Vayigash N

The Pharaoh dreamed of cows devouring beef
but needs a foreign seer to read the sense.
So Joseph's elevated to be chief.
The land's dependent on his competence.
Now, Benjamin must play his brother's part,
to try the mettle of the elder ten.
Yehudah's had a total change of heart.
The rest--who'd been such louts--might now be men.
The fratricidal fantasies of youth
that strained Joe's loyalties to kin, and clan
were capital, if judge in simple truth
but Yosef haTzadik's a pious man.
The jerks who sold their brother as a slave
had grown to men the latter now forgave.

Genius!

Roy Moore's got issues with authority
enough to give his party's elders pause
he claims a place above society
beyond the writ of any man-made laws.
Steve Bannon'd thought the state was safely Red
and wanted an insurgent to irk Mitch.
But Alabama's not so meekly led,
and balked to play that carpetbagger's bitch.
It's not clear Trump could work with Bannon's zoo;
Steve's proteges report to him, alone.
But as the Senate's shifting towards the Blue,
McConnell's looking shaky on his throne.
As Alabama goes, so goes Trump's world
'cause jerks can't keep their hands off teenaged girls.

Who is my neighbor?

Rubashkin's ethics aren't worth two figs
his cult's estranged from all humanity.
Immersed in regulations as to pigs,
he's blind to sparks of the Divinity.
The workers he's accustomed to abuse--
regardless that he finds their accents odd--
are no less children than his fellow Jews
of Yiddish speakers' universal God.
Isaiah railed against such empty rites
of Jews who sacrifice, and fast, and bow.
As if our brethren, 'though they're Ishmaelites
bore visages that aren't His, somehow.
To be a mensch, one's called upon to care
regardless that the sufferer's a ger.

unfunny

Will Rodgers had no use for "TrickleDown"
as he described the hoax to honest folk
but now, "our" Fed takes guidance from a clown
who doesn't grasp his policy's a joke.
Art Laffer's grand experiment's been tried;
the rich invest in growth to save on tax.
But Trump's advisors somehow can't abide
to build sound policy on stubborn facts.
The benefits our taxes underwrite
are more than Kochs, or Mercers would report.
They lift Society from Hobbes' plight:
life "solitary, nasty, brutish, short"
The "Voodoo economics" Bush condemned
is more than honest research can defend.

Shemot II

The bush is marvelously unconsumed
for Moshe, the whole cosmos in suspense
forsaking life with Pharaoh, who's foredoomed,
he'll have to goad his kin to hie them thence.
 Apotheosis only lasts a beat
and then it's back to court, and noise, and mob
so lacing back the sandals on his feet
he quits the wilderness, and takes a job.
But in that moment, destiny's unfurled
no peaceful dotage with the kids, and wife
to bring this revelation to the world
will take whatever's left to him of life.
To quit the courtly pleasures took a prod,
but tending Yitro's sheep, he came to God.

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.