vicious circle

James Fallows warned, our wars will never end
as long as senators exempt their sons.
Mis-named department, once used to defend,

now fears its budget shrinks with conflicts won.

Tax-dollars circulate through lobbyists

to buy the senators who authorize

consigning more lives to the war-god's fist.

Lord Ares gets his cut each time one dies.

As K-Street glitters with retired Brass

we make sure Congress buys the latest arms.
Their motives are peculiar to their class;

society at large absorbs the harm.

Ike heard the death-throes of our government

in those colluding to sell armaments.

Christmas

The shortest day's behind; Dark's tenure's torn
as--sinusoidally--we exit Night.
The Newtons celebrate; a child's been born
who'll teach the world a new regard for Light.
The Renaissance was slow to cross the sea
Great Britain's sundered from the continent.
But no one boasts a brighter prodigy,
the shining lamp of the Enlightenment.

In all his age, outshining kings for fame

not for his bloodlines, but what he could do.

The Earth and stars will never be the same
sir Isaac bade us see the world anew.

Each child's potential--who can name its worth?
Great things unfolded from this Winter birth.

Damned

The Ghost of Christmas Future woke Bill Barr
to teach abuse of office has a cost.
A zealous advocate can go too far

in representing such a crooked boss.

If Hunter's been evasive on his tax,
The IRS will find him in due course.
Not innuendo, but established facts
established by a court, wield proper force.
A second tenure at the DoJ

where once, he'd sheltered shipments to Iran
defaults to scandal at a later day
the constant lawyer, to a different man.

Too late to save his name, Bill Barr's now quit
smeared for posterity in all Trump's shit.

rounding the mark

At perihelion, doomed to tip away
Our Northern hemisphere feels starved for light.
The Winter solstice ticks our shortest day;
It's drinking season on this longest night.
Spinoza's clockwork cosmos calls the dance;
elliptically, we're whirled from far to near.
No least detail is left to random chance;
each step's foretold within the solar sphere.
Beginning Winter as we round the mark
We flock to ski resort, or skating rink.
The party season peaks when all is dark;
we've learned it's bad to sit alone and drink.
It's complicated, living on this ball! 
For now, we bid good riddance to this Fall.

Timid

Bill Clinton ditched the GreatSociety;
pursuing banker donors on WallStreet.
Deregulation turned the pirates free
and Trump made their ascendancy complete.
Joe Biden wants this trend to hang on "hold"
This isn't how we played it in his youth!

But nothing in his nature tends towards bold;

he won't offend big donors with the truth.

Obama won't let CHANGE be pushed aside;

we can't be satisfied with ways of yore.
Proclivity to smile and let it ride

would melt the poles and lead to civil war.

An age that needs another FDR
finds Joe concerned that we would go too far.

Filming Police Brutality

Macron foresees a rematch with LePen

and duly trims his sails for last year's fight
as if what worked before must work again.
His policies skew ever to the Right.
A banker once, remains a banker still
He trusts police to always have his back
When videos attest it's cops that kill
he'd shoot the messenger who brings such facts.

Parisians pry up cobbles from the streets
they've toppled four republics; what's one more?
undaunted by the teargas and les flics

they won't be passive victims in this war.
French Workers take up arms; they got the clue
and won't be subjugated to the Few.

middling

The competence team Biden brings to bear

is welcome after four years of clown-show.
Each comes with evidence they truly care
We can't endure for long at status quo.

The fervor Bernie brought is in retreat
Joe isn't comfortable with change, per se.
But somehow, he's encompassed Trump's defeat
without enunciating a new way.
Austerians will preach a tightened belt
to a make a mis-spent budget somehow do.
This world in crisis needs a Roosevelt

to claw back power from the moneyed few.
Bold leadership would be too much to ask
At least they seem to understand their task.

Temptations

Galadriel held each one with her eye
inquiring what could make him shirk the quest
as goddesses probed Paris with their bribes
to say that of the three, he loved her best.
Proud Boromir was keen to try his hand
at playing hero to all MiddleEarth,
astride a continent at his command,
but over-confident in his own worth.
Wee folk displayed what bigger players lack;
humility to bear, and lose, the One.
With Gollum's aid, they pitched it in the Crack
of Doom, because that's what had to be done.

Stout hobbits made an end of the One Ring
while Sauron's gaze was elsewhere on a king.

Bond

Sean Connery hit big across the pond
where Yankees just don't care what he was not.
Sir Ian Fleming wrote an English Bond
but Hollywood went gaga for a Scot.
Forever faithful to  his highland roots
most films he headlined made a lot of bank.
Sean's weirdly fabulous in thigh-high boots
though critics--wrongly--brayed that Zardoz stank.
Sans anabolics, Mr. Universe
got his big break through sweat and lifting weights.
A world before the steroids' bulbous curse
is hard for younger fans to contemplate.

Sean's gone; he's done his Queen proud in the fray,
and Scotland's poised to exit the UK.

lowered expectation

Trump's desperate to show he wields control
igniting brushfires everywhere he can.
Joe Biden starts next year deep in a hole
the budget's blown before he's laid a plan.
Two Georgia run-offs hold the nation rapt
If Mitch holds there, Joe Biden's goose is plucked
The House may legislate, but there it's trapped
like greenhouse gases, and the planet's fucked.
The landmines Ike emplaced for JFK
from Bay of Pigs, to ground troops in Saigon..
are dwarfed by a whole world in disarray
And no one's sure we've seen the last of Don.
Don't look for boldness from Joe Biden's crew

but maybe they're the best that we can do.

last days

Obrien now confesses; Biden won
although he quails to contradict his boss.
The People spoke; one more election's done.
And TrumptyDumpty's fallen for a loss.
Before the year is out, he'll face he ax
for manifesting such temerity.
Trump's woefully intolerant of facts
that don't fit his bespoke reality.
Trump's legal budget's looking pretty short
for all the cases pending scant months hence.
He's spending 2021 in court
and urges donors to pay his defence.
Come January, Biden's up at bat
but first, we must defeat a cornered rat.

the mandate

The hole that Hoover dug, gave FDR 

a mandate for reforms long overdue.
Republicans were impotent to mar 
Progressive statutes when the Deal's all New.
A rear-guard action by the"Nine Old Men"
comprised a hurdle of another sort.
But they dropped their obstructive posture when
he threatened--credibly--to pack the court.
A new recession was bequeathed to Joe
and it's not clear his Senate will be Blue.

Beyond his basic impulse to go slow,

there may not be a lot that he can do.
Two Georgia run-off ere this year is through

will circumscribe how much Joe gets to do.

Now what?

Joe Biden's handlers won't let him explain

what higher vision he would implement.
No programs featured in his charm-campaign
to be the oldest-ever president.
To flip the Senate, prospect's looking dim;
no legislation's likely to get through.
The status-quo's been mighty good to him
He won't say what he will or will not do.

Jo Jorgensen got Joe across the line,

like Nader gave us Bush, instead of Gore.
Each vote she took from Biden cost Trump nine;

the crucial margin in the final score.

That Trumpty-Dumpty's fallen, we rejoice

but few are more than tepid with this choice.

Two-party/no choice

Joe Biden trusts the one-D voter map
that he inherited from Hillary.
Predictably, the correlation's crap
when one proceeds from such a fallacy.
Progressive policies win big in polls
But neither major party wants to hear
Joe's Wall Street donors know they're in control
Between these two old men, there's naught they fear.

And now, it seems the Senate may stay Red
there's nothing that they're going to enact.
Joe's program--if he had one--is born dead.
That's not a loss, but not a "win" in fact.
Trump's gone; that's cause to celebrate!
Now, climate dies while Joe procrastinates.

Two wings, one bird

The Sanders faithful pencil in his name
disdaining any hint of compromise.
Where major parties look too much the same,
they're not endorsing either of these guys.
Two parties serving Bankers' venal dreams
are unresponsive to the People's voice.
So faithful to the Few who wield the means
the ballot lists both names, but no real choice.
Duoarchy simplifies a complex space;
most issues tacitly go unaddressed.
Few voters find a champion in this race
who'll advocate the course they're sure is best.
That "nothing's gonna change", as Biden's preached
portends democracy's beyond our reach.

pretty shirt

The mithril shirt the Mouth of Sauron bore
was plainly Frodo's, on whom they all dote
Evoking stories heard here long before,
of Jacob's favorite's many-colored coat.
"Bad artists borrow what great artists steal"
At least that's what I've read Picasso taught.
He knew the innovation's no less real
for all that some components could be bought.
All MiddleEarth awaited Tolkien's pen
to share what he had glimpsed thus far alone
The War and coming of the Age of Men
as Frodo helped put Strider on his throne.

Old elements are there to tease apart
but juxtaposing them's a minstrel's art.

old debts

The heir of Isildur called back the host
Who'd turned their coats an Age of Man before.
The Dark Lord's minions fled before such ghosts
belatedly reporting to wage war.
This Shadow Army came with sword and spear
but never got to demonstrate they'd bite.
Their enemies that didn't die of fear
cast down their arms and ran away in fright.
The ships of Umbar bore them all aboard
to turn the tide when everything looked grim.
When Dernhelm's thrust unstrung the Morgul lord

few save the Hobbit spared an eye for "him".

For those who long ago had broken faith

the call to serve's atonement for a wraith.

themes

Twin packs of suitors, bookends to the tale;
one woos her cousin, one sought Helen's hand.
At court in Ithaka, they're doomed to fail
Penelope's true love has come to land.
The oath that linked the first pack launched a war
Ten years of strife and camping in the mud.
This second crew are bound for something more;
they'll seal their brotherhood in mingled blood.
The twain tied with Odysseus' thread
our bard grants him alone enduring joy.
Achilles, shining bright, is ten years dead
before he hugs his wife and strapping boy.
One hero's epic if the reader'll look
spans twenty years in Homer's double book.

patterns

Laomedon was fool enough to cheat
the gods who'd built his city's fabled wall.
He died before the story was complete;
Astyanax would see Troy's epic fall.
The timeframe of the gods seems long to Man
who wants to see cause lockstep with effects.
It took blind Homer to portray the plan
How grueling War ensues from hot-blood Sex.
Fair Aphrodite knows she's Ares' twin
allied against the fractious Argive host.
but Pallas and her Ithakan still win;
Our bard knows Wisdom counts, and counts the most.
No education's worth the time it took
if it can't grant a classic a fair look.

beauty

Immortal Thetis must be just as young
today as when that golden apple spurred
three goddesses of whom such paeans are sung
to squabble for a trifle so absurd.
The mooncalf brother Hector would berate
who tends the flocks, 'cause that's all that he can
is no way fitted to adjudicate
which one deserves the fondest praise of Man.
Blind Homer knows which goddess he would choose
whose cultured conversation keep him hot
to whom Athenians still offer dues
but Paris voted for the Cypriot.
Still Thetis grieves; Achilles' death still hurts
and Zeus won't leave off sniffing at her skirts.

emmisary

Age-long, the balrog fell and Gandalf clung
in mortal combat under MiddleEarth.
An epic too few minstrels would have sung,
out of proportion to the subject's worth.
Sent back to do Iluvatar's behest,
reborn, a wizard greater than before,
distracting Sauron from the Hobbits' quest,
flamboyant general of the sham war.
Faux-elf, who wields the greatest Elvish ring
diverting Mordor from the Free World's bet,
wise midwife to the Fourth Age and its King
lured armies far from Frodo and his threat.
In Moria, he fell to rise again
This subtle author of the Age of Men.

senile disinhibition II

With passing time, Trump's flailings get more wild;
each lie more garish than what came before.
As disinhibited as any child,
but he's empowered to make peace, or war.
The Montenegrin minister's a gent
who shrugged to be so rudely shoved aside.
A Texan would have decked our president;
three courts in five would find him justified.
The world awaits the signal from Mike Pence
that he concedes it's gone on long enough.
To make the case for Trump's incompetence
with what he's done of late, won't be too tough.
But Pence's mis-placed tribal loyalty
condemned he world to Trump's senility.

transactional

Contagion's broadcast on his every breath
but nothing comes between Trump and his crowd.
He pays the few who're not afraid of Death
a bonus if they're energized and loud.
Aspiring actors eager for a role
inflate the rallies Trumpty's ego needs.
Each paycheck costs another piece of soul
and--this year--bears the risk of lung disease.
The dexamethasone that made him bloat
has disinhibited the lying jerk.
He raids the Treasury to buy a vote;
he's facing prison if this doesn't work.
Thought processes beneath that orange rug
are even stranger on this steroid drug.

polypharmacy

Before the Lasix masked his swollen throat,
Trump's let us glimpse his Orange totem toad.
The dexamethasone that made him bloat
did nothing to reduce his viral load.
Like Typhoid Mary's famous peach ice cream,
his rallies pump contagion through the crowd.
Without a mask, they're in your face to scream;
it's weirdly intimate, and way too loud.

The cure he's touting doesn't yet exist; 

he's selling snake-oil to the credulous.

In character, he doesn't give a shit

what outcome may befall the rest of us.

The clown who boasts he'll never touch a drink

is running on more drugs than you may think.

 

steroidal mania

On steroids, Trump sounds utterly deranged
beyond his trickle-down idiocy.
Sane audiences gotta find it strange
he rants that rivers flow into the sea,
and babies get delivered at full-term
expecting voters should be horrified.
On dexamethasone, he's quite infirm
His handlers ought to keep him gagged, inside.
And as they wean him off, his mood will crash
his staff will have to fabricate his tweets
in imitation of his verbal hash,
in sentences and thoughts, both incomplete.
The critics who deride his orange rugs
will need new adjectives, for Trump on drugs.

archetypes

Slain Agamemnon obligates his son
like Leto's murder drives the plot of 'Dune'.
Harkonnen crowed too soon of what he'd won,
he'd keep a date with Alia's harpoon.
Blood vengeance from the grieving next of kin
is how societies degenerate.
Feuds escalate; they're easy to begin,
where Justice isn't doled out by the State.
Until Athena stooped to intercede
Orestes fled before the Hags of Hell.
He'd done his duty, as his father's seed
but never after got to sleep full well.
Grand epic themes are writers' legacies
that resonate through House Atreides.

blood debt

Maimed Lebanon gropes blindly for its head
but doesn't bother looking on the street.
'Though all the ledgers are awash in red,
persistently, they name the same elite.
Hariri's not yet done with al-Assad
who rubbed his father out, like a mistake.
So far, he's left revenge to courts, and God
but there's a limit to what he can take.

what could Orestes do in such a plight?
He's next of kin and must avenge the king.
In his dilemma, no decision's right;
the best of actions, consequences bring.

The Mehlis probe laid out the case full well
Assad has a hot date to keep, in Hell.

Orestes saw his duty, and proved true;
Elektra's orphaned by her brother's hand.
Good kids stood up to do what they must do
to purge the regicide taint from the land.

Orestes can't shrug off the family weight
Until Athena will adjudicate.

Orestes was ordained to break the spell;
Athena took him for her very own
Inventing courts to thwart the Hags of Hell.
Exiled from Mycenae, he found a home.

His father's murder cried out from the Earth.

Orestes knew what duty'd bid him do

to prove himself a pious son of worth.

but matricide's a Capital sin, too.

what could Orestes do in such a plight
he's next of kin and must avenge the king
in his dilemma, no decision's right
the best of actions consequences bring

'roid rage

Don Jr. thinks his father sounds insane
but hesitates to call him out, alone.
Ivanka'd been the one to hold the reins.
"The lights are on, but ain't nobody home".
On dexamethasone, Trump's feeling great!
Although he struggled with a flight of stairs
With cameras rolling, he'll prevaricate.
Fact-checks come later, and nobody cares.
His housestaff are replaceable, I guess.
He signals clearly what's not said aloud.
Aerosolizing his infectious mess,
like Mussolini playing to the crowd.
A madman's seized the helm of Ship of State.

November's referendum comes too late.

derailed

Ruth Bader Ginsburg bent the moral arc
towards Justice while she nursed a wisp of breath.
She's gone, and leaves us pathless in the Dark;
Truth's torch lies fallen with Her servants death.
What prairie-fire that brand may yet ignite
is hidden from us in McConnell's gloom.
A nation famished for a glint of light
fears our republic's shambling towards its doom.

Her bench sits empty while McConnell schemes
to seat a judge subservient to men.

An evil turtle's ultimate pipe-dream--
to disenfranchise half the vote, again.
Tripartite government's third leg's too short

until a balanced jurist joins the court.

House of Atreus

Poseidon kept sweet Pelos for his bed
once Tantalos' heir had been restored.
He'd seen potential in what he'd been fed
ambrosial boy has ways to please his lord.

His grandsons likewise ended in the pot
no deity stepped in to bring them back.
Their uncle's wrath went overboard (a lot).
When in Mycenae, don't stop for a snack.
Dire Klytemnestra knew the stakes were high

the clan she'd married into had been cursed.
To cuckold Agamemnon on the sly
she'd honed an ax with which to kill him, first.
Celebrities may entertain us all

but splatter like ripe produce when they fall.

quorum

McConnell needs a quorum to confirm
a Justice to Ruth Ginsburg's still-warm seat.
A month from now begins his lameduck term
if Democrats can compass his defeat.

A three-seat margin can evaporate
already, two have told us they'll abstain.
As Trump keeps trying to inoculate
more senators, that edge swirls down the drain.
Each day, another minion calls in sick
this virus doesn't care that they're so rich.
Self-quarantine means he can't turn this trick;
the numbers don't look good for Putin's bitch.
Trump's tantrums, petulence, and childish wrath
mean nothing to the epidemic math.

legacy

Poseidon kept sweet Pelos for his bed
once Tantalos' heir had been restored.
He'd seen potential in what he'd been fed
ambrosial boy has ways to please his lord.
Thyestes frolicked with his brother's wife
and Atreus nursed doubts about his sons.
Mycenae's no place for the happy life;
their royals don't know how that would be done.
Aegysthos shirked while all Greece sailed to war
and bedded Klytemnestra on the sly.
When Agamemnon strode through his own door,
the guy who'd won at Troy, came home to die.
Orestes can't shrug off the family weight
Until Athena will adjudicate.

Pinochist

Chad Wolf deploys a mercenary force
who won't ID themselves, but let drop hints
...armed to the teeth...emotionally coarse...
the latest Enterprise of Erik Prince.
The Pentagon enriched him in Iraq,
an ill-got fortune grafted on his own.
This year, he'd brought his buccaneer boys back
to break some citizens' skulls here at home.

Wolf's jackboot thugs are taking Oregon

they spurn insignia or names in sight

Like Deng Xiao Peng deployed in Tiananmen

without regard for basic civil rights.
If Trump wants citizens to just comply
he'd have sent agents of our FBI.

Scalia's clerk

Judge Barrett deemed a Justice should recuse
when statute challenges the Vatican.
Preferring silence, rather than to choose
between dogmatic rules, and laws of Man.
One wonder if there're other debts she owes;
that covenant's still secret from our eyes.
Who'll move her lips, when just her Handmaid knows
how Amy's judgements might be compromised?
What secret combination'd supercede
Enlightenment's self-rule experiment?

Subordinating to their private Creed
the public function of our government?
This cultist on the bench ain't gonna work
But Trump's enamored of Scalia's clerk.

People of Praise

Judge Barrett's Handmaid trusts she will comply
with covenants on whom she will obey.
Above the Law, more powers rule on High
and human statutes won't get in her way.
What counts as 'law', our Constitution's clear;
a Bible's found for oaths, but never read.
To bring her handmaid's cultish values here
would turn our jurisprudence on its head.
Prioritizing Jesus over Locke,
She'd toss Enlightenment and all its boons.
It's more than Roe v. Wade that's on the block--

her theory of state is loony-toons.

Another seat--past what McConnell stole--
Trump flirts with civil war to keep control.

formalist

Will Shakespeare explained
why he kept his metric scheme
"iamb what iamb"

Ginsburg's seat

When Graham dared us hold him to his word
he gambled no one there was still awake.
But video attests each word we'd heard
and no one's still disposed to trust that snake.
Mitt Romney's not the man to helm this boat;

he has no spine (although he looks the part).
Mitch owns his soul, and he'll show up to vote

although he moans it isn't right, at heart.
Judge Barrett has opined one oughtn't flip
the power balance on our highest court

until we vote--but now her power-trip

persuades her that this process should be short.
The third leg of tripartite government

will never bear the weight if it gets bent.

Calvin ball

The wind stays fixed, but Mitch McConnell tacks
abruptly setting course for some new land.
Old oaths he'd sworn are blithely taken back;
one marvels this invertebrate can stand.
His law professors wish he'd rot in Hell;
he gives their whole profession ill repute.
But Mitch disdains them, safe within his shell
while arguing both sides in the dispute.

He now accuses us of "dirty tricks"

for holding him to what he'd said before.
Today, he cares which Party makes the picks;

there's no set rule-book in his tribal war.

The court of nine that's served since Lincoln's day

because of Mitch, may go the Dodo's way.

accountable to none

Barr interceded to spare Michael Flynn
due consequences after he'd confessed.
A case in court he wasn't gonna win
transparently at Trump's corrupt behest.
Judge Gleeson volleys; Barr can't show due cause
the DoJ should cut this process short.
Flynn'd pleaded 'guilty' having broken laws.
Due process now requires he show in court.
Our Founding Fathers didn't contemplate
how our republic'd founder over time.
Empowering this orange reprobate
whose business-model's strictly based on crime.

Barr's oath of office doesn't mean a thing;

he means to put us all beneath a king.

reflecting

One swallow skims the surface gobbling flies,
and his reflection rises to the bait.
His likeness and his image, hue and size;
Narcissus and his true-love strain to mate.
Another world, the twin to this, our own,
just one of many painted by Monet.
What strange Intelligence might call it "home"
Is more than 4-D mortal man can say.
Two worlds encounter at the mirror-plane
Or so 'twould seem, exchanging left for right
it took a Snell to lucidly explain
the symmetry of such reflected light.
String theorists insist on seven more
dimensions, but can't make clear what they're for.

meta-text

Penelope worked tireless at her loom,
While Helen practiced subtle arts in bed.
Pursuing beauty lures men to their doom,
except Odysseus, who keeps his head.
Blind Homer knew that Aphrodite's charm
is no true compass to the happy life.
The hero who's averse to grievous harm
must seek a partner, not a trophy wife.
Achilles never bid for Helen's hand
--Like Phoebus, he disdains to compromise--
But Briseus is his! No mortal man
would mess with such a godling, were he wise.
Enduring ethics sung in the Bronze Age,
go so much further than Achilles' rage.

Mycenae

The prospect of a more than noble match
Had Klytemnestra flustered, out of breath.
To nab Iphigenia such a catch,
she'd send her precious daughter to her death.
Her ditzy sister'd run off with some guy
who claimed he'd won her on a bar-room bet.
He'd picked her over wisdom, riches, might...
among emoluments he'd soon forget.
This beardless godling from the steppes of Thrace
--Apollo's equal when provoked to ire--
was worth three Kings from any other place.
Sweet bait to lure a virgin to the pyre.
The House of Atreus went down in flames;
Peleides died young, but lives in Fame.

incremental

The civil war Trump's eager to incite
would set Enlightenment's bold project back.
The Brownshirts who adore him 'cause they're white
look like oppressors if you're Brown or Black.
The Reconstruction Lincoln meant to lead
Booth's bullet cut off short; it's still undone.
Exploiting many to sate private greed
mocks any hope that we were ever one.
As champion of Change, Joe Biden's weak;
Too sure America's great as it's been.
But Joe's indifferent to what he'll speak
To push Trump out, it's crucial that Joe win.
The"empty vessel" Chomsky diagnosed
bears all our hopes if we're not to be toast.

incredible!

Trump Junior boasts his daddy fights for God.
Against exactly whom, he doesn't say.
If He's omniscient, some must think it odd
that He'd rely on Trumps in any way.
When facts don't fit, they just extemporize
and swear a lot of oaths they'll never keep.
Their enterprise is graft, and fraud, and lies;
their shoes look pricey, but their honor's cheap.
If He's omniscient, problems multiply
beyond what mortal minds can understand.
You'd need a miracle to justify
preferring such a coward to a man.
To rally "Christians" to corruption's cause
they'd violate a universe of laws.

going down!

Trump's cultists foundered in their little boats
when richer guys in bigger boats roared past.
Grim allegory of the way they vote:
not their own interests, but for the ass

who loves the poorly-educated marks.
Unfeeling merchant of fake remedies
for ailments he foists on them in the dark
as long as they adore him on their knees.
The minions who'd install Trump on a throne
seem fixed on bringing embryos to birth.
No broad philosophy to call their own
acknowledges another human's worth.
Those laws--like"Gravity"--they jeer as fake
condemn them to the bottom of a lake.

rodef-dam II

Thyestes frolicked in his brother's bed,
and Atreus, in turn, took due offense.
He served his nephews diced, and stewed, and dead.
This family's not good at Future Tense.
And Agamemnon's wife gave him a son
a matricide by all established facts
who'd only done what needed to be done
'cause his own father'd fallen to her axe.
Orestes was ordained to break the spell;
Athena took him for her very own
Inventing courts to thwart the Hags of Hell.
Exiled from Mycenae, he found a home.
The Trojan War's excerpted from this tale
Of how hereditary dynasts fail.

rodef-dam

His father's murder cried out from the Earth.

Orestes knew what duty'd bid him do

to prove himself a pious son of worth.

but matricide's a Capital sin, too.

While wise Penelope wove a fair shroud

her cousin Klytemnestra wrought a snare.

The textile-arts such ladies were allowed

Go way past weaving, sewing, and repair.

Hog-tied while stepping out of his warm bath
so like his daughter, on that Aulis pyre
a sacrificial beast beneath the ax,
he conquered Troy, but not his lady's ire.
Immortal poetry preserves their names;

the House of Atreus went down in flames.

madness

Trump sneers the salary's beneath his grade
yet schemes incessantly to pocket more.
He squanders many times what he'd get paid,
and looks to profit in a civil war.
The golf-carts Secret Service have to rent
to guard him tee, and fairway, rough, and green
enrich him with a banned emolument;
that money's budgeted for DoD.
The Deficit Republicans decry
--when Democrats would give the poor a meal--
get no attention when Trump bleeds us dry.
as long as WallStreet's cut in on the deal.
Barr's DoJ won't send this perp to jail.
But no one doubts Trump's run clear off the rails.

Basest instincts

Trump's brownshirts mobilized from out of state
to terrorize minorities who'd stand.
Kyle Rittenhouse tried hard to compensate
deficiencies he felt less than a man.
Americans who won't live on our knees,
assembled as has always been our right.
But in Kenosha, civil liberties
are only yours if cops perceive you're white.

When asked what he would do with four more years

Trump had no answer what he's running for.

Instead of programs, he expounds on fears

but sees his best hope in a civil war.
America's worst trends now bear his face;
Trump's hoping voters split on lines of race.

projecting

Max Weber taught: without monopoly
on violence, what you've got's not a "State".
Miskinis gave Brownshirts impunity
He wears the badge of what he'd abdicate.
Kenosha's cops demurred to play their role
to keep the peace, as contracts said they should.
So brownshirts flooded in to take control
in camos, where--before--they'd worn white hoods.
Steve Bannon's betting voters rush to blame
Joe Biden for the chaos Trump foments.
A president who weekly stokes the flames,
denies the buck stops with his government.
The "law-and-order" guy who eggs on mobs
egregiously unfit to do his job.

Falwell's downfall

The oath of Chastity at Liberty

To students is transparently a ruse

The Falwells' marriage keeps their love-life free

the student-body's their's for private use.

Endorsing TrumptyDumpty quashed the tale

that Michael Cohen meant to publicize.

For Jerry Falwell, everything's for sale,

the truth no less than any practiced lies.

A university should form adults

participating in a nation's life.

But Falwell's enterprise seems more a cult

 procuring meat to sate his cougar wife.

Humiliation's just what he enjoys,

but satisfying her needs troops of boys.

epistemic closure II

Biologists can't win the arguments
what isn't in his Book, he just denies
your logic gets you nowhere with Mike Pence
his inner demons tell him they're all lies
contemptuous of theories and facts
serenely certain he basks in the Light
he'd dictate just how everybody acts
there's no discussion when you're always Right
with Donald's autocratic tendencies
they make a scary pair of demagogues
they'd bring the nation to its bended knees
and Civil Rights would be thrown to the dogs
for want of Bernie, Biden's gotta do
to keep a world from running down the loo

Kenosha

Kenosha terrorists don't hesitate;
they know Wisconsin cops have got their back.

And even if they drove from out-of-state,

the courts won't prosecute when victim's Black.

A racist cop see allies in their ranks
assuming color correlates with threat.

He safeguards capitalists, and their banks

aware his livelihood is in their debt.

The DoJ's equipped to prosecute
when States deprive their citizens of rights.
But Barr's on the wrong side of this dispute;

he doesn't see a crime, when the perp's white.

Trump's brownshirts think they're right because they're strong
and Biden's not been quick to prove them wrong.

Circus time!

Without a friend to claim that he is good,
Trump stands alone with only family
to introduce him like an ally would
if they were unafraid of perjury.
What was a Party, now is just a cult;

there'll be no platform Trump must contradict.
They've closed the ranks to shun the rare adult
like Powell, who reminds us Trump is sick.

No vision of a future strong and bright
concerns the virtual convention here.
Their audience is ardent Red and White

attuned to resonate to greed, and fear.
Trump's terrified that once he's out of power

he'll face arrest within the very hour.

what we know

Joe Biden--quite unprompted--gave his word:
he'd veto SinglePayer if it passed
both Houses. 'Though it's patently absurd,
he's loyal to Insurers to the last.

No PublicOption scheme can fix health costs
the overhead alone dwarfs what Danes pay!

Insurers profit on each dime we've lost

and for donations, Joe does as they say.

Obama knows he took a compromise
'cause RomneyCare was all that he could get.
Joe Biden's more devout, but not as wise.

He means to honor every donor's debt.
We don't know much of what Joe means to do
Whatever it is, won't upset the Few.

new eyes

Professor Mancall faulted Madison
for being less than optimally woke.
Joe Ellis scoffs at the comparison,
applying modern standards' a poor joke.
Our Framers were exceptionally sage,
the brightest lamps of our enlightenment.
To judge them by the standards of this age
disserves a most Progressive president.
Each generation's born into its world;
a later yardstick's never gonna fit.
The interim's seen new ideas unfurled
not just technologies, but moral wit.
Times change! And ethics standards can progress--
or retrograde to Stephen Miller's mess.

discretion

Joe Biden's disinclined to prosecute
what Trumpty Dumpty and his minions wrought.
That laws were violated's, past dispute.
But any retribution would be fraught.
Zimbabwe let Mugabe go scot-free,
and paid a handsome pension to get lost.
At least, they capped his years of thievery;
no budget's meaningful with unknown costs.

But Barr attacks tripartite government,

denying Congress and the Courts their say;

he'd give all power to the President
and execute those who'd get in his way.
Sue Collin thought Trump'd learned his lesson once
but it takes more than words to school this dunce.

purges

Joe Biden would round up the anarchists
as if their politics were now a crime.

Who else is out of bounds on his whitelist
we'll learn in dribs and drabs with passing time.
Niehmoeller warned no group can stand alone
against a State that snatches one by one.
Although their politics are not my own,
unless we unify, we're surely done.
A new Red Scare like Woodrow Wilson fed
seems out of character from what we know.
But Joe--so far--stands by the stuff he's said,
expecting us to shrug and let it go.
"Our" mainstream media give Joe a "pass".
They're rather have him, than the Orange Ass.

incitement

A Wall of veterans, 

                                  a Wall of dads
A Wall of moms

                                 drawn up in serried ranks
defend us from a government gone bad,
beholden not to citizens, but Banks.
To rally votes behind the richest few,
Trump wages urban warfare on his own.
His Brownshirts do what mercenaries do;
Fallujah gets reprised, this time at home.
He slanders moderates like Thomas Ridge,
who warned this isn't what that force is for.
When agents get strung up beneath a bridge,
he'll smirk and escalate the civil war.
"He's no conservative!" Krauthammer said;
no one of us is safe, 'til Trump lies dead.

antiscorbutic

In riotous profusion by the trail,
their weight bears skinny branches down to earth.
In Huckleberry season, bring a pail!
Those jams are worth your life in months of dearth.
Diseases that bedeviled us through time,
attributed to deities enraged,
until the Royal Navy found the lime,
few sailors lived  to reach robust old age.
Exacerbating all, they kept pet cats
to guard their precious biscuits while at sea.
In ignorance that--unlike Man--those rats
can synthesize their own vitamin 'C'.
The summer hillside flush with fleeting wealth
Can cannily be canned for lasting health.

Inciting imminent lawless action

Inspectors General are on the case

assessing how our resources get spent.
Steve Bannon's terrified; November's race
forebodes the end for his pet president.
Inspiring panic in suburbanites

--as autocrats have long been wont to do--
won't work if citizens demur to fight

or if what they're in terror of, is you.
The Wall of Moms makes poignant video;
their yellow shirts show every spot of gore.
Americans turned off by Trumpty's show;
won't rush to underwrite a season more.

Fake 'war-time president' goes it alone;

Americans don't want a war at home.

Reichstag fire

On Tiananmen Square, tankman stood alone
we never learned his name, nor knew his fate.
America now brings oppression home

as citizens get shanghaied by "our" state.

A generation later, that fight's here

as Trump's loosed armed battalions on the crowd.

Americans ain't used to disappear

for criticising Trumpty-Dump aloud.
The "insurrection" Trump hopes to provoke

so martial law'd be somehow justified

increasingly's attractive to the folk

who see police reports get falsified.

political dissent is jailed and gagged

when fascism comes home, wrapped in our flag.

rent-a-cop

Chad Wolf deploys a mercenary force

who won't ID themselves, but let fall hints
...armed to the teeth...emotionally coarse...
the latest enterprise of Erik Prince.
The Pentagon enriched him in Iraq
an ill-got fortune grafted on his own.
But now he's brought his buccaneer boys back

to break some citizens' skulls here at home.
Wolf's jackboot thugs are taking Oregon

without insignia or names in sight.

Like Deng Xiao Peng deployed in Tiananmen

without regard for sacred legal rights.
If Trump wants citizens to just comply

he'd have sent agents of our FBI.

Fourth Turning II

The blare of Trump/Pence heralds End of Days

although it's been mis-spelled in  all our texts.
The Second Horsemen slays us with a plague;
The Wise among us shudder at what's next.
Apocalyptic fires devastate Oz,
as Bangladesh subsides beneath the waves.
Still Trumpty Dumpty doubts a human cause
and soon, there'll be no bodies left to save.
Pat Robertson swears God is in control
and sends disease to guide us on His way,
chastising bodies to refine the soul,
and when that fails, he'll blame it on the Gays.
Steve Bannon's all alone to find it "good"
we didn't prep for this one, 'though we could.

partisans

Grey-eyed Athena/
drove a spear into Ares/
Each got yellow cards

Grim Ares bellowed as the cold bronze cut
no mortal'd ever channelled so much hate.
But Diomedes pierced His perfect gut
and Pallas lent his thrust immortal weight.
The contest Eris doomed Men to contend
was underway; the House had locked in odds!
The Fates who'd spun the threads are loathe to bend;
they're senior even to the eldest gods.
His sister Aphrodite'd done her part
inciting Helen to betray her man.
'Though wars are blithely started from the heart
the victory's to him who has a plan.
Athena dotingly cares for her own;
for wise Odysseus, love waits at home.

state terror

Trump's Homeland forces would usurp the State
as if our Tenth Amendment were not law.
Executives don't get to legislate,
but no one shows this boss his logic's flaw.
Most gun enthusiasts don't see the harm
in letting Trump's Gestapo practice ops,
but fundamentally, our right to arms
means nothing if we let these thugs play "cops".

A dirty war, reprise of Pinochet
we underwrote what seems a life ago

is revving up in Oregon today.

As citizens, we're losing all control.

Real journalists won't fall to trace the hints;
the Portland contract's held by Erik Prince.

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk...

This time, it's personal; the walrus fumes
Trump wouldn't bomb Iran as he'd advised.
Retired, he's focusing on Trumpty's Doom
his notepads document a thousand lies. 

John Bolton longs for the Apocalypse

with Christ triumphantly astride the Earth.
Like Flynn, he goaded Trump, but scored a "miss";
he brings less gravitas than he does girth.

A failed Rasputin couldn't sway his Tzar

and now attempts to cut him down, instead.

But Trump and Pency-poo and William Barr

have put a price of Bolton's hoary head.

America's long nightmare has no end

as long as Barr treats Trumpty as a friend.

edges

Montana sunrise--by the clock--dawns late;
at edges, Man's conventions droop and bend.
In Idaho, it's seven; here it's "eight"
at Mountain Time Zone's designated end.
Jules Verne found drama in the plot device
as picaresque adventures each unfurled.
Whole days get skipped, or must be lived out twice
In circumnavigating a round world.
The arbitrary twelfth part of mean Night
dissects a seamless globe by twenty-four.
A smooth Continuum, like width, or height,
Got parceled out, to every prayer, or chore.
Constructed boundaries tear worlds apart, 

but brute convention dictates where zones start.

Treacherous

"Bring Hobbits!" Saruman adjured his scouts
"by guile, or force, as best you may contrive"
without explaining what is all about
"but bring them now! And bring them here alive!"
The secret Sam let slip can't be allowed
this House of Cards would instantly go bust
his treachery must not be voiced aloud,
no minion in his pack deserves such trust.
No messenger came to Nan Curunir,
he's left to speculate how they'd forget.
he orc battalions that he'd held so dear
the Rohirrim had served up en brochette.
He'll find the bed he's made both strait and hard
now Fangorn wood hast marched to Isengard.

how are the mighty fallen

The world takes note of waning influence
as it's described by secretary Gates.
Our course--as set by TrumptyDump and Pence--
like Agamemnon's, can't defy the Fates.
The Kremlin's puppet boasts of what he's won
but meekly does whatever he's been told.
His masters dictate what needs to be done;
"our" foreign policy's been bought, and sold.
Four years elapse--we'd so like to forget!
Trump comes again to face the public polls
Oblivious of Klytemnestra's net
he longs for shiny bling, but grasps just coals.
The yutz whose only joy is to campaign
beholds his second term swirl down the drain.

solipsist

Two swallows loop and swoop and bill and bond,
as if between the twain, they shared one mind.
A pas de deux split by the glassy pond;
this pair are  closest kin, and more than kind.
A mirror cosmos, swapping left for right,
accessible at water's interface.
Insensible to scent, but plain to sight
might fill--like ours--infinity of space.
Each swoop, the partner's there to keep the date,
no straying eye could tease the pair apart.
Narcissus and his true-love strain to mate;
four wings in sync beat to a single heart.
To love the Other like one's self seems right,
but this one's just a trick of bending light.

who's responsible?

At thirty-seven, Cheney should have died;

 that heart-attack was dealt to lay him low.
Blasphemous cardiologists defied
God's will, as if it's they declare what's so.
Since then, the consequences have been dire,
each sign from Heaven answered with more war.
unChristian nation marching towards the Fire,
Has long forgotten what we're founded for.
If masks express unfaith in the Divine,
Dick Cheney should slake Krakatoa's thirst!
America's not going to be fine,
If we go on electing the plumb worst.
The "logic" of the faux religious Fringe
Must make the thinking few rebel and cringe.

tov meod (Sh'lach)

"Exceeding good" the spies described the Land,
evoking Genesis, and that sixth day.
But getting sustenance by one's own hand
instead of manna filled some with dismay.
Adulthood beckons, always with its cost;
our wanderings were catered, stage by stage.
To cross the Jordan, something must be lost
it won't be painless as we come of age.
The Zohar names the manna "bread of shame",
provided without effort on our part.
Once in the Land, we've just ourselves to blame.
The conquest waits for folk of stouter hearts.
God's anger flares, that we'd express such doubt,
but adolescents need to check things out.

Change is gonna come

Mitt Romney's joined the protests in the street
while Trumpty-Dumpty cowers in his hole.
He ego won't acknowledge the defeat,
but even Fox concedes, Trump's lost control.
Bill Barr has raised an army of his own;
(I'd call them "brownshirts", but they're salaried).
Praetorians to prop a stolen throne
to which he'll shortly learn, he's lost the deed.
The People cry for change, but get old Joe,
whose handlers blanch each time he gets a mic.
At best, he'll try reform, but much too slow;
at worst he'll bleat whatever donors like.
Americans for CHANGE still seethe, and wait
for what we called for in 2008.

Blessed is the Match

This latest outrage won't go unremarked
although Chauvin behaved like it's routine.
In giving up his soul, Floyd cast the spark
that may burn down the whole corrupt machine.
The prosecutor might have let this slide
like Klobuchar had many deaths before.
Each piled the kindling up both deep, and wide
when this bonfire goes off, it's gonna roar.
If history tells aught, it tells us this:
that tyranny must be faced down on sight.
But those whose consciences have been remiss,
need someone else to set the world alight.
So desperate to show he's in control,
Trump feeds the conflagration vitriol.

Control Group

This border's battened; Swedes need not apply.
The Danes have purged their pastures of that pox
While Sweden toils to bury all who've died,
their ferries are unwelcome at Danes' docks.
Aggressive testing keeps 'R' values low;
asymptomatic carriers get caught.
Most nordic countries leapt to make it so.
But Swedes delayed in doing what they ought.
In Summer, Copenhagen basks in sun
long after everybody's done with work.
but Swedes find they're excluded from the fun;
the jobs that had been theirs, now go to Turks.
Experimental public policy
sets Sweden far apart--and lost at sea.

somnolent

Joe Biden waits for Trump to self-destruct
instead of putting forward his own plan.
If we're to wait for him, our nation's fucked;
Liz Warren would have been the better man.
Four years ago, that might have made some sense
presuming voters wanted an adult.
But Hillary got nipped by Trump and Pence;
her wonkery came second to his cult.
A party mortgaged to its donor base
can only nominate a narrow range;
diversity's ok for sex, and race.
(But don't expect a champion of CHANGE).
Like Roosevelt against the moneyed Few,
our hopes are vested in Joe's number two.