Playing Games

Imploring Xi to shut the Persians down,
Trump grovels like a supplicant of yore.
as if Beijing 's indebted to this clown
who'd planned no exit, when he rushed to war.
Climb flights of stairs! Attend my leisure! Kneel!
Humiliation 's meted out, non stop.
It's we who must rely on Chinese steel,
while Iowans can't sell their soybean crop.
This war's unpopular, and getting worse,
as party elders feel elections loom.
Endorsed by Trump, a candidate feels cursed;
Abe Lincoln's party's got a date with Doom.
Chinese play Go, Iranians play Chess,
and both sense  we're the party in duress.

Kremlin tools

The Kremlin Caucus holds Zelenskyy's funds
against Americans' explicit will.
Bizarrely proud that nothing's getting done,
in Washington's two Houses on one Hill.
Joe Biden'd rather claim a half than all,
if winning'd mean he'd make an enemy
But Speaker Johnson isn't playing ball;
his masters spurn collegiality.
Ukrainians defy the empire's might;
a million Davids groping for a stone.
Defending home and hearth, and clearly right
They'll they kill the Roschisti--at needs--alone.
A president who aims to compromise
confronts obstruction, calumny, and lies.

gambit

The Finns remember rolling Russia back,
and coach Ukrainians to snipe from trees.
In dead of winter, patriots attack,
while Putin's conscripts snivel, drink, and freeze.
On Christmas Eve, we crossed the Delaware,
and took the Hessians roughly from behind.
Their London masters sniffed "that's scarcely fair!"
But no one pays those poofters any mind.
In asymmetric war, we give no pause;
invaders would just use it to re-arm.
The Kremlin's violated 'stablished laws;
they're not the side that's suffered grievous harm.
The empire Romanovs and Stalin grew
outlived its age, but losing here, it's through.

Слава Україні!

Ukrainians repulsing Russian tanks,
remember throwing Nazis out before.
The women and retirees in their ranks
nurse no delusions in the present war.
The Tzarist empire Gorbachev renounced
holds no nostalgia for the Kremlin's yoke.
The prospect of oppressors getting trounced
to many, seems the century's best joke.
Old dreams, that Europe could know lasting peace--
As Kant sketched out, two hundred years ago--
had dimmed as fascists everywhere increased
and yet moved forward, be it fast, or slow.
Sunflowers sprouting in the vernal mud
bloom brightest where they've drunk invaders' blood.

Czarist dreams

Joe Stalin deemed the Finns must quickly fold;
he'd move the border, then get home for tea.
Unburied legions died there in the cold
Finn snipers picked them off from every tree.
Three generations later, it's Ukraine
where Putin's staked his honor on a win.
No medals for the nameless who'll be slain;
no officer to call the next of kin.
Like Uber, he prefers to contract out
and leave no fingerprints if they should die.
He'll celebrate a win, deny a rout;
there's always someone else's son to buy.
Ukrainians don't mind goliath's big;
they're fighting for their country, not a gig.

backwards

In Kabul, Taliban rehung their flag
Assuring females they've nothing to fear
as long as the're accoutred in a bag
and follow men twelve paces to the rear.
For their part, women fly to emigrate
or send their daughters overseas to school.
convinced this government will violate
such promises once it can make the rules.
Two trillion dollars! Not a lot to show
Afghanistan's much like the day we came.
One generation's had the chance to grow
but none--who have resources--will remain.
Another empire packs away its tents
and leaves the place without a government.

...some to abhorrence

Saad Hariri knows Assad full well
'though justice in this world is looking bleak.
Bashar deserves a special place in Hell
for blowing up Prime Minister Rafik.
'Though Mehlis nailed his assets to the wall
the Syrians demur to give a hoot
The playing-field is theirs, as is the ball,
from Kurdistan to beaches in Beirut.
The Russians grant him Syria, alone
with military hardware, not just words.
He'll live another season on the throne
and spend it murdering n-thousand Kurds.

 The day that Putin leaves, and takes his gang,
we'll shrug to see Assad's whole family hang.

empire II

Monroe proposed we be the hegemon

from pole to pole, a private hemisphere

the specious logic his claim's based upon

to some of us, was never wholly clear

he preached our destiny was manifest

to anyone who has the eyes to see

one nation, overshadowing the rest

to dominate from sea to shining sea

secure behind our moat, we burgeoned strong

what better defense than our briny shores

and only when incensed by some great wrong

need we participate in foreign wars

a hundred years, the world bent to our will

but we can't endlessly pick up this bill

empire

Monroe proposed we be the hegemon
from pole to pole, a private hemisphere
the specious logic his claim's based upon
to some of us, was never wholly clear
he preached our destiny was manifest
to anyone who has the eyes to see
one nation, overshadowing the rest
to dominate from sea to shining sea
secure behind our moat, we burgeoned strong
what better defense than our briny shores
and only when incensed by some great wrong
need we participate in foreign wars
but now a peril bites us in the rump
the Russian may yet win by playing Trump

contingencies

king George III sacked Pitt, who'd won the war
then clawed up all the sterling he could get
imposing tariffs never dreamed before
assuaging budget hawks afraid of debt
the Navigation Acts shut up our ports
to any ship without a British flag
and colonists got short shrift in the courts
the Crown had all the judges in the bag
the Western Lands, he dealt out of the deck
protecting first-growth forests from the ax
administ'ring these lands out of Quebec
to spare the Natives from settlers' attacks
the widest empire Britain ever had
was doomed to split when George III went mad

sclerotic

George Washington was brilliant in retreat
a crucial skill in asymmetric war
to deal the British Empire a defeat
the likes of which it hadn't known before
a sniper crouched behind each rustic wall
could decimate a rank drawn up in red
each puff of smoke, each whistling musket ball
another mercenary lamed or dead
but Arsenal of Liberty grew old
and snubbed the pleas for aid from chairman Ho
those founding myths that we've so oft retold
now that we hold the scepter aren't so
Progressives tug the lion by its beard
now we've become the empire we once feared

exceptionalism

el-Sisi's a convenient autocrat
compliant to his Saudi masters' will
a half-domestic military cat
who butchers whom his patrons bid him kill
democracy was nipped off in the bud
for fear their Arab brothers would grow bold
he washed the streets of Cairo down in blood
and hopes the opposition parties fold
hope springs eternal in the human breast
and people everywhere want what we've got
we condescend to tell them what is best
but crush them if they would improve their lot
'til we treat Arabs like they're people, too
no neighborhood is safe to be a Jew

grandiose

the tin of Cornwall hardened Philip's spears
and got his first-born working on a plan
to free the Greeks from trade-embargo fears
by delving his ore in Afghanistan
an empire integrates economies
protecting traders from a brigand's raids
there's revenue to claim on shipping fees
when continents are linked by webs of trade
new Alexandrias sprung on the map
where legionnaires shacked up with local brides
and even deserts proved an easy gap
for infantry to compass in their stride
the greatest realm the world had ever seen
was his when he was scarce more than a teen