Funeral Games II

Now Shoigu's private army takes the field;
Kadyrov and Prigozhin've done the same.
As Putin totters, stakes have gotten real
The warlords drill their assets for the Game.
The Muslim has no clear play on the throne;
The Patriarch insists that's his to grant.
Kadyrov must take Chechnya for his own
to safeguard his own life, where others can't.
When Alexander passed, he left no son
mature enough to take an empire's helm.
Succession's where great legacies are won;
the people starve while dukes contest the realm.
Old patterns stamped in Europe's scarlet blood
reprised in Ukraine's snow, and ice, and mud.

Funeral Games

Now Shoigu's private army takes the field;
Kadyrov and Prigozhin've done the same.
As Putin totters, stakes have gotten real
The warlords drill their assets for the Game.
The Muslim has no clear play on the throne;
The Patriarch insists that's his to give.
Kadyrov must take Chechnya for his own
if any haven's safe for him to live.
When Alexander passed, he left no son
mature enough to take an empire's helm.
Succession's where great legacies are won;
the people starve while dukes contest the realm.
Old patterns stamped in Europe's scarlet blood
reprised in Ukraine's snow, and ice, and mud.

Blonds in bondage

Maghrebi pirates held Gibraltar's strait
exacting tribute on those narrowed seas.
Norse traders, when obliged to innovate
linked stream to stream, portaging down through Kyiv.
To Mikkelburgh, a wonder to behold!
Before the world had heard of "Romanovs"
Where smelly wares were parlayed to bright gold
some days it's tusks and pelts, some days it's Slavs.
Until they're baptized, everyone's fair game;
"sold down the river" wasn't metaphor.
'Til Voldemar signed up--at least in name--
to live near rivers was to suffer war.
'Til Africa was featured in the Trade
the working class was signed up, raid by raid.

Rus

Professor Snyder guides us through Ukraine
three thousand years and more since Colchis fell.
Brave argonauts risked life and limb for grain
His trophy bride made Jason's life a Hell. 
Moroccan pirates held Gibraltar's strait;
Norse sailors couldn't buck that standing wave.
When Vikings were obliged to innovate,
their longboats plied the rivers, towed by slaves.
Far Muscovy presents the latest threat
like Lithuanians, and Poles before.
Ukrainians ain't going to forget
they bore the brunt of"Patriotic War".
ICBMs and oil are rough to eat
And in the end, Ukrainians have wheat.

happy birthday, Julie

The solstice child born on this longest night
portends great changes in the Legal world.
Those briefs are sealed; they've yet to see the light,
but possibilities seethe in this girl.
Though Thespis weeps, she won't pursue the stage;
let others give beloved classics voice.
There're wrongs to right on this benighted age;
It's force of Law that gives a woman choice.
Now, days edge longer, Christmas can't be far
we feast with friend and kin whom we hold dear.
The kids may soon be sitting for the Bar,
but for the nonce, it's sweet to have them near.
So happy birthday, Julie, here's a verse;
If not my best, I promise, I've penned worse.

gambit

The Finns remember rolling Russia back,
and coach Ukrainians to snipe from trees.
In dead of winter, patriots attack,
while Putin's conscripts snivel, drink, and freeze.
On Christmas Eve, we crossed the Delaware,
and took the Hessians roughly from behind.
Their London masters sniffed "that's scarcely fair!"
But no one pays those poofters any mind.
In asymmetric war, we give no pause;
invaders would just use it to re-arm.
The Kremlin's violated 'stablished laws;
they're not the side that's suffered grievous harm.
The empire Romanovs and Stalin grew
outlived its age, but losing here, it's through.

Frozen lines

The word's gone out:"we need cold weather gear
to drive invaders from our native land"
And Finland understands the Russian Bear
is vulnerable to a well-dressed man.
The million troops that Josef Stalin lost
to move a boundary stone, and claim some woods,
still sets the bar for what such wars can cost.
But Ruskyi Myr's gone "poof", this time for good.
Attrition reigns, where blitzkrieg failed to stun;
arms depots are depleted by the fray.
Entrenched like nightmares out of WorldWarOne.
The chance to shock and awe has slipped away.
Ukrainians appreciate the love
but with artillery rounds, please send gloves.

Tsar manqué

The Russian empire Putin meant to leave
as monument to his excessive pride,
died on the road, two days' march short of Kyiv;
The generals who swore they'd do it, lied.
Ukrainians remember Swedes, and Poles,
and Mongols staking out what wasn't theirs.
A people's right at home to wield control,
is not a thing for someone else's heirs.
The puppet Manafort worked to install
wrote off Sevastopol for paltry beans.
A bag of rubles bought a willing thrall;
it's all "diplomacy by other means".
Destroying what he claims by right to own,
for Russians' sake he must be overthrown.

The Will to Power

The balrog's motives nowhere get explored
could he aspire to wield this parlous thing?
He's no mere worm, to stash it in his hoard;
a maia'd be a monster with the Ring!
Olorin'd held it once, but let it go;
he wasn't hither-sent to dominate.
The One's not his to wield, or to bestow.
This Age, it's little folk hold their world's fate.
While Gandalf fell, ring-bearer bore it East
through Lorien, where Time seemed not to pass.
unwitting how the mage threw down the beast
returning through his darkness, at the last.
Of all the characters to face the test,

for Tolkien, humble Samwise comes out best.

count no woman happy until she be dead

Andromache endured the fall of Troy;
her heir and husband brutally struck dead.
Awarded to the victor's tween-aged son,
expected to consort with him in bed.
When Paris judged one goddess to be best
set his whole city-state against long odds.
To snatch a wife's a grave sin for a guest,
outraging not just Greece, but all the gods.
Fair Helen turned the heads of all the guys,
except Achilles, far off in the North.
Condemned to always be some master's prize,
a thing of value, bartered back and forth.
As ornamental parts to fill a scene;
the role was perilous, to play the queen.

the editor's art

Achilles let fair Thetis teach his son
fierce hatred for the royal house of Troy.
Andromache had hoped the worst was done
until she met the feral red-haired boy.
Sage Chiron'd taught his father how to heal;
nine Muses taught him song, and dance, and more.
This lion's cub seems not so much to feel
as to subsist on carnage, gore, and war.
It's not enough her lord and son lie dead;
the tyke will never get a proper pyre.
She's now consigned to warm her victor's bed;
her high estate now rides the sucking gyre.
Euripides leaves such a scene off-stage;
what Homer wouldn't treat, he too won't touch.
The hero's scion's plainly not of age;
to picture him with women's just too much.
The artist frames his work with end, and start;
and Homer's still unrivaled in this art.

prologue

Achilles found the harem kinda fun;
his mother'd never dressed him in such bling!
A hundred foster mothers for his son
repaid the nights he had to serve the king.
Tiresias foretold; he must be found
to fetch fair Helen back from strong-walled Troy.
Those battlements were never coming down
unless they brought the sea nymph's darling boy.
Odysseus stepped up (disguised, of course)
to dangle high adventure to the lad
before he'd dreamed to build a wooden horse
or thought to duck the draft by playing mad.
The audience should know what went before
to understand blind Homer's song of War.

injudicious

Barbaric Hector gave Greek values voice
upbraiding Paris for the fall of Troy.
Olympians had punted on this choice,
demurring to a Trojan shepherd boy.
When goddesses contend, no choice is right;
the Special Master's doomed before he speaks.
To claim the dame deemed best in mortals' sight
condemns his city-State to death by Greeks.
Fair Aphrodite tried to shield her whelp
down in the melee, where the blows fell thick.
not even Ares could have been much help;
there's no good end to thinking with one's dick.
Penelope works tireless at her loom;
she'll wait another lifetime, if she must.
Two souls so knit, they share a single doom
True love's not predicted on mere lust.
Blind Homer's not enthralled by flashy looks;
His vision's clear to those who'll plumb his books.

memorial

On moonless nights, the dogs are unperturbed
they know each path, each rock, each root full well.
While I risk injury on every curb,
they're game to navigate, as if by smell.
Sweet prince, some pound proposed to euthanize,
lest someone take his woof for an attack,
intimidated by his lupine size,
was only fierce in loving his new pack.
The squirrels stripping fruit trees in the park
might miss the charm of predators beneath.
The nightmares haunting rodents in the dark
wed 'Tasha's speed to Odin's crushing teeth.
One day, we're hiking; next, he's wracked with pain.
There's scarcely time to bid a last 'so long'.
Eroding tibia can't take the strain;
abrupt old-age strikes hard in one so strong.
The Frisbee she disdained to ever share
lies idle now that Odin's just not there.

rosh hashanah

By equinox, Orion's high and bright
reminding us it's time to sharpen skis.
Free calendar republished night by night
for those mistrustful of technologies.
The StarLink constellation's something new;
Koheleth scowls, but nothing's to be done.
Illuminated just before dawn's due
Aloft, but plainly well beneath the sun.
Few city dwellers ever get to know
that Nature can't be bounded in a park.
Bedazzled by the artificial glow
they lose the wonderment of primal Dark.
A glimpse of sky sets poets' minds ablaze
as much at night as on the bluest days.

Heat Dome

half idaho's ablaze; its filth's spewed wide;
particulates too small to settle down
from Puget Sound to Continent's Divide
paint skies like Mordor's many shades of brown.
All outdoor sports events must be deferred;
asthmatics struggle for their every breath.
A year of pulmonary wear's incurred
for every week we're casting dice with Death.
Each photon intercepted overhead
destroys the lapse-rate soaring pilots love.
Black-body shifted down to bleary red
the atmosphere's still warmed, but from above.
Grim legacy from when the West was cool/\
presents a terrifying pool of fuel.

New Normal

the EastBay's not inured to heat and smog
that withers plants on Torrance windowsills.
Here, Summer's moderated by the fog
that shoots the Gate to curl against the hills.
It's when the wind swing East that Hell breaks loose;
the Breath of Mordor roars down that terrain
those gracious homes can roast you like a goose
when eucalyptus blossom into flame.
In places no one lived before A/C,
a blackout could prove lethal pretty soon.
A forest pool, or just a verdant tree
is worth your life on such an afternoon.
John Wesley Powell pre-viewed what's to come,
but never dreamt home buyers'd be so dumb.

Cyrano

deNeuvillet lipsynched the words by night
Roxanne required to steady her faint heart.
The prose and verse that he could never write,
on loan if he would only play the part.
Rostand's too coy to tell what happens next
she's widowed soon enough, as things unwind.
If court, and war, are metaphors for sex
the meeting he exalts is mind-to-mind.
To call this "melodrama" can't be fair,
when Dinklage lends such life-force to the part.
The alchemy to make a stranger care
by any just assessment must be "art".
As Aphrodite giggles far above
strange rivals couple in the throes of love.

one for the books

The memoir some purport Trump means to write
divulging secrets to our detriment,
would be a joke, except that "our" far Right
derides the notion of Good Government.
These "patriots" exult in doing harm
without contrition or a pang of guilt.
As long as they can promenade their arms,
they'll smash what better generations built.
The military school Trump's parents thought
might drum morality into their son
could not deliver what cannot be bought;
he just liked dressing up with sword and gun.
To write a book's a most unlikely deed
for one who struggles pitifully to read.

is there anybody out there?

 communication's hopeless from the start

if I can't prove that you exist at all
and our most elevated heart-to-heart
might just as well be murmured to a wall
deductively, I only know "je suis"
there may be no reality "out there"
if universe could end with "I", not "we"
we're solipsists adrift on unseen air
or each of us Narcissus at his pond
enamored of the visage we project
desiring someone else with whom to bond
or--minimally--someone to reject
to function, we become willfully blind
insisting we can know another's mind

priceless

Letitia James brought first the civil suit;

Discovery's where so much work gets done.
When once NewYork gets paid what's in dispute,
the feds can prosecute the 1001.
The bankers Hillary'd relo'ed to woo
trust their collateral would still be there
if they must liquidate when loans come due.
They want to hold real assets, not hot air.
Assessors jeopardize their very job
to value high to lenders, low for tax.
When they're coerced, or bought to serve the mob
they share exposure for their faithless acts.
Failed president, who'd lost his own homestate
now sweats as those he'd cheated weigh his fate.

Of arms, and the man

No sumptuary laws constrain a king;
Hephaistos wasn't sparing any cost.
Achilles took the field, in epic bling!
His enemies must know just whom they've crossed.
To flee, or fight once they'd strayed near his path
was all the same, before this day is done.
This godling, incandescent in his wrath
consumed them all, like aspic in the sun.
Patroklos stemmed the tide in borrowed gear
but failed to fool Apollo, so he died.
To counterfeit the prince that god held dear
mere armor can't ennoble what's inside.
The wine-dark sea, the burnished bronze's sheen...
Blind Homer conjured worlds he'd never seen.

Missouri's finest

Josh Hawley pumped the crowd, one fist aloft
to come obstruct our Congress at its job,
as if the Rule of Law meant "going soft",
and Freedoms were best trusted to the mob.
The State that gave us Truman in our need
to end the War when FDR lay dead,
now sends this chickenshit, unfit to lead;
Like "brave sir Robin", Hawley turned and fled.
Mike Pence saw clearly what he had to do
refusing to be driven from his spot
strange ally staked his ground against the coup
when his own running-mate hoped he'd get shot.
The norms Society obeyed so long,
can't hold when half the "news" they're fed's all wrong.

bring in the clowns

Josh Hawley pumped the crowd, with sweat-slick fist
exhorting them to roar, charge, and obstruct.
On top of insurrectionists' death-list,
Mike Pence looked very likely to be fucked.
The gallows we could see, the bombs they'd brought,
the magnetometers that flashed and beeped
bode ill for any target who'd get caught;
be that the Speaker, or Trump's very Veep.
The clowns live-streamed the felonies they've done
as if what's not on Facebook's not quite real.
In fancy dress, to keep their treason "fun"
while claiming what they'd grabbed was their bastille.
Death fetishists, aroused by chains and ropes
make common cause with losers who can't cope.

Fishes rot from the head

The Secret Service trusted with Trump's leash
Would never trust the moron with control.
The steering wheel's kept firmly out of reach;
they'll trot him out in time to speak his role.
'Til then, his backseat door stays firmly locked;
he'd just break something, left at large, alone.
The crazies mustn't penetrate his box,
And--if they could--they'd smash his god-damned phone.
Each agent's vetted; tough case to suborn!
But Trump knows any mortal has a price;
some burn for hookers, some crave bootleg porn.
There's opportunity exploiting Vice.
As midterms loom, there's not a lot of time
to stem Trump's tidal wave of gangland crime.

Auto da fe

John Dean'd been taught "the Truth will set you free"
but understood the fetters forged by fear.
The path he blazed in"use immunity"
led some who'd been estranged to now draw near.
Republics stand because the voters trust
our public servants serve the public good.
A venal slave to Mammon and to Lust
lacks any sense of what he ought, or should.
Steve Bannon smells the trap and wants control
of narratives explaining what went down.
Of all these crimes, which highlight his own role
and which we must attribute to the clown.
The race is on! Who'll be the first to break?
The last to sing gets roasted at the stake.

Cassidy

Trump paid for lawyers to coordinate
the testimony House Committees heard.
They coached each witness to prevaricate;
we'd be great fools to take them at their word,
Such bullshit hadn't echoed in those Halls
since Reagan shipped the Mullahs lethal toys.
'Til Cassidy stepped up and showed some balls,
we'd trusted governance to good old boys.
Democracy requires the public know
when those in highest office turn to crime.
There's leniency for those who fess up, though
the last to testify will serve most time.
To keep omerta once one colleague's sung
is gonna get the bitter-enders hung.

Sudetenland

When Kissinger proposed she should appease
aggression to ease Putin past this mood,
Ukraine demurred to take it on her knees;
Zelensky's answer's eloquently crude.
When Neville Chamberlain sold out the Czechs
as if the Nazis wouldn't then grab more,
such causes have predictable effects;
what followed was a more appalling war.
It shouldn't take a genius to discern
such cowardice just magnifies the threat.
But politicians don't get paid to learn;
what Caesar knew, more modern minds forget.
Old lessons History could teach the sage
get lost too often in this smartphone age.

evitability

The perestroika Gorbachev endorsed
moved Fukuyama to proclaim the "end
of History"; that swiftly ran it's course.
This Kremlin--under Putin's--no one's friend.
The Tsarist empire's lust for ice-free ports
that meant so much before goods moved by rail,
burns still in Putin's atavistic heart;
to be snuffed out when his aggressions fail.
Ukrainians reject this noxious guest
despite the Kremlin propagandists' spin
faux foes of fascists in it's fictive press
betrayed their very Slavic next-of-kin.
Unending Peace, as Kant had dared to dream,
must first defeat this monster's war-machine

Endurance

The Kaiser crushed the Belgians, French, and Dutch;
the Tzar groped towards the exit of this war.
A world away, one captain's out of touch,
ice-bound and drifting farther from the shore.
To lead in combat takes both skill and nerve,
and some part--we conjecture--is innate.
Unsatisfied in peace, each chose to serve
unknowing what adventure'd be their fate.
The purpose missing in so many lives
is not revealed in stars, or dice, or cards
Not individuals, but teams survive,
when challenges are other-worldly hard.
His ship's a loss, but with all personnel
Sir Ernest Shackleton walked back from Hell.

moving target

The Polish cavalry all died, of course,
when blitzkrieg blazed at will across their plain.
Machine guns devastated man and horse,
and Putin's sure his troops would do the same.
The Kremlin's propagandists strain to shift
the Nazi stigma of aggressive war.
Where journalists disdain to touch that shit,
just Tucker Carlson's Putin's eager whore.
Technology rolls on, with each defeat
as counter-counter measures swell the price.
Behemoths on steel treads look obsolete
like massive theropods pursuing mice.
The tanks that turned the tide at Marne, an Rhone
seem maladapted to this Age of Drone.

the royal writ

Eight legs lent Sleipnir traction on the snow;

it wouldn't do for Odin to get stuck.
The Roman fashion, building cobbled roads,
would need a labor force that gave a fuck.
Heroic architecture's rare, of course,
Reliant as it is on taxing funds.
No king could build such things of he were Norse;
what one boat's crew can't do, did not get done.
The Book of Judges shills for monarchy
to tax, and underwrite as may seem good.
Portraying tribal life as anarchy,
where individuals did as they would.
Each libertarian needs all-wheel-drive
where workers don't contribute to the hive.

Слава Україні!

Ukrainians repulsing Russian tanks,
remember throwing Nazis out before.
The women and retirees in their ranks
nurse no delusions in the present war.
The Tzarist empire Gorbachev renounced
holds no nostalgia for the Kremlin's yoke.
The prospect of oppressors getting trounced
to many, seems the century's best joke.
Old dreams, that Europe could know lasting peace--
As Kant sketched out, two hundred years ago--
had dimmed as fascists everywhere increased
and yet moved forward, be it fast, or slow.
Sunflowers sprouting in the vernal mud
bloom brightest where they've drunk invaders' blood.

Love and Death

Fleet-footed Thetis just can't understand
how could her darling love what's doomed to die?
The gods had given her to such a man,
but she'd felt no affection for the guy.
This demi-god's more rooted in the world;
eternity's for deities above.
While Zeus fucks every pretty boy and girl
In Patrocles, he's lost his one true love.
Fair Helen launched the action on our stage,
but then retreated to a minor role.
Achilles is the wonder of his age;
the all-consuming war's his to control.
The paragon that Greeks aspired to be
mourns for his therapon, like it was he.

Funerary Games

His mother urged Achilles to get laid;
a woman's love might ease him through the night.
But now his partner's dead, his world's unmade.
No drive remains for life, or love, or fight.
Let Trojans do for Hector as seems fit;
that uncorrupted corpse is theirs to burn.
Our hero's too soul-numb to give a shit;
He'll see the forms played out, 'til it's his turn.
The fatal arrow's artfully off-stage;
we only learn he'd died in volume II.
He'll never know the aches of middle-age
or taste diminishment, as mortals do.
Peleides blazed bright by burning fast 
among Achaeans, foremost, first, and last.

useful idiot

LePen deems Putin's land-grabs no concern
to Frenchmen facing crises of their own.
Another generation's yet to learn;
all Europeans share one common home.
The Baltics know their fate's wed to Ukraine.
Forever on their guard, ex-soviet
republics know appeasement's stark insane;
the Munich lesson's not one they'll forget.
Soft-pedalling anti-Muslim rhetoric
she plays the grown-up option to Zemmour.
As much as bankers' toadies make us sick,
she's plunging ever deeper in this sewer.
The Kremlin's meddling in our governance
looks eerily familiar now in France.

cupping

What octopus signed Michael Phelps' back
and left its calling-card all down his arm?
How many other suffered such attack
and was there more than superficial harm?
A lifetime, they've been honing their technique
and fear one race might turn on happenstance;
one top performance at their very peak
is too important to be left to chance!
Competitors will grasp for any edge
they've long since shaved off all their body hair.
And now the purplish blots of hemorrhage
accessorize their minimal swimwear.
Where one can't carry talismans for luck
they bear stigmata of the cups that suck.

Zelensky

Ukrainians defend their motherland
more staunchly than the Kremlin dreamt they could.
Each conscript Putin sends counts as one man,
yet in the aggregate, they're not much good.
Goliath's spear was like a weaver's beam;
his armor outweighed David on its own.
But tanks are helpless in the mud of Spring
when thermite bombs come COD by drone.
The prize Napoleon could never take
when his logistics foundered in the snows
is resonant with Putin's new mistake
in underestimating this new foe.
The shepherd beneath notice of a king
lays low marauding bears with just a sling.

waterloo?

The glorious adventure Dugin sold
to prove autocracies are always best
collapsed, confronting hunger, thirst, and cold,
contending with this step-son of the West.
Assured Zelensky'd lose his shit and flee
confronted with massed military might
Vlad Putin's stymied by the brave and free;
Ukrainians spearhead the whole world's fight.
The Finns, the Czechs, the Afghans... know full well
how best to make their occupiers squirm.
As life for non-combatants goes to Hell
Ukrainians are unified, and firm.
Let Putin starve for anyone to trust;
His barbarism's looking like a bust.

History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes

Ukrainians defy the latest czar
to think the ruthless get to rule the world.
Misunderstanding who these people are;
their blue and yellow banner streams, unfurled.
A charismatic president who'll fight
when Dugin swore he'd hasten to retreat
inspires discussion of ultimate right
and if the Kremlin's facing a defeat.
Like Spanish communists, four lifetimes back
this anti-fascist fight draws volunteers
who see the global threat in this attack
on all that our democracies hold dear.
Reprising blunders empires made before,
now, Putin stands to lose more than a war.

the deaths of empires

Potempkin army, bogged down in the mud,
presents a turkey-shoot for Lend/Lease planes.
To supplement indigenous red blood,
the West's been swift to rally 'round Ukraine.
The facile victory that Putin craved
to pump his mythos up in Russians' eyes,
was just a phantom conjured in his cave,
among the close cabal who draft his lies.
Already, Moscow mothers want to know
why darlingVanya lies so wan and still.
If there's to be a fight, she knows the foe
sits at his desk, commanding those who kill.
The Staatsbund Kant had hoped would end all war
looks urgent like it rarely has before.

crunch time

The Czarist empire Gorbachev renounced
still beckons Putin when he dreams at night.
Ukrainians see plainly they'd be trounced
if they can't count on NATO in the fight.
The"European Project" that's quashed war
three generations (leaving Balkans out)
can't go on doing what it's done before
should old allegiances forswear their clout.
But solidarity against the Bear
who'd eat the smaller neighbors, one by one,
is growing firm as if out of thin air
to lend Ukrainians resolve, and guns.
If Biden'd just concede that Putin lies,
he might do something more than compromise.

Czarist dreams

Joe Stalin deemed the Finns must quickly fold;
he'd move the border, then get home for tea.
Unburied legions died there in the cold
Finn snipers picked them off from every tree.
Three generations later, it's Ukraine
where Putin's staked his honor on a win.
No medals for the nameless who'll be slain;
no officer to call the next of kin.
Like Uber, he prefers to contract out
and leave no fingerprints if they should die.
He'll celebrate a win, deny a rout;
there's always someone else's son to buy.
Ukrainians don't mind goliath's big;
they're fighting for their country, not a gig.

always tip the bard

The Spartan cuckold's never lived it down;
new generations snicker at his name.
Fair Helen's dowry brought a bonus crown,
and an eternity of tainted fame.
The epic's hero'd never sought her hand
when all of Greece contested such a prize.
He knows that war's the measure of a man
and glory won there neither fades, nor dies.
Loud Menelaus lived his fill of life
while great Achilles never can grow old.
The one's remembered for his errant wife;
The other lives as long as tales are told.
Great bards demolish jerks with just their breath,
unstoppable by force of arms, or death.

revisiting yalta

Joe Biden didn't want to draw 'red lines'
in Ukraine like Obama'd done before
in Syria, but tripped his own landmines,
enticing Putin to wage halfway war.
Monroe'd been wrong to stake a hemisphere
once we'd cast off Brittania's sea-girt throne.
As hegemon among our smaller peers,
it's not our place to chart their course alone.
The Baltics read the threat, and rush in aid
as if Ukraine'd joined NATO long before,
before the Russians stage another raid
in what they coyly still won't name a"war".
The seaside kingdom Putin's namesake staked
is just the first this Czar-manqué would take.

the reckoning

Mark Meadows has demurred to take this fall;
Trump's chief-of-staff knows who dispatched that mob.
As perps are stood against the pock-marked wall,
to lie for Trump's no longer this pawn's job.
The party that had crushed the racist South
to share our country's blessings with all men,
surrendered meekly to the ass' mouth
who wants to blame the darker-skinned again.
Our nation's known this tribal strife before;
if Meadows is to turn us from that path,
and spare America new civil war,
he'll have to face Trump's minions, and their wrath.
Self-rule requires we each play the adult
and marginalized those who'd lead a cult.

Couple of Joes

Joe Manchin stopped Joe Biden's program cold
reflecting how his biggest donors feel.
Two Joes stood up, but one of them looks bold;
the other's way too quick to cut a deal.
For Biden, compromise is statecraft's soul;
no bedrock undergirds him that won't bend.
But Manchin's adamant; he stands for Coal.
His vote's not one on which we can depend.
To flip the Senate would have taken more;
a 50/50 split breaks for the rich.
While Biden haggles with this small-town whore,
our fair republic's heading for the ditch.
As midterms loom, McConnell's feeling good;
he's bought a Manchin in prime neighborhood.

unforceful

"A time for boldness!" sounds good on the stump;
Joe Biden's writers craft a handsome phrase.
And--for our part--we meant to move past Trump;
four years was too much chaos, and malaise.
Still, boldness isn't Biden's stock in trade
He works hard being just 'one of the guys'.
When plans and policies have to be made,
there's nothing on which he won't compromise.
Liz Warren had laid out what must be done;
in text, and verse, she offered us her plan.
A year's gone by, and Joe's barely begun;
To do this job, she'd be the better man.
The calendar leaves not a lot of room;
too much remains undone, as midterms loom.

wannabe

Judge Schroeder gave Kyle Rittenhouse a gift
dismissing charges of "illegal gun".
It's not been proven he was taking grift
but this ain't how a good courthouse is run.
Black robes exalt the judge from common folk;
in office, he speaks for the very State.
But in Kenosha, justice is a joke;
he's advocating for this reprobate.
A hundred years, "discretion's" served the Klan
selecting whom it is we'll prosecute.
This adolescent posing as a man
gets special dispensation, 'cause he's cute.
Two men lie dead, a third's been gravely maimed;
were their assailant black, 'twere not the same.

fake news

The propaganda Putin's patsies print
with passing years, meets less responsive ears.
through Medvedev, he scammed another stint
But few would want him back for four more years.
Most Russians with the means, gave up and fled
like Lenin, fuming in his Finnish home.
Those who remained have somehow wound up dead.
This empire's run by Vlad, and Vlad alone.
The sanctions Trumpski was installed to lift
outlived him, and might even get enhanced.
Joe Biden hasn't offered such a gift,
This Petro-Baron may have lost his chance.
Joe Goebbel's methods come as no surprise;
there's power to be gained, purveying lies.

owned

Corruption was Liz Warren's trademark theme
But Biden staked this season in the sun.
The darling of the never-Trump machine
is unperturbed that nothing's getting done.
Save Warren--bankers underwrite them all
and Carried Interest loophole serves their cause.
Two parties--nominal--both in their thrall
are never gonna fix these stupid laws.
No Independent voice can seize that mic;
the oligarchs know who's not in their debt.
We're "free to choose" among the few they like
but votes are null and void, outside that set.
"A time for boldness" sounds good on the stump
but not enough has changed since we ditched Trump.

unsocialized

To teach Americans to wear a mask
so others need not be hospitalized,
has manifestly been too much to ask;
they're blithely unconcerned who lives, who dies.
As if a government should have no role
in advocating for the Public Health,
where corporations wield the real control
and all that truly matters is their wealth.
In Milton Friedman's narrow universe
morality's accorded zero weight.
Infecting innocents is no way worse
than dancing badly on a second date.
When money's the sole measure of what's real
it's inefficiency to care, or feel.

Be Here Now

The puppy chasing shadows on the beach
of butterflies above him on the wing
cares nothing they're forever out of reach;
the pure pursuit for him's the only thing.
The surfers catching waves to let them go
don't dream that they'd possess the ones they caught.
Exulting in the endless ebb, and flow
the goal is not a thing that can be bought.
The tide rolls in, and everything's erased;
tabula rasa for another night.
Romantic liaisons so hotly chased
are only memories in the new light.
"All's transience" we're taught, but so few learn
to ride the wave with grace, while it's our turn.