the Fig Leaf (Vayigash)

Exposed, ashamed, the brothers can't deny
they'd sold Yosef, and thought him gone for good.
'Til Joe contrived the diplomatic lie:
they'd merely done what God has meant they should.
The intervening years great changes wrought;
the tactless teen has learned to temper truth.
A handsome lad those Midianites bought
has gained in wisdom what he's lost in youth.
Yehudah, for his part, had grown his soul.
'Though fourth-born, he's now leader of this mob.
Where Reuben's proved unfit to wield control,
the man who can steps forth to do the job.
Pericope of unaccustomed scope
finds reconciliation, past all hope.

War Powers

Cambodia taught Congress to assert
what Founders designated is its role.
Before our youth bleed out on foreign dirt,
we must be clear just who is in control.
War Powers aren't Trump's to arrogate
whenever journalists call out his crimes.
Our Senate's mandate's to deliberate,
before we rush to arms, we must take time.
"EMERGENCY!" Trump bleats, 'cause Bannon'd taught
extraordinary powers can be seized
from Congress, once they're compromised, or bought,
and won't be stripping Grandpa of his keys.
Recalling history's a bitter thing
when Congress thinks it's vassal to a king.

Clathrates

Disordered water can't sustain its hold;
archaic methane wafts free from the box.
The climate we've evolved in from of old
is unsustainable once that's unlocked.
Those voids that hosted methane as their guest,
collapse on melting, like they'd never been.
Al Gore's just one of billions in distress
as what's turned loose, that had been pent within.
This conflagration on a global scale--
self-reinforcing with each gram released--
proceeds from such molecular detail.
Mortality ticks up, with each Increase.
The centre cannot hold; things fall apart
as permafrost lets rip this deadly fart.

Cry 'havoc!"

Our Pentagon gamed all this out before;
the Persian Gulf's no battlefield we'd choose.
with Persians waging asymmetric war,
most simulations show we slowly lose.
Tom Jefferson refused to pay a toll
for shipping on a common route at sea.
But Trump now put the Persians in control
where we had sent Marines to Tripoli.
Two hundred years, free shipping made us strong
and wealthier than Lydia of yore.
But Trump can't tell his public he'd been wrong;
so bid your kids farewell; they're bound for war.
What Congress hasn't weighed turns on one man
wh manifestly hasn't got a plan.

Our Pentagon gamed all this out before
the Persian Gulf's no battlefield we'd choose.
Iranians wage asymmetric war
most simulations show we slowly lose.
Tom Jefferson refused to pay a toll
for shipping on a common route at sea
But Trump now put the Persians in control
where we had sent Marines to Tripoli.
Two hundred years, free shipping made us strong
and wealthier than Lydia of yore.
But Trump insists it's we who've got it wrong;
his cronies see more profit waging war.
What Congress hasn't weighed, turns on one man
who  manifestly hasn't got a plan

Barbary Pirates

Trump's war in Asia's setting off alarms;
the Pentagon remembers getting stuck.
Advisors all got fired who duly warned,
predictably, our servicemen get fucked.
"Advisors" Ike positioned in Saigon
then requisitioned force, by increment.
Such baleful auguries point to Iran,
where native friends are likewise impotent.
Tom Jefferson would not prevaricate;
no foreign power'd get to charge us tolls!
But Trump gave up the game in Hormuz Strait;
IRGC's now wholly in control.
Elections loom, and Teheran hangs tough
as Persian diplomats call Donald's bluff.

Rodef Dam

Orestes saw his duty, and proved true;
Elektra's orphaned by her brother's hand.
Good kids stood up to do what they must do
to purge the regicide taint from the land.
Orestes can't shrug off the family weight
Until Athena will adjudicate.
Orestes was ordained to break the spell;
Athena took him for her very own
Inventing courts to thwart the Hags of Hell.
Exiled from Mycenae, he found a home.
His father's murder cried out from the Earth.
Orestes knew what duty'd bid him do
to prove himself a pious son of worth.
but matricide's a Capital sin, too.
what could Orestes do in such a plight
he's next of kin and must avenge the king
in his dilemma, no decision's right
the best of actions consequences bring