On the Road to Guillotineland

By John Hulse

An astonishing collection of poems from John Hulse. His award winning poetry and stories touch on subjects of social justice, religion and spirituality, politics and humor. The book was written to try and raise money and awareness for veterans causes. Proceeds from the book will be directed towards veterans organizations.

A magisterial compilation. A combination of Bukowski’s Last Night of the Earth
and Orwell’s 1984. —Susan Hampton
An emotional rollercoaster. Soon to be a cult classic. —Kristina Betts
A poet that belongs with the Masters. —Jennifer Brewster

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jan 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781698705613

John Hulse

John Hulse is a poet, artist, and filmmaker from Anderson, Indiana. He is the author of more than a dozen books and his work has won awards including the International Poet of Merit Award and the Shakespeare Trophy of Excellence and is on the ACC Wall of Honor. Mr. Hulse has also worked as a book editor for dozens of universities and publishing companies all over the world.

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Copyright 2021 John Hulse.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-6987-0562-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6987-0561-3 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Trafford rev. 01/28/2021

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CONTENTS

On The Back of A Dollar

Hopeful Romantic

The Joke I Wrote for David Letterman

PTSD #34

President If Only

The Pollster

That’s One Moist Bird

Gallows of My Fear

The Story I Wrote that Got My Phone Tapped by The NSA

Poems Written on Rooftops on What Might Just Be My Last Day Here on This Earth

Sometimes The Dumbest Things

To The Lost Volume of Poetry, Part 1

The Ballad of Thomas Granger

September 1, 1939

Stop, Before It’s Too Late

That’s How Bad It Is (July 2005)

Out of The Mouth of Babes #7

Emergency Room, September 1986

July 13, 7:41am

One Small Defect

Now, That’s A Leg Up

You Just Made A Big One, Adolph

The Oh So Rare, Triple Fubar!

That’s How Bad It Is (September 2005)

Life Lesson #10

New Handle

Baskets

#Corporatemediatoiletflush

To The Poems That I Wrote on Electric Typewriters All Over The World

Now That’s A Connection

Strawberry Explanation

One of The Nicest Things Anyone has Ever Said to Me

From Bastogne to Here

Maybe The Fifth Time Will Be A Charm

The No Suspense is Killing Me

That’s How Bad It Is (August 2005)

It’s Getting More and More Likely That It’s Coming To A Town Near You

Big Dog vs Little Dog

Free Jack Terrier with Papers

MRE

Mom’s Water Trick

That’s How Bad It Is (March 2005)

Fair Shake

The Big Lie I Told To A Little Boy

I Hope I Know You My Whole Life

One Family’s Story

Terrible at The Highest Level

In The Navy

For One of My Friends in The FBI (for A. M.)

That’s How Bad It Is (April 2005)

Cinderella Hellraiser

The Last Hour on Memory Lane

The Bush Economy, Part II (Mary Jane Piss in Your Face Cheese Time)

Electoral College Declares The Cleveland Indians are The Winners of The World Series

Anti-Gun Ad

Here I’m Alive (And Here I’m Dead)

So Far Not So Good?

Taking No Chances

Why Am I Hungry?

Channel Surfing The News (June 18, 09)

In The Beginning #2

I Fed Her Her Last Meal

No Thank You

That’s How Bad It Is (June 2005)

I Saw A Photograph of A 70 Year Old Vietnamese Grandmother

PTSD (October 14)

PTSD (I don’t know what day it is)

The First Time Someone Tried To Take My Life with A Gun I was Thirteen Years Old

My Father Never Gave Me A Piece of Bad Advice

Pointing Their Slings and Arrows Right Between My Eyes

She Said She Had Never Been So Insulted in Her Life

April 4, 2016

Telegraph Ave.

Do It Till You’re Satisfied

Yul Brenner Would Have Been Proud!

Dinner with Sarah

An American with A Disability

Starvation 1986

All Over Again

Recount Your Blessings

True Greatness

To The Things I Have Learned from Great Men (in progress..)

The Best and The Worst Job I Ever Had

Traumatic Brain Injury Blues

Poetry

My Two Saint Bernard Stories

I Hope They Know How Sorry I Am

That’s How Bad It Is (May 2005)

What I’m Doing Is Just All Wrong

The Bush Economy

Working Poor #47

Eschew Obfuscation

Such Is Life

It Could Be

Conk Shell

Not Sure About The Science Behind That Statement

Untitled (June 2010)

But It’s The Thought That Counts

April 2019

98 Pairs of BooBies

P Thing

Reagan

What Would You Do?

For Dorothy Parker

Dead Sea Navigator (for Richard)

You See, There Really is A God

Early Morning Hallucination

O’Henry and Me

You’ve Got It Bad

Never?

Video Playback #7

She May Be Right

Toothpaste

Irony

Burning Down The Cinema That Showed A Movie You Hated

8/23/94

Thank You, Honey

Cherries

Hungry Erection

She Looks Like She’s Made of Wax

Thought in The Shower

God Bless You, My Child

Subliminal Ecstasy

I Wish I Had Said That

The Vampire Army Has Arisen

The First Dilemma of The Day

Oakland, CA 1989, Anderson, IN 2009

A.G.

9/11

Tokyo Love Story #7

This One Was Going To Leave A Mark

Beautiful Paul

Sister’s Memory of An Old Girlfriend

What I Thought She Said

Tip of The Day

DNC Blues #4

Soap Opera Poem (November 23, 2001)

The Poems That I Have To Write for Joni

Haikus

Dedication

For my father and mother, family, and my friends,

like Jack who has on his resume driving a jeep behind enemy lines

to rescue a wounded soldier during the Battle of the Bulge,

and my grandfather, a navy man,  who volunteered for duty

the day after Pearl Harbor,

and my uncle Gerald and his flying 83 combat missions in World War II,

and my uncle David’s years in Vietnam,

and my brother’s 25 years in the service,

and to the more than 5,000 U.S. soldiers who have sacrificed

everything in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Casualties, 32,201 wounded. 103,792 diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 253,330 service members were diagnosed with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), 1000 service members received wounds that required amputations. And one million Iraqi civilians caught in the crossfire.

On The Back of A Dollar

got a cheeseburger.

paid.

got the change,

and on the back

of one of the dollars

returned to me

was written,

"whoever finds this dollar

will be the first one

to witness

The Rapture."

but it could have said

something else?

the handwriting

was terrible.

Hopeful Romantic

He used to

put fresh

pillowcases

on a large

bible

inside his

closet

hoping that

when he

used them

heaven

would bless

his dreams.

The Joke I Wrote for David Letterman

When Mark MacQuire

broke Roger Maris’

home run record,

President Clinton called

Mr. MacQuire

to congratulate him

on his remarkable

achievement.

During the call,

Hillary interrupted

their conversation.

It seems Hillary

had a small favor

to ask of the new

Home Run King.

She wanted

to know

if she could

borrow

his bat!

PTSD #34

Remembering the gunshots,

that almost blew my head

clean off its shoulders.

In the shower the spell

came over me.

My terror trance had

begun again.

Back and forth,

God knows how long.

Here I’m alive.

Here I’m dead.

Step to the left,

step to the right.

I finally snapped out

of it,

when the water became

unbearably cold.

I looked down

at my skin,

it looked almost blue.

God, how long has this

been going on?

As my fog and my terror

subsided…

wait, it’s coming back again.

Was it a noise? a smell?

my heart was pounding again.

back and forth,

back and forth.

Here I’m dead.

Here I’m alive.

Forty years later,

I haven’t forgotten.

And I am sure

I never will.

President If Only

If only, Obama had cleaned up Flint water?

If only, he would have done something

to make sure that 95% of the wealth

generated in his 8 years in office didn’t go

right into the pockets of the top 1%?

If only, he would have intervened

so Native Americans at DAPL

would not have been shot to pieces,

or protected the protestors

at Occupy Wall Street?

If only, he wouldn’t have pardoned

the Wall Street criminals then taken

400K a speech from the same criminals

once he left office?

If only, he had passed Medicare4All

when they had a majority in the senate?

50,000 Americans, including thousands

of children, die every year from

the lack of medical care.

If only, he hadn’t kicked 5 million

American families (including children)

out of their homes during the mortgage crisis,

Trump would have LOST in a landslide?

If only, when those same families

no longer had a roof over their heads,

and when they were at their

most desperate, he hadn’t cut back

on their ability to afford food

by cutting money for food stamps?