Smoot-Hawley reprised

The devastation Trumpty Dumpty's wrought
to implement Navarro's crackpot scheme,
discounts the human traits that can't be bought;
he's never built a friendship, nor a team.
America Alone! Like Mao TseTeng
determined to hold all the world at bay
at once, the global commerce web's unstrung.
And voters Red and Blue are gonna pay.
A grownup might concede he'd got it wrong,
but Cohn had trained him always to attack.
Determined to present himself as "strong",
what once he's said, he helpless to take back.
As if the universe ends at our shore
the orange dotard lists towards civil war.

values

Joe Biden's ego doesn't run this show;

when Nancy phones, he jumps to take her calls.
Momentous choices: to fight on, or go,
seem easier involving fewer balls.
Abruptly, Trump's the old man left on stage
unable to complete a cogent thought,
beyond attacking someone else's age.
His donors wonder what it is they've bought.
Accelerationists, who'd love a crash
presuming Paradise awaits ahead
make common cause with those who worship cash,
and some convinced their gods would want us dead.
One party, in the hands of such adults
confronts a monster, knit from motley cults.

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.

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 predicated on mere lust.
Blind Homer's not enthralled by flashy looks;
His vision's clear--to those who'll plumb his books.

passages

Pristine white landscapes, stark in ice and snow
grow messy as the weather turns to mud.
It's necessary as the seasons flow;
The skiing can't be prime as fruit trees bud.
I'm not so trim myself as once I was;
The abs that once stood taut, now lurk within.
My chin bears shrubberies, where once was fuzz,
and everywhere I'm wearing too much skin.
The caryatid crushed beneath her stone
that Heinlein wrote about so movingly,
looks different now her fate's more like my own;
old texts transformed by our maturity.
My muddy, battered boots dry in the sun;
another metamorphosis, begun.

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.

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.

Ekev III

transactional theology's a crock;
God's not a butler, coddling your desire.
No human logic--much less Mr. Spock--
finds Springtime rains in goats consigned to fire.
Societies of angels need no rules;
Karl Marx explained the state itself away.
But to accommodate both saints and fools,
we still need codes, and people must obey.
When Job got tzurres that he'd never earned,
compounded by three friends who thought they're wise
God scoffed at what these three thought they had learned;
their victim-blaming schemes he labeled "lies".
Adults who spurn Ekev's stark quid-pro-quo
when raising children, still profess it's so.

grow up

ad-hominem attacks on David Hogg
may yet cost Ingraham her FauxNews gig
enabler to her puerile demagogue
betrays which one's in service to the pig.
The Parkland students haven't compromised;
no donors veto what they get to say
'though Laura's made a living selling lies,
old donors are now pushing her away.
A generation shattering taboos
is unintimidated by her snark.
They're wise to bottle-blondes, and bogus news
and toothless bitches valued for their bark.
A bully targeting this gawky teen
may learn Americans are done with 'mean'.

Espionage Act

binSalman says his buddy, Jared shared
the names of princes likely to dispute
his claim, who'd press their cases, if they dared
if he would not pre-empt, and prosecute.
A toddler proud to wave his shiny toy
must not be given heavy armament;
no way Trump's son-in-law should still enjoy
the sensitive IP of government.
Two heirs to privilege, convinced they're hot,
conspiring how they'll make the world their own,
as if they'd earned the influence they've got,
and Destiny intends them for the throne.
Twin comic footnotes, in the eyes of Time,
believe they're heroes in their own wee minds.

compensating

Trump whines America needs a parade
like every tin-pot thug and potentate
as if the world's impressed by his charade
believing that's what makes a nation "great".
Now, Putin boasts his missiles rule the skies;
no shield can thwart them, once they've left their base
inciting huge expense with kopeck lies.
There is no winner in this stupid race.
De-escalation's hard to sell to boys
whose hormones often overwhelm their brain
so easily seduced by shiny toys,
concerned they might look weak, if they act sane.
One's lean and mean, one's flabby and obese
and neither's man enough to keep the Peace.

Pendulum

The Persian Revolution's on again
that stalled the week that Michael Jackson passed.
Green shoots, that promised liberation then
may yet be trees, but change is rarely fast.
The generation that threw off the Shah
condemned their daughters to lives swathed in black.
But--growing tired of theocratic law--
their grandkids mean to wrest their freedoms back.
Rouhani gave the Mullahs a veneer
to  mask their autocratic Iron Fist
but he's a lot less Left than he'd appear
they'd nominated him to head their list.
When even Saudis try to modernize
embittered Persian Youth feel called to rise.

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.

Diplomats

Trump "never said" that Kim is short, and fat
although his twitter-log attests he had.
Embarrassingly, our chief "diplomat"
is less than competent, and may be mad.
The dotard North Koreans love to tease
can't tell the nightly news from "Game of Thrones".
The broadest farce, and crassest parodies
routinely go too high to catch his tone.
The jab that's age-appropriate at ten,
--a bit of snark to even an old score--
when traded by these nuclear-armed men,
could set our planet on a path to war.
The tiff that ends the last hope for World Peace
should not be over which brat's more obese.

puerile

Trump doesn't listen when a staffer speaks
each memo they prepare's a wasted tree
so some resort strategically to leaks
and hope he'll sop up something from TV
while Tillerson and Mattis compensate
assuring allies he's not wholly mad
he makes new mischief, and they come too late
to sweep up what's been shattered by the lad
too loyal to ignore our empire's fall
they strain to keep Trump focused on the task
but all he seem's to care about's that wall
diplomacy's an awful lot to ask
we've got the moron Mencken'd warned we would
and bought George Orwell's double-plus ungood

transitions

without the boob-tube, can kids socialize?
they try for "snarky" but come off as cute
they might be Amish in their classmates' eyes
deficiency in smalltalk leaves them mute
a childhood spent in mountains, surf and streams
builds broader shoulders and expands the soul
that atrophies on endless glowing screens
that don't teach one gross motor self-control
and languages, and instruments to play...
both ends of their brief candle have to burn
there aren't enough hours in a day
for all the stuff they're told they have to learn
the old refrain that Plato might have sung
we learn too late; youth's wasted on the young

this man

haYetzer Rah led  David off the path
a lusty king whose ethics sometimes bent
but Nathan hit him with the heavens' wrath
and he was man enough to then repent
a funny sort of model sages paint
imperfect in his all-too-human ways
the best of kings was plainly not a saint
his good and bad in equal parts displayed
Uriah's gone; he's most sincerely dead
while David's held up as a paragon
a heinous crime expunged from off his head
(but chaos does ensue among his sons)
how like a god, discerning wrong from right
how like a child, in terror of the night