Pagliacchi

Trump's coke-fueled rants disturb the few who care;
his rhetoric and diction ain't the best.
Invective can't mask there's no substance there;
beneath that orange hair, he's Kanye West.
Twin Barnums, selling hokum to the mob
as if they'd conjure substance at their word.
Too busy talking to perform their job,
they think themselves above the madding herd.
To craft a paragraph is out of reach
when working memory can't hold one thought.
The measured cadence of Obama's speech
is still not anything that can be bought.
So hard to satirize this goofy town!
Straight news gets laughs just covering this clown.

sow's ear

A presidency's arc in rhyming verse
sweet presentation, 'though the content's gall.
Obama's exit changed us for the worse;
Trump seems Hell-bent on our republic's fall.
The Checks and Balances our Framers wrought
collapse when Congress shirks its proper role;
when donors dictate to the pawns they've bought
It's dollars, not the People, in control.
Each week, his language skills degenerate;
where others focus, he spews verbal hash.
A manichean world, all "bad" or "great"
excludes all values neither "gold" nor "trash".
I might as well write sonnets to the moon;
Trump's deaf to what's not pitched in a cartoon.

Presidential Records

Trump muses now, that someone should record
his every utterance, so we can know
a huuge idea! We all should get aboard!
No court can rest on journalists' say-so.
Dog-whistle rhetoric for good-old-boys
like they alone will weigh in on his fate
expecting Christians will hear only noise;
he's deaf to resonance to Watergate.
This shithole president, whose potty talk
has allies thinking they'll go it alone
might get away with it when in New York
but failed to learn new mores when in Rome.
A Nazi proud of his "good German blood"
has mired our Ship of State in stinking mud.

revolutionary

five centuries since Luther took up quill
and gave der Deutsche Welt what had been Greek
a common diction that they're using still.
He standardized the way that Germans speak.
Like Aleghieri, but without the rhyme
his dialect because the standard one
for Northern Europe to the present time
the printing press prevailed, without a gun.
Linguistic union needs no troops, no State
and even Catholic Austria joined on
vonBismarck's project of a later date
had deep foundations he could build it on.
Before a flag gets raised, or anthem sung,
identity seeps in, with mother's tongue.

salvage operations

Ivanka tries to make him work from notes
his ramblings give the children scary dreams
his improv skills won't win him any votes
and Twitter's laughing at his stupid memes
each month, more words are trickier to find
Alzheimers steals them on soft padded feet
it's plain that Donald Trump has lost his mind
degeneration's clear, 'though incomplete
the 25th amendment sets no test
for when we ought to oust him for Mike Pence
in such a strait, no option's good; at best
we'll settle for a glimpse of competence
to vote him in, then shove this fool aside
is cause for consternation, not for pride

pants on fire

if Trump had any honor, we could talk
but banks learned, he'll default on any loan
he placed a distant second in New York
where voters know he's not one of our own
a bullshit artist with no expertise
except to prey on others' innocence
a symptom of our media's disease
who'll have his victims praying for Mike Pence
he charges that Obama tapped his phone
but then denies he really meant that word
his private lexicon is his, alone
to think he really meant it is absurd
a narcissist who can't bear being wrong
may face impeachment charges ere too long

on a Grecian Urn

pink clouds of cherry-blossoms float within a sky of green
as if I've misinterpreted the frequencies of light
as sweet a harbinger of Spring as any I have seen
a Through the LookingGlass effect that some say can't be right
convention links one spectral band to one specific word
but other languages define a wholly diff'rent map
my expectation that you'll understand must seem absurd
between two minds, I can't presume to ever bridge the gap
yet still, I feel compelled to share this vernal scene with you
and trust your inner lexicon to correspond to mine
a vision of such loveliness I must believe is true
what can't be proved deductively must hint at the divine
a sky of green, a cloud of pink, on earth as up above
a poet's faculty's deranged when seasons turn to love

Shannon Entropy

I dreamed that you could understand the code that I'd devised
devoid of ambiguity as plain as broad daylight
and anyone who heard or read could look out through my eyes
a sweet, seductive fantasy that helped me sleep at night
I rushed to put it down in ink the moment I awoke
but trains of baggage came along with every word I chose
the clarity was the mirage, and all I clutched was smoke
that through my fingers oozed away and to the stars arose
Retreat! Retrench! at least in math, we share communion pure
that isn't just conventional, transparent to us all

but Gödel interjects to say I must not be so sure

an edifice on such a base in time may also fall
self-organized, dream-words conform to heptametric verse
so somewhere, entropy must grow, within my universe

holism II

to reify the wave, you break the sea
and ask each part to make sense on its own
as if it's somehow possible to be
an insular phenomenon, alone
a language conjures objects up by name
imposing bound'ries on our mental maps
but why two minds should divvy it the same
one must fall back on faith to fill the gaps

emergent qualities defy Descartes
and chief among them is this thing called "mind"
that isn't found in any smaller part
(some argue that there is no "thing" to find)

there may not be a bottom to this well

as bootstrap problems go, this one's from Hell

holism

to reify the wave, you break the sea
and ask each part to make sense on its own
as if it's somehow possible to be
an insular phenomenon, alone
a language conjures objects by their name
imposing edges nature never knew
but why two minds should divvy it the same
is too obscure for wise men to see through
emergent qualities defy Descartes
and chief among them is this thing called "mind"
that isn't found in any smaller part
(some argue that there is no "thing" to find)
an understanding of the system's whole
may not be had from each component's role

Hamilton!

Miranda brought rhymed verse back to the stage
to tell an orphan's inspirational
life story to a cynical new age
his Hamilton's acclaimed sensational
a renaissance of forms we'd thought passé
reshaping how our stars of the stage speak
as if medieval Europe changed the way
it valued heritage in Attic Greek
libbreticists fit in historic facts
but human drama grips the audience
who may not care about stamps, tea, or tax
but love a costume drama's elegance
with time, a culture's templates ebb, and flow
but this year, Hamilton's the hottest show

Dadaism

Magritte and I mistrust what words convey
and he sought clarity in paint and ink
but still, no Other's sure what we would say
nor clearly grasps the substance that we think
the Dadaists engaged the task absurd
a hopeless conversation on their part
attempting, both in image and in word
to say we can't communicate in Art
and yet they drew, and wrote and worked in paint
compulsively, as if to scratch an itch
depicting what their senses said there ain't
no doubt, some saw the paradox is rich
they dreamt the channel magic'ly would clear
and painting quelled their existential fear

Qualia

I dreamed that you could understand the code that I'd devised
devoid of ambiguity as plain as broad daylight
and anyone who heard or read could look out through my eyes
a sweet, seductive fantasy that helped me sleep at night
I rushed to put it down in ink the moment I awoke
but trains of baggage came along with every word I chose
the clarity was the mirage, and all I clutched was smoke
that through my fingers oozed away and to the stars arose
Retreat!Retrench! at least in math, we share communion pure
that isn't just conventional, transparent to us all
but Gödel interjects to say I must not be so sure
 an edifice on such a base in time may also fall
I hammer language 'til it fits in heptametric verse
then launch it on its Viking pyre into the universe

Wittgenstein's poker

proud edifice of language built on sand
presumes that there's an Other who will read
or one, at least, who's apt to understand
the thoughts to which our words intend to lead
that tongues can sketch what could not ever be
seems not to bother ordinary folks
who trust your qualia and mine agree
the ambiguities, they use for jokes
like ants constructing tunnels, we persist
as if mere speech could ever make it clear
compulsively, we're each a Sisyphus
portraying to the void the world in here
each solipsist constructs a universe
from blocks as apt to bless as they're to curse

message in a bottle iI

message in a bottle

within a sonnet's lines, a world's contained
an arbitrary form gives shape to Art
expressing, through a medium constrained
the metaphoric language of the heart
through rhyme and meter building up effects
that resonate within a reader's mind
like dance that intimates the joy of sex
or painting sunset's glory for the blind
the poet can't know who might take his bait
the reader's lexicon might be in Dutch
across such chasms to communicate
the leap of faith required would seem too much
a language fraught with ambiguity
aspires to sketch what others' eyes will see

arrhythmia

communication's mostly a mirage
who knows what meaning others' words convey
we think we penetrate the camouflage
and hope it's plain to them what we would say
the minds of others might be just like ours
but that's an axiom we'll never know
at best, we know our own reasoning powers
the rest is mere induction and say-so
each mind's alone, at sea on the wide world
the rest may be mere figments we construct
but no one dwells on that when boy meets girl
until the morning after we've first made love
what's left unspoken can--one hopes--be guessed
completing in your head our feeble jest

delta document II

Picasso boasted that great artists steal
they build on pilings in beholders' heads
it fails as Art if it can't make you feel
what's too abstract lies on the canvas, dead
communication needs a common tongue
a basis-set of shared experience
that makes saliva flow when bells get rung
or else it's just opaque, not merely dense
our common culture primes us to  receive
the painter's or the poet's offering
we take to heart what they'd have us believe
without the need to spell out everything
relentlessly, this edifice of words
builds on what those long gone wrote, said, and heard

delta document

Picasso boasted that great artists steal
relying on what's in beholders' heads
it fails as Art if it can't make you feel
what's too abstract lies on the canvas, dead
communication needs a common tongue
a basis-set of shared experience
that makes saliva flow when bells get rung
or else it's just opaque, not merely dense
our common culture primes us to  receive
the painter's or the poet's offering
we take to heart what they'd have us believe
without the need to spell out everything
relentlessly, this edifice of words
builds on what those long gone wrote, said, and heard

overspecified

Sam Coleridge proposed that we use "it"
because a pronoun need not point to sex
most social functions don't engage one's kit
or secondary hormonal effects
consensus coalesces around "they"
for singular and plural, all the same
for hetero, or trans, or bi, or gay
what's private need determine not one's name
such metadata carelessly attach
to pronouns where it has no relevance
were they ungendered and free to mismatch
we'd get on better at no great expense
a thousand pitfalls yawn each time we speak
for want of the right pronoun that we seek