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

echoes

The watchman on the walls of Elsinore
called forth Horatio, that he might speak.
Athenians had seen this scene before,
'though Shakespeare can't have read it in the Greek.
Oresteia saw his duty, and just struck;
pained vacillation's for a future Dane.
He won't get mired in introspective muck
when father's blood cries from the bathroom drain.
The terrors young Oresteia knew at night
are not so obsolete as they might seem.
For Hamlet, torments don't dissolve in light;
They echo in the Prince of Denmark dreams.
Time-hallowed gem from Greece's Late Bronze Age
the bard of Avon cast back on the stage.

Double Tap

"Leave no survivors!" Kegsbreath barked aloud
the crap no honest officer would think.
As if a US serviceman'd be proud
to murder sailors flailing in the drink.
Destroying evidence is always wrong--
like witness tampering--and this was both.
Loud coward who's intent on looking strong
blacked out on adolescent moral growth
Pariah Nation, strutting the world's stage;
dark parody of anything we'd been.
Apologists may point to Trump's old age;
historians are not acquiring him.
What his own Cabinet does in Trump's name,
belongs to him; he can't deflect the blame.

Time's up

Dick's bargain with the Devil's due at last;
no cardiologist butts in, this time.
There's Hell to pay in earnest for his past
and nothing to extenuate his crime.
Unbounded by conventions, or constraints
contemptuous of morals, and of laws
Geneva, he dismissed as merely "quaint"
and tramples on our treaties, clause by clause.
One vote for Kamala can't expiate
his decades waging Class War from above.
Abe Lincoln's party's sold on Greed, and Hate.
despite the Scripture's stark command to love.
His sulfur stench may take years to dispel
For now, we're much relieved that he's in Hell.

tzedekh, tzedekh tirdof

Contrition's not a tune Trump's learned to sing;
his cultists like their hero never wrong.
like some exalted ancient Persian king
commanding minstrels when he wants a song.
Probation officer's charged to assess
if monetary fines might bring him 'round.
But Trump's explicit, no one needs to guess:
he'd gladly tear the whole Republic down.
Judge Cannon's on the take; now it's the States
that wield the power to see Justice done.
With feds demuring to adjudicate
New York has shown such cases can be won.
Still, sentencing's an independent stage;
where fines are toothless, put him in a cage!

It's about time

His co-conspirators are serving time,
but he deludes himself he'll walk scot-free.
Our penal system's less about the crime,
than who's got top-tier lawyers, and their fee.
Since Dershowitz won OJ Simpson's case,
some took the lesson: "justice is for chumps".
Exhibits that would damns him, on their face,
might be dismissed for Simpsons, or for Trumps.
Were there an indication he's contrite,
the court might let him off with just a slap.
But MAGAts want a hero always right
who'd never grovel to reduce the rap.
Where cash for "justice" has become the norm
we're over-due for radical reform.

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.

Trump's end

Taveras flipped; obstruction's now overt;
destroying evidence is not okay.
Surveillance tapes, and electronic dirt,
persist when paper traces flush away.
Like Butterfield, it's IT workers know
where evidence of what's went down lies hid.
Those Oval Office tapes of long ago
Attest what Richard Nixon said, and did.
Conspirators must walk, or hang, as one;
game-theorists taught this much about crime.
One member breaks, the whole cabal is done;
the last to sing, will serve the hardest time.
I don't remember who it was who said:
that "two can keep a secret--if one's dead"

low-class

Eight Justices demurred to criticize
a criminal among them on the bench.
Emoluments discretely on the side
taint all the nine with one pervasive stench.
The Thomases craved life-long to belong
and Reagan's party opened wide a door.
Dismissing questions of what's "right" or"wrong"
proferring wealth, it sought an eager whore.
Our Framers did their best to insulate
our highest court from politics, and Class.
But never dreamt an ethos of Class-hate
would saddle us with such a venal ass.
"[O]n good behaviour" rather than "for life"
requires we ask: "Who's bought the judge's wife?"

Supreme Arrogance

Chief justice Roberts chooses to be blind
as SCOTUS blunders off the moral cliff.
So confidant the voters wouldn't mind
that Thomas swims in unreported gifts.
Pacific jaunts that eldest justice took,
where Krakatoa's new volcanoes grow
are nowhere on his tax-accountant's books;
emoluments from "dear friend" TrammelCrow.
Jane Roberts also profits on the side
when litigants desire her husband's ear.
No penalty's incurred for laws defied
when perpetrators know they have no peer.
"[O]n good behaviour" rather than "for life"
requires we ask: "who's bought the judge's wife?"

Tzedekh, Tzedekh...

The coalition Netanyahu bought
with promises each bloc could live its dreams,
just winks at terrorists, when they get caught,
if they're perceived to play for the same team.
The many Netanyahu has betrayed
have sworn they'll never work with him again.
His underlings routinely go unpaid;
the dogs that run with him are scarcely men.
"I put no faith in Man" the psalmist wrote.
All government--he'd guess--is on the take.
The cynic's guide to how Haredi vote:
they'll back the crook who'll bend laws for their sake.
A politics of Fear, betraying Hope
has hooked a generation on this dope.

comeuppance

An asset valued low when it's for tax,
and high when bankers want a guarantee
has just one market worth, in point of fact
such double books incur a felony.
A lifetime stiffing those who'd done his work;
it's fitting maybe it should end this way.
The shameless woman nails the shameless jerk;
the only time the worker got her pay.
A life of crime took decades to get caught;
Roy Cohn scheps nachas from this gilded ass.
The inconvenient witness can be bought
and prosecution's rare for ruling class.
No court should take this felon at his word,
Letitia James is staunchly undeterred.

one for the books

The memoir some purport Trump means to write
divulging secrets to our detriment,
would be a joke, except that "our" far Right
derides the notion of Good Government.
These "patriots" exult in doing harm
without contrition or a pang of guilt.
As long as they can promenade their arms,
they'll smash what better generations built.
The military school Trump's parents thought
might drum morality into their son
could not deliver what cannot be bought;
he just liked dressing up with sword and gun.
To write a book's a most unlikely deed
for one who struggles pitifully to read.

priceless

Letitia James brought first the civil suit;

Discovery's where so much work gets done.
When once NewYork gets paid what's in dispute,
the feds can prosecute the 1001.
The bankers Hillary'd relo'ed to woo
trust their collateral would still be there
if they must liquidate when loans come due.
They want to hold real assets, not hot air.
Assessors jeopardize their very job
to value high to lenders, low for tax.
When they're coerced, or bought to serve the mob
they share exposure for their faithless acts.
Failed president, who'd lost his own homestate
now sweats as those he'd cheated weigh his fate.

Auto da fe

John Dean'd been taught "the Truth will set you free"
but understood the fetters forged by fear.
The path he blazed in"use immunity"
led some who'd been estranged to now draw near.
Republics stand because the voters trust
our public servants serve the public good.
A venal slave to Mammon and to Lust
lacks any sense of what he ought, or should.
Steve Bannon smells the trap and wants control
of narratives explaining what went down.
Of all these crimes, which highlight his own role
and which we must attribute to the clown.
The race is on! Who'll be the first to break?
The last to sing gets roasted at the stake.

Cassidy

Trump paid for lawyers to coordinate
the testimony House Committees heard.
They coached each witness to prevaricate;
we'd be great fools to take them at their word,
Such bullshit hadn't echoed in those Halls
since Reagan shipped the Mullahs lethal toys.
'Til Cassidy stepped up and showed some balls,
we'd trusted governance to good old boys.
Democracy requires the public know
when those in highest office turn to crime.
There's leniency for those who fess up, though
the last to testify will serve most time.
To keep omerta once one colleague's sung
is gonna get the bitter-enders hung.

wannabe

Judge Schroeder gave Kyle Rittenhouse a gift
dismissing charges of "illegal gun".
It's not been proven he was taking grift
but this ain't how a good courthouse is run.
Black robes exalt the judge from common folk;
in office, he speaks for the very State.
But in Kenosha, justice is a joke;
he's advocating for this reprobate.
A hundred years, "discretion's" served the Klan
selecting whom it is we'll prosecute.
This adolescent posing as a man
gets special dispensation, 'cause he's cute.
Two men lie dead, a third's been gravely maimed;
were their assailant black, 'twere not the same.

Chauvin

Kentucky blames the victim every time
and jurors must pretend this makes some sense.
Your shattered skull is witness to your crime
when officers resort to violence.
'Til Rodney King, such video was rare;
we're told cops' testimony'd earned our trust.

White voters just assumed police must care,
and had good motives when then made a bust.
When ev'ry murder's broadcast to our 'phones

it takes an effort staunchly to not see
the crimes are ours, not officers' alone.
Our fundamental right must be to be.
Keith Ellison assures us laws can hold
if our Executive is staunch, and bold.

Greene's day

Post-Trump, McConnell meant to rule the roost
and money'd have to flow Kentucky's way.
But somewhere, half the party's screws shook loose 
He'd lost the leverage for pay-to-play.
The CrossFit dominatrix claims the stage
As loud as Hannity, and twice as wrong.
Mitch looks a brittle corpse at twice her age;
unlike her logic, zealotry runs strong.

'Though even Georgia wants her on a leash
this GOP adores a circus show.
Predictably, she votes to not impeach
until the voice of Jesus tells her so.
'twere rich to grant this party has a soul,
but claws come out as cats contest control.