as a teacher at Luigj Gurakuqi University of Shkodra; Master’s degree in Pedagogy at the University of Tirana, Doctorate in History of Education at the University of Tirana. He worked as a teacher, principal in a high school and education inspector in the district of Mirdita, then a teacher in a high school in Tirana and a lecturer at Aleksandër Xhuvani University in Elbasan. Lives in Tirana. Author of nine poetic volumes in Albanian and three poetic volumes in Italian (two of which with co-authors); included in the anthology La Poesie contemporaine albanaise, L’Hartmattan publications, Paris 2024. In addition to Albanian, his poems have been published in Italian, English, French, German, Arabic, Romanian, Swedish and Mecedonian. Invited to television and radio shows dedicated to literature. Editor and reviewer of several literary works, mainly in poetry. Winner of several literary awards in the country and abroad. Member of several national and international literary associations. Ambassador of culture in the organization International Foundation Creativity Humanity (IFCH)-Morocco. Included in the Lexicon of Albanian writers 1501-2001, editions Faik Konica, Pristina 2003 and in the Encyclopedia of Italian language poets, Aletti Editore, Rome 2021, then in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mirdita, editions Emal, Tirana 2021.

You can find more of Nikollë’s work here on Ink Pantry.

A Boat’s Irritation

Sand and rocks irritate the boat’s hull
as it lies tied up on the beach.
Waves lap against the shore
like kisses on a lover’s neck.
Wind-blown sand against its planks
reminds the boat of water spraying
onto its flanks as it tacks across
a choppy lake like a roller coaster ride.
Torrential rain, floods, tsunamis
infiltrate dreams until a rock bulge
digs against wood anchored in sand.

Anchored to Water

The boat lies anchored to the water,
its reflection clings like a drowning
victim to her life jacket –
acceptance of fates connected
like a jigsaw puzzle piece
by piece upside down, right side up,
then sky or water expand
until the scene combines a whole
with the boat still anchored.

Day Trip

Sunrise emblazons inside
the grounded boat’s wheelhouse
as if the boat still sails
the blackened seas,
as if the captain still
pilots the boat toward
safe harbor on an opposite
shore…ashore, aground.

The boat light dims
to silhouette to background
to a sundial across the beach.

Pier Trail

Tied to the scrap-wood pier
tires bumper boats
anchored for nightfall.

The pier rolls out across
the lake water,
tows two boats
like milk cows following
a covered wagon
shadowing rutted paths
on the Oregon Trail.

The trail ripples out
in wind-blown dust
sweeping passage from view.

The pier and
tied-up boats lie
ashore in weeds
rocking them asleep
with whispered lullabies.

Boat Course

Two boats tied
at starting-block piers.
The lake reflection
stretches out a smooth course.
On shore spectator trees
applaud leaves.

A blue sky merges
with the blue lake
in a daily race
to the finish
disturbed by veeing wakes
slashing against the shore
counting laps
the two boats complete
in merry-go-round
destinations.

Diane Webster’s work has appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, New English Review, Studio One and other literary magazines. Micro-chaps were published by Origami Poetry Press in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Diane has been nominated for Best of the Net and a Pushcart. She was a featured writer in Macrame Literary Journal and WestWard Quarterly. Her website is: www.dianewebster.com

You can find more of Diane’s work here on Ink Pantry.