show's over; back to work

the elephants are done, pack up the tents
it's just a field that was the circus grounds
attention turns away from Trump and Pence
they'll be forgotten with the other clowns
no lofty "shining city on a hill"
this contest was competed in the sewer
and now it's over, all the people will
remember are the volleys of manure
of war, and peace, and government's right size
important issues lost in all the smoke
we're left to tabulate who told more lies
Trump's foreign policy's an ill-told joke
Scalia's seat's the prize for the next fight
for which the card gets set on Tuesday night

Hatch Act

the FBI director's ten-year hitch
was meant to keep his desk above the fray
but Comey's still invested in the witch-
hunt prosecuted in Ken Starr's heyday
the Rule of Law's applied by human hands
as biased as our basest officer
a prosecutor courting the grandstands
makes plain he won't salute or bow to her
James Comey teeters in J. Edgar's shoes
he'd rather hang them all than grant them deals
there'd be no mercy were it his to choose
unstable boyscout in stilletto heels
when Law's a tool for partisan attack
it's over-due we took our country back

behind the elephants

the clowns bow out, the circus packs its tents
the echoes fade of the last slogans slung
a slim majority closed out Trump/Pence
and all that's left is shoveling up the dung
no shining vision of a world made whole
a White House race contested in the mud
both major candidates are scant on soul
and Donald mutters darkly there'll be blood
post-partisan Obama politics
met brute obstructionism from day one
until the Senate signs for Clinton's picks
the battle to fill SCOTUS won't be done
most pollsters favor Clinton on the math
but no one's plumbed the rabble's bone-deep wrath

process of elimination

bizarrely, Trump's his party's nominee
the donors' favorites left the voters cold
his language skills are rudimentary
but still, he's in, when all the others fold
the bid his rivals thought was just a bluff
has bigly demonstrated what he's got
he's found an audience who like it rough
and anti-Semitism makes them hot
in such a contest, Hillary looked sage
adult who's seen such tantrums all before
who'll bring back Kissinger to the world stage
but only cultivate  a little war
this moderate Republican in heels
excluded Bernie and his new NewDeal

impersonal

Maimonides made Judaism fit
into the box that Aristotle built
explaining that the key to all of it
was rationality, not merely guilt
aristotelian God imposed on texts
that seem to show that He evolved with time
meant scrubbing out His body and His sex
ascribing attributes must be a crime
how much of this would Avraham not get
would he be stuck with Moshe in row eight
of cheder, puzzling over alef-bet
while front-row students relish the debate?
this apikoros God would need no blood
and wouldn't wipe His planet out in flood

good trick

Chiroptera diversity is rich
let feathered dinosaurs rule sun-lit sky
they dominate their own nocturnal niche
the benefits of flapping flight are high
so bats have specialized to stay out late
when no one sees the dinner that one hears
like wee cetaceans, they now navigate
by waves spewed out the nose, and in the ears
the arthropods who took to flying first
and seem determined to feast on my blood
die by the millions to slake bats' fierce thirst
a roost's a blessing in the neighborhood
the hands apes use to do so many things
Charles Darwin reconfigured into wings

spoiled

Bill Weld knows Donald Trump's unfit to lead
and not because of spurs on his wee heels
he lacks the steady hand our people need
to guide us through a parlous world's minefields
his folks sent him to military school
but Donald never even quite learned that
no officer's above the Golden Rule
he left as he'd arrived, a pewling brat
a multi-party system might increase
the chances we could get what we want most
but if we granted Trump the White House lease
our hegemonic era would be toast
so Johnson's third in what's a two-man race
to spare an international disgrace