Yule

Past perihelion, flung back into space

Chileans watch their Summer sun recede

still snugly held in gravity's embrace

a dancer following Sol's stately lead.

Norteños watch days wax, and night-lengths wane

as New Year treads the beard of one grown old.

An axis canted from the solar plane

means days grow longer while our world's still cold.

Nativity got overlaid on Yule

as Saturnalia morphed to sing God's birth.

To face the dead of Winter sober's cruel

while pagans fete renewal of the Earth

As years concatenate another link,

we pass the darkest night with friends, and drink.

Vayigash III

Climactically, the brothers reconcile
once Yosef's satisfied they've grown to men
discarding his disguise, he's done with guile
they've spurned his bait, demurred to sin again.
If precious Benjamin has been ill-used
it's in a higher cause, to heal the rift.
Renewed, the brotherhood that binds all Jews--
although, he can't consent--becomes Ben's gift.
A hope that kingdoms split can reunite
sold as an allegory of twelve sons
who--having feuded--still can get it right
as brothers meant to face the world as one.
Before the plagues smite Egypt and its gods
we've got to make one staff from sundry rods.

solstice

A endless dance of metronomic grace
a tipsy whirl around our common mass
cartoonish pair in gravity's embrace
Apollo barely sways his stately ass.
But Gaia's dancing harder, as the girl
to trace Ezekiel's celestial wheels
a spritely pas-de-deux for a whole world
like Ginger Rogers, backwards, and in heels.
An axis canted far from the upright
defying the consensus solar plane
consigns our drinking season to long night
where fantasies of trolls and goblins reign.
Each solstice, as we're running out of rope,
rebounding day-length gives us cause for hope.

second time as farce

Lysenko's back, and famine's close behind.
New politicians think they can outwit
established science, like they mean to find
a way to separate the stink from shit.
This time, it's Trump, denying that we cause
the droughts, and floods, and deaths by hurricane.
Defying scientists, whose graphs and laws
all point to costs, where all he wants is gain.
America's become a laughing-stock
pariah, while the world works hard to plan
plan-B that circumvents this strutting cock;
the planet's not in awe of any man.
A leader terrified of being led's
unfit to serve a nation as its head.

Facts on the Ground

Rejectionism's served the Arabs ill,
for fifty years, the West Bank's occupied.
Israelis claim each spring, and every hill
the Greenline's half-erased and nullified.
The monument to Yasir Arafat
must show he served his ego more than God,
the Settlers won't hand over what they've got
not even to the saint, Salam Fayyad.
A People's right, as author of its fate
is in the UN charter, plain as day
but Bibi's still intent to dominate,
no road, no olive grove's beyond his sway.
Where one controls what two were meant to share,
we've gone too far to reach a peace that's fair.

How are the mighty fallen

If Dershowitz were right, Trump can't obstruct
his justice is administered top-down
but then, our whole republic would be fucked;
our "rights" would be mere boons, owed to this clown.
That Alan's colleagues shun him's no surprise;
their part is not to sing the FarRight's song.
Let Bannon justify Bob Mercer's lies;
their role is to explain why both are wrong.
Three pillars undergird our government
to legislate, adjudicate, and do.
It's not our way to let one president
impose his will above the other two.
The gravitas that comes with HarvardLaw
can't float an argument with such a flaw.

moore's mores

Steve Bannon was invested in Roy Moore
but even Alabama's not that Red.
It's not enough to hold the racist core;
without the women's votes, this party's dead.
McConnell thought his gavel well-entrenched,
but now, his margin's dwindled to one seat
his power over who sits on the bench
depends on Cruz evading sure defeat.
The midterms loom, Pelosi smells a wedge
to split Republicans, and geld their boss.
All candidates will have to sign her pledge
no dating interns! That way's a sure loss.
For Gillibrand, a White House bid comes next
as voters penalize coercive sex.