transients

Rich Perry's all that's likely to remain
whom Flynn and Pence so grossly failed to vet.
His colleagues one-by-one flush down the drain
who had comprised Trump's venal Cabinet.
Director Coats seems poised to exit next
too often, he's at odds with Trump and Pence.
 He wants to analyze cause and effects,
but Don's allergic to Intelligence.
The Senate wastes its effort to confirm
another Scaramucci for a week
whose hearings take much longer than their term.
No bilge-pump can off-set this roaring leak.
Trump's cabinet's got nothing on the shelf
'cause he'll hire no one smarter than himself.

horizons

the Clovis people can't have been the first
we've found tools made millenia before
and yet, their devastation was the worst
for megafauna, they struck like a war
a world of giants gone, with scarce a trace
their local equilibrium upset
uncautious of this upstart human race
within a thousand years, they'd all been et
how many colonies failed to take root
like Greenland's Vikings flourished for a day
but seeking el Dorado and its loot
have faded like a wisp of smoke, away
who knows how much a single species' worth
ourselves, we've been a plague upon this Earth

sic transit gloria mundi

young Donald had no morals of his own
it's not for him, this so-called 'Golden Rule'
a perfect acolyte to old Roy Cohn
when he got out of Military School
Machiavelli's prince ought to be wise
and learn from everything that went before
but Cohn showed power could be built on lies
and waging each encounter like a war
with Kellyanne atop his noise machine
antagonistic to the open Press
he orchestrates each entrance for a scene
but every exit leaves a stinking mess
the monster at our helm of Ship of State
will bring to ruin much that had been great

Ozymandias

I met a pompous ass with stubby hands
who screamed, you've got to trust in me alone
abandon law, and hark to my command
you're sunk unless you set me on a throne
the proletariat don't understand
they're  fool enough to credit what I've said
I'm only in it for the girls and bling
but Breitbart publishes the lies they're fed
and on his Twitter-feed these words appear:
my name's Narcissus, thrall to shiny things
for democratic values, I don't care.
Nothing besides remains. 'Round his toupé
orangutanish mop of orange hair
the GOP's collapsing in decay

fifteen minutes

new Ozymandias bestrides the stage
America's elected potentate
a surfer on the wave of unschooled rage
convinced his ev'ry brain-fart smells just great
Trump seems to think that what we need's a king
to slap his name on ventures everywhere
like Vegas, only with a lot more bling
and constitutionalists taste despair
Reince Priebus hails him as the Chosen One
who'll fill our Treasury, and pay off debt
but those who study deals the Donald's done
will understand he hopes the banks forget
his honeymoon will burn out in a flash
when even DeutscheBank wants cold, hard cash

de re naturam

the Romans knew volcanic ash was key
to make cement that stands the test of time
that sets up hard on land, or under-sea
without the silicates, it's merely lime
that lore was lost for fifteen hundred years
cathedrals soar, but aren't weather-proof
staff masons keep up with the wear and tear
but it's a loss if you neglect the roof
petrology would catch up down the road
explaining how the crystal lattice binds
but brute empiricism bore the load
explaining aggregate in all its kinds
the best of Roman technology stands
the failures long since crumbled back to sands

ars longa, vita brevis

while still a teen, the Bard of Avon wed
the mother of his too-untimely child
to whom--in death--he left his less-loved bed
in memory of their days young, and wild
if with maturity they'd grown apart
inevitably, she--at least--got hurt
the poet so attuned to pluck the heart-
strings spent his time in London chasing skirt
for English poets, he still sets the mark
but whom he's wooing isn't ever clear
the sonnets idolize a lady dark
whom--second to his Muse--he holds most dear
they're all long dead, yet still his art remains
evoking timeless joys, and loves, and pains

glint

the setting sun gilds wave-crests on the Bay
a regal foot-path into the far West
a fleeting vision at the close of day
of Phaeton putting his horse-team to rest
imagination treads where feet can't go
in liminal states verging on our dreams
conflating what's above with life below
what's tangible with what--at most--just seems
before us, in its glory sprawls the night
ere rosy-fingered Dawn lights up the East
where touch and sound must take the place of sight
until two backs conjoin to form one beast
each moment, possibilities abound 
if we'd but lift our eyes above the ground