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.