showtime!

"Come see the tyrant!" Echoing MacBeth
New York has staged a spectacle so big,
the hordes that won't break stride for plagues, or Death
appreciate that Trump's thrown in the brig.
Full half a century of unpaid debts,
and specious lawsuits to intimidate
are nothing Gothamites will soon forget.
He took the White House once, but lost his state.
July, we'll learn what all these verdicts meant;
the sentencing's an independent phase.
Abject example of a life misspent,
can't be atoned in dollars, but in days.
Manhattan's really not his kind of town;
it's Florida that loves retired old clowns

blind Justice

The jury's charged; the prosecution rests;
they've demonstrated Trump knew what he did.
Key co-conspirators have all confessed;
intention's manifest in what they hid.
"Mens rea" can be devilish to prove;
a stringent test of prosecutors' art.
But jurors saw the evidence get moved;
defendant in this case just ain't that smart.
The jury 's spoken: "guilty on each charge"!
While sentencing's an independent stage,
for now, the felon must remain at large,
'til New York State can gild a plus-sized cage.
For one who dreamt he'd made himself a king,
The chants of"Lock Him Up!" have got to sting.

the non-solution

Partition, as benGurion signed on
'though not his dream, is nonetheless the deal.
The OneState ship has sailed; that option's gone;
it's over-due successors must get real.
Mizrahi Jews resent what they've been told
is condescension from Ashkenazim.
The Founders' leftist vision leaves them cold;
they fail to see themselves in Herzl's dream.
Their grievance keeps his premiership afloat;
their discipline gives meager numbers heft.
A hundred parties jostling for the vote
attenuate the power of the Left.
The anthem sings about one Jewish soul,
but like most battles, this one's for control.

mouthpiece

Mike Johnson left his district to exhort
Trump's MAGAts to stand ready to reject
authority of jury, law, and court,
and anyone the people may elect.
Dominionist mistrust the voting booth;
they'd rather misread scripture when they search
and anything purportedly the Truth,
is only credible if it's in Church.
The cult of personality displayed
by MAGAts on their knees to kiss his ring
appalls the world! Democracy's betrayed
by those who'd steal a vote to crown a king.
The party Herbert Hoover damned near sank
must die at last, and Donald Trump's to thank.

comic relief

The maggots quickly died in Bobby's brain;
that toxic sewage would have gagged a shark.
Such language skills as--more or less--remain
now only serve to keep us in the Dark.
This haggard scion of a leading clan
had testified in court he's not all there.
The umpteenth Kennedy who"also ran"
once rated "promising", now seems less fair.
The Andrew Wakefield fraud has been withdrawn
but Bobby's set his teeth, and won't let go.
convinced the vaccine makers are a pawn
in service of the devil--and so's Joe.
His father as a candidate was cool;
between his ears, this namesake son has gruel.

spoiler

The parasitic worm in Bobby's brain,
played hob with deep convictions ere it died.
Old speculation that he's gone insane
find new corroboration from inside.
Conspiracies expand to fill the space
where  once he'd learned to weigh cause and effects,
Virology conflates with wealth, and race
and geopolitics, and--always--sex.
Trump'd hoped a Kennedy would sink Joe's boat;
an erstwhile Democrat who'd lost the plot.
but Trump had owned the kooks inclined to vote
for this estranged black sheep of Camelot.
A three-way race suits anarchists just fine,
but Rule of Law itself is on the line.

succession

McConnell took Mike Johnson by the nose,
and led him through the ways one can obstruct
our legislation like a knotted hose.
His party's over; our republic's fucked.
The rancor of Buchanan's feckless term
still festers in Kentucky's bluegrass heart.
Old lessons half a nation failed to learn
still rending our electorate apart.
Abe Lincoln's legacy has breathed its last
his party's now the one poised to secede.
Confederates enamored of the past
have cast their lot with corporations' greed.
When Cheneys won't break bread with MAGA pigs,
the GOP's past-due to join the Whigs.