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.

sin city

a splendid ruin, half-sunk in the sand
LasVegas will amaze an age to come
who'll seek in vain a way to understand
where such outrageous monuments came from
a Mountain Village pitched to lower tastes
a narcissist's dream-vision in concrete
grand architecture optimized for waste
rots bleaching in the South Nevada heat
where nothing's made and only service jobs
lived off conventioneers, and johns, and marks
where justice was administered by mobs
no mere blindfold, but fully in the dark
a game in which the house must always win
sustained a house of cards all built on sin