symbiosis

sophisticated parasites have learned
to  lull their hosts' immune systems to sleep
so Crohn's just kills those who  have been dewormed
although some macro gut-flora comes cheap
and Raytheon could play a wholesome role
not lobby our Department of Defense
devouring all our nation's budget whole
for weapons systems that make no damned sense
too virulent a pest wipes out its host
and so expires itself for want of bread
when all its prey have given up the ghost
the pathogen is just as surely dead
cooperation gets forged in the fray
when those who played too rough get swept away

no mas

George W. established a low bar
for intellect to be the president
not only are his heirs below the par
they're anti-intellectually bent
in retrospect, we started with great flare
our Founding Fathers enlightened their age
but now one votes on a candidate's hair
as if that were his merit's truest gauge
Jeb's team of handlers thought they'd found a groove
but now it seems it's more a dead-end rut
exhausting to have to make his lips move
by reaching an arm upwards through his butt
before we mine the Bush vein for another
you'd have to prove Jeb's less dumb than his brother

Uurp

methanogens take out low-valent trash
'cause hydrogen could not just be left free
formed in the rumen's anaerobic mash
reduced to claim a bit of energy
so H2 gets combined with CO2
and eructated to our atmosphere
and much the same takes place in kangaroos
although they vent it through their derrieres
as IR's blocked but sunlight still pours in
our post-industrial heirs bear the cost
two hundred years' coalfires left them our sins
and what had been an Eden has been lost
until it's gone, too few know a thing's worth
just such a wreck was once our mother, Earth

vayechi

embittered Jacob died beside the Nile
his stolen blessing having come to naught
instead of bounty to end in exile
a bitter joke that bowl of pottage bought
to bless the pharaoh upends on its head
the benedictions Yitzhak laid on him
his life unfurled far from what his father said
when Jacob's weren't the eyes that were dim
the famine long ago had run its course
but homeward trek each day still seemed too much
to overcome dead Rachel's binding force
surviving only in Yosef's hands' touch
at last, he blessed two sons instead of one
redressing what Yitzhak had blindly done

decriminalizing torture

"we tortured some folks", even he concedes
but no investigation then ensues
'cause maybe that all happened overseas
and some did what they thought they ought to do
but what's a law if no one prosecutes
and where's the crime if no one seems to care
if fingernails were pulled out by the roots
or if detainees died in cold cells, bare
a vapid phrase "to look forward, not back"
casts off what laws and due process made fast
one might as well give all DAs the sack
'cause evidence is always in the past
'til one's convicted, mark this "incomplete"
and we should brace for AbuGhraib repeats

blind watchmaker

Charles Darwin challenged Plato's somber rule
that ev'ry pathway forward must slope down
a hundred generations had been fooled
but entropy sets only global bounds
still order can be increased in one spot
externalizing costs to somewhere far
like life emerging on our home blue dot
remotely powered by our fusing star
no Ideal Plan is needed for design
of organisms each fit to its role
selecting random changes over time
dispenses with Creator and with Soul
for atheists, Charles rose to patron saint
who frees us from a meddling god-who-ain't

urp

methanogens detox ungulates' gut
by stripping hydrogen out of the chyme
that forms when fermentation's firmly shut
from oxygen (if only for a time)

what's once produced is belched into the air
to trap IR 'though UV shines right through
a threat to which we're slow to grow aware
as we poach in our man-made greenhouse stew

a million years of symbiotic bliss
recycling cellulose into prime meat
could make a sterile Venus out of this
blue planet as it traps more of our heat

our steak in worlds to come's ever more dear
if we must buy it with our atmosphere

engage!

the unengaged fill Dante's canto two
who thought they never had to pick a side
re-re-rethinking what they ought to do
left all undone until the day they died
they saw too clearly each candidate's flaws
to ever get behind with all their heart
a real campaign however just the cause
until the perfect One they stood apart
low voter turnout empowers the Few
far past what's due their meager One Percent
when "We the People" rests on me and you
to body forth what Founding Fathers meant
if we're too coy to give Bernie this dance
democracy won't get a second chance

memories

"recovered memories" have undone lives
as if at thirty, one can really know
what had transpired when she was six or five
or time lends weight to what's still child's say-so
uncertainty inheres in all we sense
and passing years just add more cause for doubt
what's clear in one ear goes corrupted thence
a changeling by the time that it comes out
"so what is 'Justice'?" Pilate washed his hands
and turned the disputation to his peers
a petty jury or a jury grand
can find in testimony what's not there
strict judgement without mercy damns us all
by trusting witnesses coached to recall

Fidelista

Battista exiled Rubio's young dad
who fought to make Fidel the president
abandoning the bourgeois life he'd had
to raise a family in a tenement
so Marco got the chance to got to school
with scions of the car-dealership class
and got a notion he'd prefer to rule
and give his father's justice cause a pass
unhappy with his old man's Leftist creed
the senator betrayed him in the night
and with his ev'ry utterance and deed
associates their name with the far Right
if he's the best the GOP has got
despite the pundits, Sanders' stock is hot

inside track

the senator from WallStreet counts her friends
and tallies votes each one can keep in line
each buddy weighed as means and not as ends
propelling her across the finish line
each union boss or mayor's worth his weight
in gold if he can bring minions on board
fat donor lists can always buy a date
with notable exception for Rob Ford
the common man's left standing at the door
while deals are cut above his unheard head
by those whose checkbooks pump the campaign more
and bundlers who turn out the voting dead
real change can't come from Wasserman's machine
vote Sanders if you want Washington clean!

nativity

past Winter solstice comes the natal day
when commerce pauses, and the hearthfires glow
and kindred gather whereever they've strayed
and no on has an urgent place to go
we  celebrate the birthday of a son
defying length'ning shadows of the Dark
and heap our aspirations on the One
who in maturity will leave his mark
the interim lapsed in obscurity
careers embarked but eftsoon laid aside
the tale resumes when he's near thirty-three
and neighbors wonder if he'll take a bride
just when the dwindling days had seemed to stall
sir Isaac Newton cast light on us all

something's rotten

the Muse sings darkly of the rise of Trump
whose rhetoric empoisons ev'ry well
in language you'd hear at the city dump
if you lived in the neighborhood of Hell
the Trumpen proletariat applaud
wild accusations against immigrants
and grow irate when shown their man's a fraud
who can't tell Rembrandt's oils from Warhol's prints
globalization's hell on unskilled jobs
and victimhood appeals to those displaced
'til someone profits from riding the mobs
an opportunity too rich to waste
new fascist movements spawn in every crash
as sure as maggots in the Summer trash

backlash

the ArabSpring proposed to liberate
a free Islam for a new, freer age
beyond the tyrants' politics of hate
 religion full of love, and not of rage
IslamicState sprang up as from the sand
opposed to all hints of modernities
afraid lest wives and daughters understand
their place need not be always on their knees
uneducated men perceived the threat
as work is less about one's strength of arm
smart women won't accept their fates are set
since they can run a business or the farm
mechanization overturned their worlds
contributing to ISIL's war on girls

massacre of innocents

new Herod terrorizes the Levant
as if each innocent wanted him dead
Damascus labors to give news his slant
but most atrocities are on his head
IslamicState may dominate the press
but their death-toll's a trifle to the State's
a hundred factions battle for this mess
while millions more attempt to emigrate
the peoplehood of Syria's unclear
imperial vestige of Picot-Sykes
and civil war will drag on many years
until Assad's head's posted on a pike
it's rare one individual's to blame
for so much horror wrought in Assad's name

extrajudicial II

Obama's DoJ laid out the case
for murder--if not in the first degree--
of citizens, if they're of the wrong race
or thought that noxious free speech should be free
no due process of law need interfere
in Yemen, where we paid the president
to claim he told the pilots when and where
and why the HellFire missiles should be spent
now each of us pretends to see a line
that limits the Executive's long arm
and why our loved ones will somehow be fine
while only malefactors come to harm
Anwar Awlaki's face was not quite white
so who should he deserve a human's rights?

Industrial revolution

the ArabSpring proposed to liberate
a free Islam for a new, freer age
beyond the tyrants' politics of hate
religion full of love, and not of rage
Islamic State sprang up as from the sand
opposed to all  hints of modernity
afraid lest wives and daughters understand
their place need not be always on their knees
uneducated men perceived the threat
as work was less about one's strength of arm
smart women won't accept their fates as set
since they can run a business or the farm
mechanization over-turned their worlds
contributing to ISIL's war on girls

immortality

mortality fell hard on Gilgamesh
as maggots ate what had been his best friend
to contemplate the fated ways that flesh
of king or peon must go in the end
his vast vitality could not pin Death
nor even throw her little sister Sleep
as each year ticked away towards his last breath
tomorrows with their petty paces creep
his Enkidu would never stoop with age
forever frozen memories of youth
unfaded like an old papyrus page
persist within his heart of hearts as truth
no strength, no monuments, no walls are sure
and nought but genes and epic verse endure

aesthetics II

the stuff a science studies is out there
beyond what strict deduction lets us know
and colleagues with whom we would like to share
may not exist except that we think so
hypotheses must be built in my mind
external prompts can just hint at the way
in all the Babel I still have to find
what's right when I'm told  both 'A' and 'not A'
beyond "I am" uncertainty's the cost
our arguments are never set and hard
without epistemology we're lost
our stoutest edifice a house of cards
aesthetics are the only metric left
when all that's sensible leaves us bereft

aesthetics

the stuff a science studies is out there
beyond what strict deduction lets us know
and colleagues with whom we would like to share
may only exist in that we think so
hypotheses must be built in my mind
external prompts can just hint at the way
in all the Babel I still have to find
what's right when it says both 'A' and 'not A'
beyond "I am" uncertainty's the cost
our arguments are never set and hard
without epistemology we're lost
our stoutest edifice a house of cards
and so my gaze must turn to my own thought
where any other theme may not be aught

solstice

the earth's spin-axis tips away from Sol
and moss luxuriates on stone and bark
while Summer warms yuletide on the South Pole
our holiday is feted in the dark
white LEDs fill what sunlight can't serve
to brighten up our seasonal affects
as we touch bottom on the year's sine-curve
'though hang-gliding's on hold, there's always sex
each solstice party testifies to faith
that rickets and pneumonia won't come back
'though pallid co-workers seem more like wraiths
with ev'ry sniffle and persistent hack
we huddle for the warmth if not for light
as friends renew old bonds this longest night

a republic, madam, if you can keep it

if We the People can't have privacy
we can't with straight face claim we're sovereign
in what was formerly Land of the Free
mere subjects who had once been citizens

Ben Franklin warned we'd barter away rights
and dignity that had been ours from birth
in delegating others to the fight
to keep secure our status on this earth

to cheer for politics like it's a game
preferring not to engage, but to shirk
makes civic duty a parade of shame
where hireling sleepwalk through the nation's work

democracy requires that we engage
in something more profound than greed or rage

foundations

the stuff a science studies is out there
beyond what strict deduction lets us know
and colleagues with whom we would like to share
may only exist because we think so
hypotheses must be built in my  mind
external prompts can't even show the way
in all the Babel I still have to find
what's right when it say both 'A' and 'not A'
beyond "I am" uncertainty's the cost
our arguments are never set and hard
without epistemology, we're lost
our stoutest edifice a house of cards
and so I sit and contemplate my thought
all else--for all I know--might not be aught

give me but a place to stand...

the stuff a science studies is out there
beyond what strict deduction lets us know
and colleagues with whom we would like to share
may only exist because we think so
hypotheses must be built in my  mind
external prompts can't even show the way
in all the Babel I still have to find
what's right when it say both 'A' and 'not A'
beyond "I am" uncertainty's the cost
our arguments are never set and hard
without epistemology, we're lost
our stoutest edifice a house of cards
aesthetics are the only metric left
when all that's sensible leaves us bereft

no redundancy

annunciation provoked him to laugh

the passing years had dimmed dynastic dreams
but nonetheless he'd slain the fatted calf
not knowing his guest isn't what He seems
our father Abraham took hat in hand
"shall not the judge of righteousness do right?"
intuiting what God didn't command
for unknown Sodomites, he'd join the fight
Free Will triumphant where Noach had failed
to empathize with those whom God condemned
he risked God's wrath and all that that entailed
for strangers who just might be righteous men
there's none to intercede for his own son
not lamed-vav; in his day there's just one

cherchez la femme

sing, Muse! Peleides god-like in wrath
would make his liege-lord pay dear for that maid
not Helen, who'd set Greece on the war-path
but Briseus for whom his sweat had paid
why should Atreides be honored more
by all the princes of Achaean lands
who took up arms to capture back his whore
and camped ten wife-less years on Troad sands
no merit had earned Menelaos fame
he's just the pretty boy whom Helen picked
but all Greece mobilized to 'venge his shame
and wrest his trophy bride back from the hick
walls, palace, armies wiped out in the swirl
and setting all in motion was a girl

Leviathan

no lightning bolt laid Paris out stone dead
for running off with his host's pretty wife
'though Zeus pronounced death sentence on his head
exacting justice cost Achilles' life
to Homer, gods may motivate the fact
instilling what's bad or good in our minds
but still it's we as humans who must act
society's the project for mankind
in his world, no case ever went to court
'til Aeschylus we're jury and we're judge
from crime to punishment the circuit's short
exacting payment for each tort and grudge
a nasty brutish short life was Man's fate
until we joined up to erect the State

b'reishit

"both male and female created He them"
if we are to read Genesis aright
the surgery was not a trifling hem
Adom Kadmon had been hermaphrodite
symmetrically, like splitting Night from Day
first Man was cleft from the nave to the chaps
not just a rib that one might throw away
a thousand sutures wouldn't close this gap
and so he leaves birth-home and clasps a wife
reconstituting primordial state
the beast with two backs completes in this life
what had been lacking 'til he found a mate
libido's just the call of what had been
a path to knowledge rather than to sin

critique of pure reasonableness II

Paul Krugman found irrationalities
in how the market evaluates stocks
"buy low sell high" is naive piety
more honored in the books than by the flocks

capitalism is prone to excess
and equilibrium's a shallow well
when ego enters, what you get's a mess
and Adam Smith's too-neat world goes to Hell

professor Reich points out one must step back
no markets operate without a State
it's laws that fill what rules of econ. lack
to get the price the numbers indicate

results--like tulips--tend to the absurd
when one looks for calm wisdom from the herd

critique of pure reasonableness

Paul Krugman found irrationalities
in how the market evaluates stocks
"buy low sell high" is naive piety
more honored in the books than by the flocks

capitalism is prone to excess
and equilibrium's a shallow well
when ego enters, what you get's a mess
and Adam Smith's too-neat world goes to Hell

professor Reich points out one must step back
no markets operate without a State
it's laws that fill what rules of econ. lack
to get the price the numbers indicate

the fundamentalists are up in arms
but laissez-faire is doomed to cyclic harm

vayera IV

three one-use malakhim appeared as one
to herald Yitzhak and to rescue Lot
each cast aside as his sole task was done
and one to make the Sodom weather hot
for versatility you need a man
to hug a stranger or negotiate
more subtle than what the cherubim can
a sharper instrument (but not as straight)
nine tests Avraham passed out of his ten
and who's so bold to think he'd beat that score
mitzvot are needed if mere mortal men
can ever be expected to do more
two Judaisms to meet human need
one for avinu and one for his seed

vayera III

annunciation provoked him to laugh
the passing years had dimmed dynastic dreams
but nonetheless he'd slain the fatted calf
not knowing his guest isn't what He seems
our father Abraham took hat in hand
"shall not the judge of righteousness do right?"
intuiting what God didn't command
for unknown Sodomites, he'd join the fight
Free Will triumphant where Noach had failed
to empathize with those whom God condemned
he risked God's wrath and all that that entailed
for strangers who just might be righteous men
apotheosis! chesed wears his face
who's chosen among all the human race

vayera II

annunciation provoked him to laugh
the passing years had dimmed dynastic dreams
but nonetheless he'd slain the fatted calf
not knowing his guest isn't what He seems
our father Abraham took hat in hand
"shall not the judge of righteousness do right?"
intuiting what God didn't command
for unknown Sodomites, he'd join the fight
Free Will triumphant where Noach had failed
to empathize with those whom God condemned
he risked God's wrath and all that that entailed
for strangers who just might be righteous men
there's none to intercede for his own son
not thirty-six; in his day there's just one

vayera

"I see the knife and fire, but where's the ram?"
a third day hiking in the countryside
Yitzhak made inquiry of his old man
who'd just told the house servants to abide
what transpired on the mountain-top's obscure
to Abraham, God never spoke again
how can a revelation be quite sure
transmitted through uncertain ears of men
the countermand was urgent, uttered twice
while the command to offer only once
the son and father risked an awful price
but spoke no syllable of remonstrance
to Muslims, it's submission to God's will
to Jews, an un-ingestible horse-pill

echoes

"We've been betrayed" Chris Christie pumps the crowd
and some remember this recycled page
from Nuremburg where racist Volk roared loud
intoxicating politics of rage
competing demagogues toss out red meat
as if to buy the loyalty of hounds
a smoke-wreathed blaze that sheds more light than heat
respecting neither honesty nor bounds
by contrast, Nixon seems an honest man
his lies a mere exception to the rule 
but since this debate-cycle once began
all play the voting public for a fool
which of these clowns must be the nominee
my lens is too thick bullshit-grimed to see

holiday spirit III

Holiday spirit

felonious elf violates our homes
by entering soot-covered from above
behavior sanctioned by no legal tomes
to waken more cupidity than love

the tale's obscured if it gets even told
of migrants denied so much as a bed
of townsfolk who don't care that the night's cold
but let them sleep like cattle in the shed

the Pashtun honor hospitality
even to guests who brought war death and woe
but here when innocents are forced to flee
they find locked gates and have no place to go

"there's no room at the inn" is false and cruel

for war-tossed wayfarers this time of  Yule

the Republic II

where Plato pitched philosophers as kings
he didn't argue it in the abstract
the neighbors must be fit for other things
he was himself the hero of his tract

none else could be entrusted to tell lies
that freeze the polis as if set in glass
where honest kings might even fortify
impulsive fools who'd 'improve" on the past

what's perfect must belong to days of yore
of which we glimpse mere shadows in our caves
distorted like oral-transmitted lore
where details morph 'though morals stay the same

embittered that no one begged him to rule
he cursed Athenians as slack-jawed fools

united front

Ahmadinejad bolstered the Likud
and got--in trade--help on the Persian Street
opposed in policies, alike in mood
so East, so West that at the poles they meet
George Orwell taught us that external threats
can mobilize a voter-base at home
no matter how intemperate it gets
it guarantees more cash for IronDome
but since Ahmadinejad's off the scene
and since the Persian rhetoric's becalmed
it's Bibi who's outrageous in his spleen
obsessive in the matter of the bomb
when not at war, Israelis fight for sport
and only unify at last resort

Balak

ten singularities the Sages teach
created erev Shabbos at one stroke
that physics and biology can't reach
(but not to say that natural laws broke)
the mouth of Balaam's ass could prophesy
what he whose eye is opened could not see
not just the mage's legs, so too his eyes
a seeing-eye ass for what's yet to be
what good the riches promised by a king
to curse this foreign nation passing through
if he cannot pronounce a blesséd thing
except as channel for eloheinu
mah tovu ohalekhah Yaakov!
don't bank on further wonders from above

the Republic

where Plato pitched philosophers as kings
he didn't argue it in the abstract
the neighbors must be fit for other things
he was himself the hero of his tract

none else could be entrusted to tell lies
that freeze the polis as if set in glass
where honest kings might even fortify
a tendency to improve on the past

what's perfect must belong to days of yore
of which we glimpse mere shadows in our caves
distorted like oral-transmitted lore
where details morph 'though morals stay the same

embittered that no one begged him to rule
he cursed Athenians as slack-jawed fools

Holiday Spirit II

Holiday spirit

felonious elf violates our homes
by entering soot-covered from above
behavior sanctioned by no legal tomes
to waken more cupidity than love

the tale's obscured if it gets even told
of migrants denied so much as a bed
of townsfolk who don't care that the night's cold
but let them sleep like cattle in the shed

the Pashtun honor hospitality
even to guests who brought war death and woe
but here when innocents are forced to flee
they find locked gates and have no place to go

unChristian innkeepers sneer they've no rooms
for war-tossed Levantines as Christmas looms

hollow man

Economia Rus is moribund
it's petro-exports keeping it afloat
for Putin, the tax levy's a slush-fund
while those who can, have fled the sinking boat
some who remember Lenin's grand return
see Khodorkovsky London flat exile
and dream that he'll come back before they burn
the furniture to stay warm for a while
new revolution's long-time overdue
to save the workers from their desp'rate plight
the State made billionaires out of the few
condemns the millions to starve in the night
'tho Russian military may be great
malgovernance may yet seal Putin's fate

moreh nivukhim

Maimonides explored the mind of God
and found--in many ways--it's like our own
but none can known the whole of it 'til sod
luxuriates atop our rotting bones
our intellect's a shadow of His thoughts
'though infinitely lesser in degree
that eating the forbidden fruit has bought
out of the Garden, labor-wracked but free
now intellect upon itself turns back
and finds it has no solid place to stand
before the Divine Problem is attacked
he wants us to first grasp the mind of Man
such study baffles all but very few
it's not an easy thing to be a Jew

Holiday spirit

felonious elf violates our homes
by entering soot-covered from above
behavior sanctioned by no legal tomes
to waken more cupidity than love

the tale's obscured if it gets even told
of migrants denied so much as a bed
of townsfolk who don't care that the night's cold
but let them sleep like cattle in the shed

the Pashtun honor hospitality
even to guests who brought war death and woe
but here when innocents are forced to flee
they find locked gates and have no place to go

unChristian Nation can find them no room
who come with babes in arms as Christmas looms

getting started

reducing world ere photosynthesis
spewed oxygen free in our atmosphere
replete with fuel when none knew what that is
and lightning bolts could kindle no flame there
pyrimidines form fast by gas-discharge
but ribose hasn't been found in that mix
and RNA's a barrier to large
to surmount without learning some more tricks
aminooxazole may prove the key
to prebiotic macromolecules
to build replicating machinery
without invoking biologic tools
one common ancestor stamped all our genes
by knowing that, we're baffled by the means

tempus fugit

ground features shrink, my vario's voice sings
and solar heat's my partner in this dance
to seize the day on temporary wings
I'd be an ingrate to turn down the chance
since Daedelus or Leonardo's day
we've dreamed of getting free from mother earth
and our own generation's found a way
to seize Sol's gifts for everything they're worth
all flights must end here in gravity's well
the days of our delight are all too short
yet we can stretch and fill our little cell
with the stuff of a glorious report
the end's foretold; all who are born must die
but on the way the few will learn to fly

It could happen here

In Donald's fascist  daze imagining
the Land of Opportunity is closed
if you don't kneel to the god of his wing
or he does not like the shape of your nose
our nation's flesh and blood's all immigrant
discarded peasants of the Old Country
our peoplehood's a trait that's emergent
a tribe bespoke to fit a land that's free
so sons of Abraham, join hands, stand tall
against the nativist mob's hue and cry
what denigrates the one denigrates all
if not united, we will singly die
as Martin Niemöller explained so well
where we disown our kin we  make a Hell

separate and unequal

by Justice Antonin Scalia's lights
Black students should be happy in their place
not taking seats from somebody who's White
but making do in schools just for their race
the Brown decision stands in jeopardy
and everything we've built on it since then
unequals can't be ever truly free
'til--Black or White--the State sees only Men
still redressing the past's the sticking point
should schools like Justice be carefully blind?
and will a coming president appoint
a Justice if Scalia's cast of mind?
sep'rate but equal died in High Court
but Nino shows how staky's that support

do you belong to an organized political party?

Republicans opposed to Trump close ranks

against the man and what he says he'd do

and Democrats greet that prospect with thanks

where one imploded, so could number two

for seven years, Obama's held the stage

and tried to mend what W. had smashed

although he met obstruction and blind rage

from opposition loyal to the cash

no one of them can unify the bloc

the GOP is of so many minds

on how to fund the State George left in hock

and whether Christians even should be kind

what's left is Bernie or dame Hillary

the People's choice or the voice of WallStreet

extrajudicial

Barack Obama whacked al-Awlaki
with no semblance of due process of law
invoking National Emergency
fed Civil Rights to the bonfire's red maw
no people are quite rational when scared
discarding rights to buy security
betraying lofty words lightly declared
about core values of Land of the Free
but al-Awlaki was a citizen
who had indulged--it's true--in noxious Speech
and that must stay neither a crime nor sin
if anyone's beyond the HellFire's reach
if we're to win, it must be on our terms
and not by treating citizens like germs

new Isolationist

when Mario Cuomo held us enthralled
he conjured a shared vision of what's great
a country vast, dreamt by each migrant small
who married in to build and be our State
but nativists now cultivate discord
as if the only prudent course were fear
of them that swarm our shores, a baleful horde
who threaten us and all that we hold dear
this year, it's Trump that wants to slam the door
to guard what's good and already inside
to let the larger world dissolve in gore
that we should stand aloof wrapped in our pride
corrosive thought that We can't include All
and ought to cower sniping from our wall

Miketz

Yosef interpreted the Pharaoh's dreams
and over-leapt twelve civil service grades
the unwashed Hebrew's wiser than he seems
and court magicians not worth what they're paid
invested with the powers of the state
he brought the landed gentry to their knees
his social safety net took up the weight
when famine threatened broad catastrophe
the power's his to try his brothers' souls
who treated him so badly in his youth
and pay them back for time spent in the hole
unless they've made teshuvah in plain truth
the denoument's deferred another week
to reconcile with soulmates that he seeks

A Terror in Bed

Tashfeen Malik may be a honeypot
who got to the U.S. using Farook
her visa swears she was what she was not
although it's vouchsafed on the holy book

abusing hospitality's a crime
from which good Muslims would recoil and shrink
a life of penitence not enough time
for sins of which the pious dare not think

no trail of cash points to conspiracy
if someone pulled her strings it's long ago
a Saudi school primed her for infamy
then trusted in a patsy's libido

Farook went far to find a docile wife
but imported a Pandora of strife

original sin

without Yetzer haRah no man would breed
or build a house his children could live in
it's all tied up with propagating seed
but not so much with a concept of "sin"
st. Paul d'rashed bereishit for his own ends
for who's so pure as to throw the first stone
the text's the same but meaning twists and bends
and Eden's barred to all save Christ alone
an allegory of Time's one-way flow
of childhood's end and each new household's start
reemphasized to focus on the woes
and make what's left the stuff of broken hearts
simchat torah embarks so many themes
on which readers project nightmares and dreams

denialist for hire

professor Happer cedes that he's a whore
concluding what you want for the right price
and Princeton's letterhead makes sure that's more
than the same from some place that's not as nice
denying Climate Change attracts the press
who always what to show another side
so what if one's all sense, the other less
or if one source spoke truth while others lied
but Happer--bought and paid--cranks out reports
for the agenda of those who own him
when data don't support what he purports
he cherry-picks to make them serve his whim
our seas and atmosphere die day by day
while he takes bribes to make it stay that way

nativist son

When father Coughlin railed against the Jews

he wasn't running to be president

and didn't sport orangutans' hairdos

and couldn't yet know Hitler's full intent

but fascism is back in vogue this year

among what we don't call "a certain class"
embracing policies of greed and fear

or whatever spews out of Donald's ass

the Trumpen proletariat fear jobs

too often go to those born overseas

and offer threats and violence by mobs

in what seems less and less Land of the Free

the faces change but the appeal's the same

to fall for it once more is our deep shame

kal v'chomer

if Gilgamesh could have resisted Sleep
it seemed he had a chance to defeat Death
but as he dozed a serpent of the deep
devoured the herb and left him there bereft
"from light to heavy" as the Sages say
who couldn't conquer one can't conquer two
a mortal hero shines just for his day
then vanishes ephemeral as dew
the story of the Flood was long in tooth
ere Noah built his ark or learned to sail
but Rabbis didn't mine folklore for the Truth
we retroject new meaning on old tales
a covenant's inscribed, now on the sky
and not a hero terrified to die

kal v'chomer

if Gilgamesh could have resisted Sleep
it seemed he had a chance to defeat Death
but as he dozed a serpent of the deep
devoured the herb and left him there bereft
"from light to heavy" as the Sages say
who couldn't conquer one can't conquer two
a mortal hero shines just for his day
then vanishes ephemeral as dew
the story of the Flood was long in tooth
ere Noah built an ark or learned to sail
but Rabbis didn't mine folklore for Truth
we retroject new meanings on old tales
a covenant's inscribed, now on the sky
and not a hero terrified to die

quest for immortality

when Gilgamesh ripped out Huwawa's tongue
as if he were cleaning a twitching fish
the viscera came out from gorge to bung
and he was free to fell the tree he wished
the Bull of Heaven came out even worse
his head hangs as a trophy on the gate
but that adventure incurred the gods' curse
and Enkidu succumbed to mortals' fate
bereft of love, our hero went on quest
as if a drug could take away Death's sting
not grasping that a good name is what's best 
and those shine bright of whom the poets sing
a subtle serpent stole his precious weed
but he lives on while one still sings his deeds

fast and loose

Obama would curtail the sale of arms
to those accused of crimes unspecified
or who have cussed or contemplated harm
by agencies who skulk and spy and hide

a Right's no right at all if it goes "poof"
when the Executive wants you restrained
due process rests on someone showing proof
before we find our selves disarmed or chained

in times of war the POTUS is most strong
Abe Lincoln did suspend the hoary writ
yet our forefathers didn't get it wrong
appending Bill of Rights to that first bit

the threat's the same, 'though pushed by Blue or Red
when courts are pushed aside, republic's dead

bad science

Joe Stalin's man Lysenko claimed he knew
what makes one plant to prosper, one to fail
although that's not the way that foodstuffs grew
his peer reviewers died unheard in jail
instruction works in CRISPR, not in genes
mere random walk does Darwin's heavy lift
mutations have no teleology
selection plucks--among the dross--each gift
ten millions died of known science ignored
climate deniers could exceed his toll
to take a corrupt lobby at its word
Republicans in Congress buck the polls
extinction claims all species, fast or slow
but head-in-sand's a stupid way to go

death by coal

renewables are all the rage today
Coal barons find their assets are just holes
but fusion's always thirty years away
except for what we harvest here from Sol
if smog in Beijing eats the paint off cars
as bad a London's in king Edward's age
and children's lungs are hobbled there with scars
then China should be first this war to wage
instead she moves sources of CO2
into the ethnic far west countryside
for ev'ry solar farm, there's coal plants two
where more Uyghurs and fewer Han reside
all mankind shares a common atmosphere
extinction looms if we can't make it here

coalition for CHANGE

Marissa Johnson got in Bernie's face
restraining him from speaking to his crowd
as if he were insensitive to race
and must be muzzled or shut down or  cowed
that Black Lives Matter is self-evident
'though many cops treat them with disregard
the straight clear Rule of Law's been warped and bent
and must be righted, no matter how hard
Ben Carson's swarthy face can't buy him cred
he preaches that victims earned what they got
as week by week young Black men pile up dead
and day by day more innocents are shot
just throwing bombs can't make the system just
until it makes allies, BLM's bust      

in the long run

James Hanson warns one must keep honest books
end subsidies for ev'ry power stream
each kilowatt costs way more than it looks
we can't pretend that coal makes only steam
extractive industries made the few rich
their costs were sloughed as externalities
our planet's now careening towards the ditch
we dug in the delusion waste was free
and fission plants could turn out even worse
'til we can safely store atomic waste
if starship earth becomes our glowing hearse
we'll rue at leisure what we wrought in haste
what's not sustainable's never ok
we burn our children's tomorrows today      

gun fight

the States were plural when our Founders wrote
the Second Amendment to guarantee
although we've joined our fortunes in one boat
components--on the balance--would stay free
demobilized from Washington's ground force
each citizen went home and took his gun
and later entertained pangs of remorse
that out of thirteen States, they had wrought one
disaggregated militias dispersed
'though they could be called up at later date
to feed a standing army seemed far worse
than leaving militaries to each State
and so, control of arms spawns endless fights
'cause so few understand our basic rights   
     

in turn

inevitability's a weak reed
on which to campaign to be president
smart voters want to weigh tangible deeds
not rhetoric of vapid sentiments
we're taught the humblest among us can rise
to fill the highest office of the State
accomplishments and not your ad-team's lies
that sort the mediocre from the great
dynastic succession can promote fools
suppressing wisdom to focus on genes
or boost a special interest's willing tools
because their donations provide the means
we'd be bad democrats to bend the knee
to Clinton's heir just 'cause she's Hillary

bloat

Trump's bloated ego's on lurid display
unbridled by good taste or intellect
his endless need to mock and jeer and bray
proclaims he's not among Mensa's select
the Trumpen proletariat seem drunk
on visions of a fictive Golden Age
and won't concede he's only peddling bunk
because he resonates to their blind rage
their jobs are lost to robots year by year
and ev'ry immigrant looks like a threat
a bouffant fascist banking on their fears
floats high on peasants foundering in debt
despairing of their future, gazing back
they'd sell out our republic to this hack