Project 2025, The Transition
To Cruelty and Corruption
“I know nothing about Project 2025,
I have no idea who is behind it.”
Trump’s name is mentioned 312 times
In Project 2025.
Project 2025,
A 922-page plan,
Created by the conservative
Heritage Foundation think tank,
As an authoritarian playbook,
Based on loyalty tests
For Federal employees,
Rollbacks on civil liberties
And progressive policies,
Threatening First Amendment rights,
Suppressing dissent,
Targeting protesters and journalists,
Censoring academic freedom of speech,
Dismantling checks and balances,
Advocating deregulation
Favoring corporations,
Cutting social programs,
Gutting Medicaid and Medicare,
Purging left-leaning officials,
Modifying immigration policies
To include mass deportations and
Birthright citizenship,
Forges a radical departure
From a Constitutional democracy
Led by a narcissistic convicted felon,
Indicted on thirty-four counts
For falsifying business records,
Sitting arrogantly in the Oval Office,
Signing Executive Orders
As if they were decrees
Signed by a callous king,
Drunk on dictatorial power.
Did I Love Well?
Title from A Path With Heart
Jack Kornfield
An elderly man in his mid-80s,
Transitioning from life to death,
Having steadily lost his will to live,
Gives in and lets go
Like a rock climber
Barely hanging onto a steep cliff
By his fingertips.
For support, he entrusts ChatGPT
To provide guidance,
To give him life advice,
To make daily decisions.
He’s contacted his remaining family member,
A Catholic priest, a behavioral therapist, and a psychic.
He reads Thomas Berry, Thomas Merton, Germain Grisez
To ease his doubts and soften his suffering.
ChatGPT suggests he respond to three existential questions:
1. What gave your life meaning?
2. What are you proud of?
3. What do you want others to know?
Now, finding the answers lay within,
Without a fight, peaceably prepared to die,
He embarks on his path to everlasting life.
Victor Henry's poetry and prose poems have appeared in small press magazines, anthologies, and e-zines, such as Slipstream; The Paterson Literary Review; Nobody Gets Off The Bus: The Viet Nam Generation Big Book; Vietnam War Poetry; The Homestead Review; Red River Review; The Monterey Poetry Review; The Porter Gulch Review; The Five-Two; Dead Snakes; and Misfitmagazine, among others. His book of Vietnam poetry, What They Wanted, was published by Future Cycle Press.
To Cruelty and Corruption
“I know nothing about Project 2025,
I have no idea who is behind it.”
Trump’s name is mentioned 312 times
In Project 2025.
Project 2025,
A 922-page plan,
Created by the conservative
Heritage Foundation think tank,
As an authoritarian playbook,
Based on loyalty tests
For Federal employees,
Rollbacks on civil liberties
And progressive policies,
Threatening First Amendment rights,
Suppressing dissent,
Targeting protesters and journalists,
Censoring academic freedom of speech,
Dismantling checks and balances,
Advocating deregulation
Favoring corporations,
Cutting social programs,
Gutting Medicaid and Medicare,
Purging left-leaning officials,
Modifying immigration policies
To include mass deportations and
Birthright citizenship,
Forges a radical departure
From a Constitutional democracy
Led by a narcissistic convicted felon,
Indicted on thirty-four counts
For falsifying business records,
Sitting arrogantly in the Oval Office,
Signing Executive Orders
As if they were decrees
Signed by a callous king,
Drunk on dictatorial power.
Did I Love Well?
Title from A Path With Heart
Jack Kornfield
An elderly man in his mid-80s,
Transitioning from life to death,
Having steadily lost his will to live,
Gives in and lets go
Like a rock climber
Barely hanging onto a steep cliff
By his fingertips.
For support, he entrusts ChatGPT
To provide guidance,
To give him life advice,
To make daily decisions.
He’s contacted his remaining family member,
A Catholic priest, a behavioral therapist, and a psychic.
He reads Thomas Berry, Thomas Merton, Germain Grisez
To ease his doubts and soften his suffering.
ChatGPT suggests he respond to three existential questions:
1. What gave your life meaning?
2. What are you proud of?
3. What do you want others to know?
Now, finding the answers lay within,
Without a fight, peaceably prepared to die,
He embarks on his path to everlasting life.
Victor Henry's poetry and prose poems have appeared in small press magazines, anthologies, and e-zines, such as Slipstream; The Paterson Literary Review; Nobody Gets Off The Bus: The Viet Nam Generation Big Book; Vietnam War Poetry; The Homestead Review; Red River Review; The Monterey Poetry Review; The Porter Gulch Review; The Five-Two; Dead Snakes; and Misfitmagazine, among others. His book of Vietnam poetry, What They Wanted, was published by Future Cycle Press.
