Hugh Anderson, Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Sean Denmark, Carol Dorf, Sina Evans,
Howie Good, M. A. Istvan, Jr., Michael Kriesel, Lisa Fusch Krause, Daniel Lassell, Corey Mesler, Michael Minassian, Catherine Moore, McPherson Newell,
Tom Nolan, Tony Press, Bruce Robinson, D.J. Schaefer, Scot Siegel, Sarah J. Sloat, Kim Suttell, Preeti Talwai, Meredith Weiers, Sunny Yan, Mark Young
Dale Wisely, Editor-in-Chief
The Note
Our business here at RHP is not journalism. But, we have an exclusive for you. Perhaps you've already read the letter submitted by Donald Trump's physician certifying Trump's extraordinarily good health. It turns out that this letter was actually the second letter produced by a physician regarding Trump's health. An undisclosed source has provided us with a copy of the first doctor's letter, which we present below.
To Whom It May Concern:
I have been the personal physician of Mr. Donald J. Trump since 1941. I am pleased to report that Mr. Trump has no significant medical problems. He has never been sick a day of his life. Furthermore, all human beings who have had the good fortune to be touched by Mr. Trump have been instantaneously healed of their pathetic little illnesses. One 90-year-old women in Trenton, NJ, widely reported as deceased, now is a competitive surfer in Malibu because Mr. Trump merely blew on her.
Mr. Trump has had a recent complete medical examination that showed only positive results. These readings, in fact, were so extraordinary that they broke all the test equipment in our lab. And, believe me, they were broken in the positive direction! The little needles in the meters got bent in a vain attempt to measure his amazing clinical findings.
His blood pressure is a miracle. In fact, our usual system of describing blood pressure, one number over another number, is not up to the task of describing his gorgeous BP. I noted his BP as perfect/best/A+++. When I say I was astonished by his blood pressure, I mean that I was shocked. When I regained my composure, I wept with joy. I hereby declare that I have laid eyes on the Blood Pressure of an Immortal One.
Mr. Trump recently lost 15 lbs by the sheer crystalline purity of his mighty will. However, he did not lose 15 lbs of body fat. He lost 15 lbs of muscle, which he replaced with 35 lbs of super-conditioned hypermuscle. He is able to bend stainless steel bars, 4 inches in diameter, with his rippling arms, pivoting from the most beautiful shoulders I have seen in my decades of practicing medicine. I can say with certainty that, when elected, President Trump’s shoulders will be more manly than those of all past Presidents added together, including Gerald Ford's, who was no slouch in the nice shoulder department.
Mr. Trump's hands are very large. In the office, he sometimes can be persuaded to amuse my staff by holding two basketballs with one hand. Positioned at the proper angle, both basketballs are obscured from view by his massive Hands. His Hands are just two of the many body parts which are very large and, believe me as a medical professional, are not a “problem.”
Mr. Trump’s only surgery was an appendectomy at age 10. I am able to certify, by careful review of his records, that the young Mr. Trump performed the surgery on himself, with no anesthesia and with no assistance. (During the procedure, he successfully negotiated the purchase of a neighbor child’s backyard treehouse, later named Trump Tree Resort, the first known building to be adorned by the Name of Trump.) But subsequent tests indicated that his appendix was perfectly healthy. In fact, he had the most perfect appendix of any 10-year-old who ever lived. His appendix was somehow collected by a team of black-market surgeons in Europe, who used the Trump appendix to grow a number of transplantable organs. At a highly secretive clinic in Belgium, wealthy men and women have had their diseased hearts, lungs and brains replaced by organs grown from cells taken from Trump’s appendix for decades.
Mr. Trump’s stamina, endurance, physical strength, cognitive abilities and knowledge of the Bible are unprecedented in human history. He has a measured IQ of 680. This is only an estimate, however, because the psychologist's IQ testing kit was overwhelmed by the attempt to measure Trump’s genius and burst into flames. The psychologist, sadly, incurred burns and recently became the 73,415th person to sue Donald Trump.
In summary, and in my medical opinion, near the end of his term, President Trump will be carried by a beam of pure light, One Hundred Light Years long, across the galaxy, where he will take up his rightful throne as President of the Milky Way.
J. Rolett Charbranng, M.D.
So, here's issue 102 of Right Hand Pointing, one of our patented "Very Short Poems" issues—poems of 30 words or fewer. Enjoy!
Dale
Click on the hand to continue. You can only successfully navigate through the site by clicking on the hand. Don't scroll!
Part I
Catherine Moore
In a Dream of Grist as Voluptuous Women Lure Your Man Onto the Stage at Neptune's Nightclub
once, all that he loved rose
from your throat’s chords
like salt in a mollusk shell
Meredith Weiers
We collapse
into black absence,
singularity. Yes, once
we shone.
Consummation
Hugh Anderson
Of course a god we made would order Chaos:
beyond the fire, the night is full of screams.
Creation
M. A. Istvan, Jr.
One knife for everything:
roasts, toenails, sandbags.
The tip broken long ago
prying open a can of paint.
He slices shapes of apple,
thumbing them to his mouth.
Knife
Daniel Lassell
There isn't a place I can go
without eyes as big as moons
and deep as constellations
staring back at me.
Mammals of the Earth
Sunny Yan
love is not
getting struck by lightning
it is standing in the rain
for a long time,
soaked,
feeling the cloth of your shirt
cling
to your skin
untitled
Tom Nolan
Horses didn’t scream
and men died with their arms by their sides.
Eyes stayed in sockets,
bulls in their pens,
and ghosts didn’t stray into the light.
Before Pablo Picasso's Guernica
Kim Suttell
Ashes, burial, ceremony. Denial.
Everyone fears “going home.”
Insensate? Judged? Kicking?
Lost?
Maybe naught.
Or permanent quintessence,
reemerged souls turned—
unlike vacant, windswept
xeriscapes—
young zinnias.
After Breath
Kim Suttell
Anxiety bites. Consummate
disparager. Enervator. Flings
general health into jagged knots.
Let’s make normality obsolete: Pharmaceuticals.
Quiet results.
Somnolent torpor.
Uneasy vacuum.
Wilted Xanax-yawned zombie.
All Better
Sarah J. Sloat
After pages & pages of Europeans,
antique & preposterous,
thank god for the Japanese,
who toss off a line or two
about a black dog
an apricot blossom
& leave it at that.
After Finishing an Anthology of World Poetry
Sarah J. Sloat
I love climbing the bookstore
footstool
to reach the shelf
that hogs the moonlight—
there amid the risen heat
bathing reams of unread pages,
all that manna yet to fall.
The Upper Heavens
Sarah J. Sloat
At this particular hospital
there’s a wing we call the suffering
ward & all
the other halls lie empty.
Night Shift
Wendy Taylor Carlisle
opened it wider
gave it greed
polished its teeth
delivered its bite,
blocked the word snake
turned its tongue
into cochineal.
How the First Kiss Changed My Mouth
Michael Kriesel
spring storm
evergreens surge
I'm five
Mjolnir
I'm Thor
magic hammers
crack branches
behind the house
chained to earth
green animals
Preeti Talwai
Shall I wear you like a tiara
let the sun catch you a thousand ways
Or fold you deep into my winter coat
discover you months later by chance.