An inflamed, flaking scrotum

sags from Donald Trump’s chin.

A nine-volt alkaline battery froths within.

The aging battery suffers from self-discharge.

Pressure builds up, trying the case's integrity,

testing the strength of the steel seals. Potassium hydroxide,

known as caustic potash, conductor of the battery's power,

grows weak, leaks when the pressure becomes too much.

Corrosive white crystalline growths spread

across the battery's lusterless surface,

searing the inner-skin of Trump’s chin wonder.

The source of his depraved miracle leaves sores,

constant burning skin, the tips of fretful nerves

grown used to the offense. The battery feeds,

through a golden wire, Trump's mesolimbic

pathway, the mental reward circuit, stoking it

through fading memories of a full charge.

Resentment of lost power is a feeling like power,

but it’s not power, not yet.

The scrotum’s constant inner burning

causes its frayed hairs to smoke like incense,

drawing his people in to be touched

by his miracle of reclamation.

They come ruptured, variously cracked.

Caustic potash has busted through their skin

and white rashes spread from the breakages.

They've gathered here today to proclaim

the sacredness of their scars, the mystery

of their faith in the coming restoration.

Cuts across their calves and their soft belly skin.

These chosen profess: a nation’s potential energy,

all its past glories, has been ripped out of them.

It shall come again, this Earth to become a heaven.

They come picking at the half-scarred-over ruptures

and bleeding alabaster rashes Trump speaks into—

intercoms to the soul.

The sermon ends and the whole swelled crowd

forms a line to file into him. One by one,

they'll accept Trump’s sacrament.



They wait hours, their scars whitening

with each step towards his center.

Each will recieve a vision, a Trump production,

a co-direction between he and them, themselves

the whole rapt audience and the hero.



So much taken away. Each loss an isolated greatness

denied. Each retribution different. Huge special effects.

Trump cameos frequent. He’s very well liked.

The first man in line steps up, removes his hat.

A white rash pulses across his forehead

from a mounded crack on his receding hairline.

He leans forward, presenting to Trump his rupture.

Trump lifts his head high and lays

the scaled scrotum upon the rupture.

The white mound hisses and sizzles.

Trump does not heal him. He increases

both their pains. The whole rash burns,

the scrotum burns inside and out.

Trump’s eyes grow wide, go all milk-white.

His Devotee closes his eyes, grits his teath.

Then Trump stiffens, stills. His hair springs straight up,

vibrates, making a faint high-C note that fills the air.

Then the pain stops—they are joined.

Trump’s miracle enters him, igniting

a personal vision of greatness regained—

jets flying over red and white bars,

rockets that explode into stars,

eagles soaring, gas pouring—what we are:

a middle linebacker, his head like a battering ram,

Seal Team 6, dealing death to a Saudi imam,

a Hummer crushing a Prius in a traffic jam.

Trump in priestly robes and a general's hat,

pimp-smacks the world from round back to flat.

Weak hippies wince, don't know how to react.

He proclaims us rulers of seas, protectors of good,

we're in charge, drop a nuke? Don’t doubt he would.

For us to have all this, our God died up on that wood,

but we lost that strength, brought down by our weak

who tricked us into thinking we had to let them speak.

Bogged down in their talking, grew soft like baby cheeks.

With Trump we rise again to face the crisis

of Obama's climate science-funded alliance with Isis.

Down with crazy Bernie and crooked Hillary, the heartless,

screw Marco, screw Jeb, Ted Cruz is double-foreign,

a Cuban-Canuck betting on lame dog-whistle chagrin,

teamed with Carly, a two, how ugly? Can’t begin…

Let this hot scene burn on the screen of your mind,

fade to a cool blue light-show of paradise defined,

won’t ever stop digging Trump’s dope ego sublime.

Trump lifts his chin from the man’s forehead

and rocks him a step back. The man’s rupture smokes

like an ashtray holding three lit cigarettes.

He hops off, totally pumped, screaming “Rock! Shit!”

on repeat.

The next in line is an older woman, alarmed

at the prior man’s violence but trusting

her vision will align with her more gentle nature.

She sits, hikes her dress to show the rupture on her inner-knee.

Trump’s handlers hold her leg up as he kneels down

on a red velvet footstool and maneuvers his chin ballsack

onto the rupture. She tilts her chin up and closes her eyes.

He has to smush his face on her thigh to get it in there

and when he does Trump’s top hair lifts up,

just two tentative inches, and flutters

as if in a steady breeze off the sea. Strings

rise softly in her mind. For her the joining is cool air

over ice-cold water. A guitar comes in like a warm blanket.

An adaptation of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA”

Trump’s returned all the factories, now they’re where they should be.

He walled in the thieving Mexicans, now of their filth we’re free.

If you’re a liberal protester, then you’ve been made to pay.

He sent you to Guantanamo to make you bless the U.S.A.

Trump released the carpet bombs, he let the nukes go free.

Watch out in the Middle East! You’re gonna pay your fee.

He’s rid our home of enemies, restored our native way.

He’s banished all the PC speech, freedom for the U.S.A.!

From the blondes of Minnesota, to the toughs of Tennessee,

all the true of Texas, great sea to best sea,

from Detroit down to Houston, and New York to LA,

pride’s enforced in each American heart,

don’t be weak--stand and say:

Trump's made our women proper now, returned their mystery.

He's hid disgusting menstruation, it makes a ten a three.

The poor can’t take our country now, not the blacks not the gays.

We can live our life again, because you know we earned our way.

We’re proud to be from America, where those like us are free.

Praise all the poor troops who died, never pointlessly.

We have restored the gloried past, put our greatness on display.

And now again we love this land, since Trump blessed the U.S.A.!!!!

He rises slowly, short of breath. She stands,

stumbles back over the chair, then rushes to him,

falling to her knees on his footstool. Trump’s

bodyguards move in but he stops them.

Through her tears she watches a caustic tear roll down

a reddish rut well-worn into Trump’s right cheek.

She rises, face expressionless, calm. Trump nods

to her and she walks off, wary, like walking’s new,

repeating "those like us, those like us" in a whisper.

The next in line steps up. His rupture

is in his mouth, like a huge white coldsore

on his inside cheek. Trump turns to face him, alert.

His chin ballsack does a little excited wiggle.

The man walks forward, but Trump stops him, turns

to address the gathered crowd.

He intones, “behold, dear viewers, you’re not alone.

Raise your eyes. Watch my dreams and they are yours.”

Trump turns back, takes the man’s hand, pulls him in,

spins him around slowly and then yanks him back

and holds him steady at eye level. Trump nods

and the man lowers his head, twisting his face upward,

and opens his mouth wide like a little baby bird.

