Vayigash N

The Pharaoh dreamed of cows devouring beef
but needs a foreign seer to read the sense.
So Joseph's elevated to be chief.
The land's dependent on his competence.
Now, Benjamin must play his brother's part,
to try the mettle of the elder ten.
Yehudah's had a total change of heart.
The rest--who'd been such louts--might now be men.
The fratricidal fantasies of youth
that strained Joe's loyalties to kin, and clan
were capital, if judge in simple truth
but Yosef haTzadik's a pious man.
The jerks who sold their brother as a slave
had grown to men the latter now forgave.

Genius!

Roy Moore's got issues with authority
enough to give his party's elders pause
he claims a place above society
beyond the writ of any man-made laws.
Steve Bannon'd thought the state was safely Red
and wanted an insurgent to irk Mitch.
But Alabama's not so meekly led,
and balked to play that carpetbagger's bitch.
It's not clear Trump could work with Bannon's zoo;
Steve's proteges report to him, alone.
But as the Senate's shifting towards the Blue,
McConnell's looking shaky on his throne.
As Alabama goes, so goes Trump's world
'cause jerks can't keep their hands off teenaged girls.

Who is my neighbor?

Rubashkin's ethics aren't worth two figs
his cult's estranged from all humanity.
Immersed in regulations as to pigs,
he's blind to sparks of the Divinity.
The workers he's accustomed to abuse--
regardless that he finds their accents odd--
are no less children than his fellow Jews
of Yiddish speakers' universal God.
Isaiah railed against such empty rites
of Jews who sacrifice, and fast, and bow.
As if our brethren, 'though they're Ishmaelites
bore visages that aren't His, somehow.
To be a mensch, one's called upon to care
regardless that the sufferer's a ger.

unfunny

Will Rodgers had no use for "TrickleDown"
as he described the hoax to honest folk
but now, "our" Fed takes guidance from a clown
who doesn't grasp his policy's a joke.
Art Laffer's grand experiment's been tried;
the rich invest in growth to save on tax.
But Trump's advisors somehow can't abide
to build sound policy on stubborn facts.
The benefits our taxes underwrite
are more than Kochs, or Mercers would report.
They lift Society from Hobbes' plight:
life "solitary, nasty, brutish, short"
The "Voodoo economics" Bush condemned
is more than honest research can defend.

Shemot II

The bush is marvelously unconsumed
for Moshe, the whole cosmos in suspense
forsaking life with Pharaoh, who's foredoomed,
he'll have to goad his kin to hie them thence.
 Apotheosis only lasts a beat
and then it's back to court, and noise, and mob
so lacing back the sandals on his feet
he quits the wilderness, and takes a job.
But in that moment, destiny's unfurled
no peaceful dotage with the kids, and wife
to bring this revelation to the world
will take whatever's left to him of life.
To quit the courtly pleasures took a prod,
but tending Yitro's sheep, he came to God.

Yule

Past perihelion, flung back into space

Chileans watch their Summer sun recede

still snugly held in gravity's embrace

a dancer following Sol's stately lead.

Norteños watch days wax, and night-lengths wane

as New Year treads the beard of one grown old.

An axis canted from the solar plane

means days grow longer while our world's still cold.

Nativity got overlaid on Yule

as Saturnalia morphed to sing God's birth.

To face the dead of Winter sober's cruel

while pagans fete renewal of the Earth

As years concatenate another link,

we pass the darkest night with friends, and drink.

Vayigash III

Climactically, the brothers reconcile
once Yosef's satisfied they've grown to men
discarding his disguise, he's done with guile
they've spurned his bait, demurred to sin again.
If precious Benjamin has been ill-used
it's in a higher cause, to heal the rift.
Renewed, the brotherhood that binds all Jews--
although, he can't consent--becomes Ben's gift.
A hope that kingdoms split can reunite
sold as an allegory of twelve sons
who--having feuded--still can get it right
as brothers meant to face the world as one.
Before the plagues smite Egypt and its gods
we've got to make one staff from sundry rods.

solstice

A endless dance of metronomic grace
a tipsy whirl around our common mass
cartoonish pair in gravity's embrace
Apollo barely sways his stately ass.
But Gaia's dancing harder, as the girl
to trace Ezekiel's celestial wheels
a spritely pas-de-deux for a whole world
like Ginger Rogers, backwards, and in heels.
An axis canted far from the upright
defying the consensus solar plane
consigns our drinking season to long night
where fantasies of trolls and goblins reign.
Each solstice, as we're running out of rope,
rebounding day-length gives us cause for hope.

second time as farce

Lysenko's back, and famine's close behind.
New politicians think they can outwit
established science, like they mean to find
a way to separate the stink from shit.
This time, it's Trump, denying that we cause
the droughts, and floods, and deaths by hurricane.
Defying scientists, whose graphs and laws
all point to costs, where all he wants is gain.
America's become a laughing-stock
pariah, while the world works hard to plan
plan-B that circumvents this strutting cock;
the planet's not in awe of any man.
A leader terrified of being led's
unfit to serve a nation as its head.

Facts on the Ground

Rejectionism's served the Arabs ill,
for fifty years, the West Bank's occupied.
Israelis claim each spring, and every hill
the Greenline's half-erased and nullified.
The monument to Yasir Arafat
must show he served his ego more than God,
the Settlers won't hand over what they've got
not even to the saint, Salam Fayyad.
A People's right, as author of its fate
is in the UN charter, plain as day
but Bibi's still intent to dominate,
no road, no olive grove's beyond his sway.
Where one controls what two were meant to share,
we've gone too far to reach a peace that's fair.

How are the mighty fallen

If Dershowitz were right, Trump can't obstruct
his justice is administered top-down
but then, our whole republic would be fucked;
our "rights" would be mere boons, owed to this clown.
That Alan's colleagues shun him's no surprise;
their part is not to sing the FarRight's song.
Let Bannon justify Bob Mercer's lies;
their role is to explain why both are wrong.
Three pillars undergird our government
to legislate, adjudicate, and do.
It's not our way to let one president
impose his will above the other two.
The gravitas that comes with HarvardLaw
can't float an argument with such a flaw.

moore's mores

Steve Bannon was invested in Roy Moore
but even Alabama's not that Red.
It's not enough to hold the racist core;
without the women's votes, this party's dead.
McConnell thought his gavel well-entrenched,
but now, his margin's dwindled to one seat
his power over who sits on the bench
depends on Cruz evading sure defeat.
The midterms loom, Pelosi smells a wedge
to split Republicans, and geld their boss.
All candidates will have to sign her pledge
no dating interns! That way's a sure loss.
For Gillibrand, a White House bid comes next
as voters penalize coercive sex.

Miketz

The Pharaoh's sommelier resumed his post
forgetting Joseph in his dismal plight
until--reminded by the baker's ghost--
he elevates our hero to the light.
Another change of clothes, another role
to guarantee there's bread when there's no rain
exalted migrant, settled in control
when all the nation's wealth is stored in grain.
To reconcile the family's on his head,
while clinching Egypt in his liegelord's hand.
The favored son they'd long presumed was dead
must mask his machinations as "God's plan".
The brothers he's not rushing to forgive
now grovel for the bread by which they live.

Intelligent design

For sprinting, we rise up digitigrade
the longer lever multiplies our pace
a transformation of the way we're made
surprising game that hadn't seen us race.
A gut too long for flesh, too short for plants
and sweaty, hairless skin that radiates
requires technology for making pants
and hats to limit heat-loss from our pates.
A compromise design a team might pitch
no wise Designer's write the spec just so
obliged to carve a non-existent niche
where biomes had filled up an age ago.
No God formed in the likeness of a man
would sign His name to such a stupid plan.

grab-bag

Ted Cruz snuck fetal personhood aboard
outrageous subterfuge by dark of night
no proper piece of any tax accord
but meat to his supporters on the Right.
McConnell's bill--unread--came to the floor
the lobbyists who wrote it stayed off-screen.
A party loyal to the Mercers' whore
fell into line for what they'd never seen.
Murkowski, Flake, and Collins each got bought
to reach the reconciliation round.
The scraps of pork that they'd so fondly sought
can't fix a bill so radically unsound.
Our nation's future's underneath the ax
to spare the Kochs a piddling bit of tax.

no longer unspoken

Al Franken quit, Roy Moore pretends he's fine
what women say--to him's--of no concern
to Democrats, they're both across the line.
Republicans see nothing here to learn.
Since Women's Suffrage, nothing's been more clear
one party's hoping they'll just go away.
It's coming to a head this coming year,
both Houses of our Congress are in play.
The mantle almost fell upon Mike Pence
when Trump was taped on Access Hollywood.
But Trumpsters weren't balanced on the fence;
they just don't care their guy grabbed what he could.
Trump still insists that none of it's his fault
but knives are out for sexual assault.

low flight

Cast off the surly bonds of gravity;
embrace the joy awaiting us on high.
It's not enough to live life in 2-D
when once you've realized we're meant to fly.
A kite's a pretty minimal machine
a bargain, amortized on so much fun.
And as a sport, it's almost wholly green;
convection's driven--gratis--by the sun.
Uncircumscribed by stadium, or court,
with little but the wind for us to hear.
Apotheosis in the realm of sport!
We're only bounded by the atmosphere.
A pleasure long beyond the reach of kings
belongs to anyone who'll take to wings.

vayeshev

and Jacob settled, thinking he was done
two names, and thirteen children seemed enough
Our focus turns now to his best-loved son
for whom the family saga's getting rough.
The Leah clan resented Jacob's love
reserved for Joseph and the younger wife.
Where others got a hug, he got a shove
and then conspiracy against his life.
Maturity's late-dawning on these guys.
Their father learns his eldest boy's a creep.
While they repay his trust by spinning lies
as if their brother were not theirs to keep.
Paternity took Judah back to school
to forge the soul of one who's fit to rule.

ya know?

Holistic types disdain to analyze
like seeing doesn't need them to mentate.
A world--not in the mind--but in the eyes
would leave the spirit free to meditate.
As if reality were common fare,
plunked down upon the plank at which we dined
full-formed, and uncontentiously "out there"
and not constructed in each thinker's mind.
Descartes made clear, four centuries ago
this murky matter of "reality"
how precious little one can strictly know
despite our fondest quest for certainty.
For bedrock rules on which all life depends,
reductionism's how one comprehends.