container for the thing contained

A seamless task, when masons laid the wall
no corner where a side abuts a side.
A single surface circumscribes the hall;
the Oval Office leaves no place to hide.
E pluribus, aspiring to be one
who build each other, rather than compete
but knowing the job's never wholly done
a metaphor in plaster, made concrete.
The staatsbund Kant had hoped would end all war
inspired a league of thirteen colonies
but we've lost sight of what this Union's for
our parties brook no higher loyalties.
Among the stuff Trump threatens to tear down
enlightenment's experimental crown

whither Europe?

The European Union posed a threat
to Putin's dreams of new hegemony
he likes  them separated, and in debt
a fertile field to sow autocracy.
Macron proposes something more, instead
a fiscal union, feeding one shared till.
Kant's League-of-Nations dream just won't stay dead;
the reverie of Peace is hard to kill.
Two visionaries fight for Europe's soul.
American hegemony's long past.
Our troops pay rent, but aren't in control;
last year's alliances are fraying fast.
The Monetary Union's just phase one
of something wholly new beneath the sun.

Perpetual Peace

John Bull votes "leave!" and Parliament's aghast
no threat to sovereignty was ever real
but Brussels wants divorce proceedings fast
to get some closure on the Brexit deal
save for the Balkans, Europe's been at peace
three score and ten since the UN was formed
as city-states united to form Greece
diplomacy--not bullets--is the norm
the European Project feeds the dream
that nations could agree to foreswear war
but now that project's lost a lot of steam
that hope's more distant than it was before
a New World Order struggles to be made
but Boris Johnson took us retrograde