Military Advisors

Until this government falls in Niger
our Green Berets kill with impunity
no reason's given for our mission there
uranium deposits must be free!
The racket Smedley Butler warned us of
has tentacles throughout Capital Hill
procurement and Arms Makers hand-in-glove
set policy against the People's will.
Imperial pretentions have a cost
and vassal peoples dream dreams of their own
the Marshall Plan's good feelings are long lost
now legions want to tip us from our throne.
the Dulles/Eisenhower plan for Pax
is incompatible with current facts.

Medea

from Iolcos, Jason rode the West wind's breath
across the wine-dark seas, unplumbed and wide.
his uncle hoped he'd meet a nameless death
and wasn't charmed to meet his foreign bride.
Medea, for her part, returned his hate
and schooled his mindless daughters what to do
if their dear dad were to rejuvenate
they'd have to serve him meekly up in stew.
But Corinth was the capstone on her life
Euripides immortalized her role
when Jason showed up with his trophy wife
she balked at life where others had control.
a proto-feminist avant-le-mot
from 2.4 millennia ago.

Cops of the World

Three GreenBerets were ambushed in Niger
they're quite as dead as if they'd gone to war
America's surprised to learn they're there;
we've yet to hear just what this mission's for.
Eight hundred bases pock the planet's face
without accounting for our SpecialOps.
Damned Yankees act as if we run the place
but no one designated us WorldCops.
Combatants--to be lawful--need a war;
freelancers get no bennies if they're shot.
'Though Erik Prince believes each man's a whore
our troops in uniform are proudly not.
Without a policy, we're walking jokes
reprising bitter lyrics from Phil Ochs.

zot haBracha

Contented goat-herd, tending Yitro's flock
demurred promotion to a bigger job
he'd fled the verdant delta for this rock
idyllic break from court, and from that mob.
Reluctant poet, 'til he found his tongue
relied on elder siblings though the years
but when--at last--his final song was sung
he's made the Heavens and the Earth give ears
The humble servant to a higher will
who'd lead the People where he's told to go
to plead at court, or hear a case, or kill
because an inner voice compelled him so.
No dynasty of sons, no earthly shrine
his legacy's in words of the divine.

stochastic progress

Cetaceans galloping beneath the waves
preserve a land-based quadrupedal gait
as upright Man so often still behaves
like ancestors more fit to brachiate.
Old subroutines are cheap to rearrange
as duplicated genes are free to drift.
Among the clunkers, each time we make change,
collectibles are there, for us to sift.
Conserving features more like the sublime
absorbing bound'ries play the longest odds
repeating throughout eons of Deep Time
produced the physiognomy of gods.
Until biologists learned to do math
it took a genius to discern life's path.

echoes

the Whigs embraced Zach Taylor, and he won
the White House for them, then abruptly died.
Their party's back was broken, spent, and done
Republicans became "the other side".
They've had their own run since the Civil War
but now, their season's over on the stage
their wreckage is a platform for Roy Moore.
Progressives dominate the coming age.
Can Democrats avoid this fate as well?
Have both big parties doomed themselves to split?
The Wasserman machine's consigned to Hell,
and Tom Perez has not been worth a shit.
The Russians paid good money for their clown
who may yet bring our whole republic down.

b'reishit N

FirstLight, created ere the moon, or sun
was stored away--for those who can--to find
each spark redeemed, a sacred battle won
perceived not with the eyes, but with the mind.
The written word made history's first mark
preserving poetry of those who'd died
sustaining what might gutter in the dark;
what had been deep could also, now, grow wide.
But is it metaphor? Or the BigBang?
black-body of a cosmos screaming hot?
A pre-galactic, thermal birthing pang.
Perhaps we'd better read it as p'shat.
FirstLight could cast no shadows in our cave
'til Wilson thought to look in microwave.