ABOUT COMEY

by Frederick Shiels

Distraction Accomplished by Pia Guerra at The Nib

we were never wrong, nor were we right, nor did we know.
El Jefe de 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has no doubts: October, 2016:
“It took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made
in light of the kind of opposition he had where
they’re trying to protect her from criminal prosecution,”
or—April, 2018, "not smart," "failure", "slimeball," "the worst
FBI director in history." And yet

Comey stresses:  "I don’t buy this stuff about
him being mentally incompetent or early stages of dementia.
He strikes me as a person of above average intelligence who’s tracking conversations."
in other words—"not mentally unfit to be president,
but morally so . . .  a stain,"
The Director-emeritus seems not to be vengeful
not concerned about the weather, the yellow showers,

Summed it up—to date—about his first (public) meeting with the Man,
"well coiffed," he said, "hands about average" (charitably)
"And so I’m walking forward thinking that, thinking:
“How could he think this is a good idea? That he’s going to try to hug me,
the guy that a whole lot of people think, although that’s not true,

but think I tried to get him elected president—
and did. Isn’t he master of television? This is disastrous.”—
and so it is.


Frederick Shiels is an aspiring poet and Prof. Emeritus of Politics and History at Mercy College. He has published in Avocet, Deep South Review, The Hudson River Anthology, TheNewVerse.News, and most recent book is Preventable Disasters.

THE SECOND BOMB

by Frederick Shiels 

Source: Yamahata photographs © Shogo Yamahata, The Day After the Nagasaki Bombing. The Japan Peace Museum via Morningside Center

Honorable Americans:
​there are not many of us left who were there,​
​to remind you that seventy August 9ths ago
you finished your war job
and 75,000 of our lives on green Kyushu island
three days and three mourning hours after killing even more--
Who knows how many?--
on big Honshu to the north, you ​well ​know ​the name,
Hiroshima, you teach it in your schools.
To be sure, we are linked with ​her​
​our  second, final​, high
superheated mushroom of death
​​Y​our Mr. Truman
didn’t give a speech about Us, we guess he just left
our boiling harbor, our children’s ashes
floating down
like leaves
for days,
to work things out
for themselves.​



Frederick Shiels teaches American foreign policy and history at Mercy College in New York. He has published in Sixfold, The New Verse News, The Hudson River Anthology, and elsewhere. He lived with his family on Kyushu Island, Japan, as a Fulbright Scholar, in 1985, the fortieth anniversary year of the bombing of Nagasaki, not far south. He is the author of a book of foreign policy case studies Preventable Disasters (Rowman & Littlefield) among others. 

GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN LOOMS UNLESS AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE CRIPPLED

by Frederick Shiels





Through mists of battle high on Capitol Hill,
a light emerges from Republican troops,
2014’s budget may be passed, government
Not shut down, with one small caveat:

“We’ll ‘Defund’ Obama-care and leave
the government to do its other work this next fiscal year,”
Healthcare held hostage, passage of this charade
has not a prayer, we know,

The Senate will not pass it,  if they do,
Obama’s veto pen comes crashing down
upon this hoax so patently designed
to waylay not the government this time,

But rather out the Senate Democrats who vote
to kill a bill that strangles the Affordable Care Act in its crib,
“Too clever by half” experts-- some Republican-- say
Washington Will shut down if this drama plays out,

Perhaps Lord Cantor and the Earl of Boehner forget
the lessons of 1995 and ’96 when,
Lord Gingrich took the hated Feds to the brink
to spite King William and then sank,

In 1996’s elections, the public, not amused
did vent its wrath upon the GOP “abused.”


Frederick Shiels has taught public policy and U.S. politics at Mercy and Baruch Colleges, and at Cornell (teaching assistant). He has published with New Verse News and is working on a book on Obama and America’s Progressive Future through his blog.

GUN RUNNERS

by Frederick Shiels

We blame the NRA and we are right
We blame the senators who promised and who fled
We blame those deaf to Gabby Giffords' words
We blame the treason to the Newtown dead,

Children who might have grown to shoot a gun
With 10, 20, 30-round clips at firing ranges
Or much more likely so our pollsters say
Joined generations in demanding changes,

We’re told that frontier heritage floods the veins
Of hunters bred from generations shooting game
To feed their families, or to settle scores, or
Amendment Two invoked to silence 'Shame'!

Cried out by families of the dead and maimed
And those who stand With them, asking why
Their Congress fears those background checks and more
The voters who will end their time upon the Hill,

The NRA ‘knows’ it’s people and not guns that kill
And more, that offense is the best defense
And so it falls to Bloomberg, you and me
To jettison sweet reason for sweet cash,

To target at election time not just
Those who caved to those who swore to stand
Against the firearms absolutists, but those
Who never gave a thought to voting Yes,

Yes to sane measures-- these must be made to sweat
Offense best defense indeed and yet,
At last only more educated wrath will win
Souls at the polls to redefine what’s Sin.

Sin is allowing the likes of Wayne Pierre
To frame the debate year after year after year.


Frederick Shiels is an aspiring poet and Prof. Emeritus of Politics and History at Mercy College. A few of his longtime friends are Second Amendment nuts.