the royal writ

Eight legs lent Sleipnir traction on the snow;

it wouldn't do for Odin to get stuck.
The Roman fashion, building cobbled roads,
would need a labor force that gave a fuck.
Heroic architecture's rare, of course,
Reliant as it is on taxing funds.
No king could build such things of he were Norse;
what one boat's crew can't do, did not get done.
The Book of Judges shills for monarchy
to tax, and underwrite as may seem good.
Portraying tribal life as anarchy,
where individuals did as they would.
Each libertarian needs all-wheel-drive
where workers don't contribute to the hive.

magnum est res tacere

BART runs untapered wheels of carbon steel
whose flanges keep them centered on the track
but at the cost of a soul-rending squeal
like some tormented feline on the rack
a wheel of incremented radius
would bound the train in a potential well
with no more noise than tires make on a bus
thus sparing passers-by the screams of Hell
an engineering insight of nil cost
off-patent since the age of coal and steam
a lesson that was known, but then went lost
on crucial members of the planning team
a generation shunning cars for BART
has cause to doubt its overseers are smart

failure of planning

commuters going nowhere fill their days
redriving night and morning the same miles
their youth and joy receding in the haze
that sanitizes college kids’ lifestyles
selective memory confers a glow
on what seemed ordinary at the time
a diff’rent outlook all those years ago
knew pleasure didn’t have to cost a dime
expensive cars can’t wholly block the pain
as crossroads that held promise fade behind
ambitions all dissolving in the rain
‘though out of sight, not wholly out of mind
the steering wheel chafes at his sagging gut
as he learns to abhor life’s worn-out rut

geopolitics

the assets that gave Saudis global pull
now look, with passing time, to be unsound
our energy reserves may soon be full
while leaving gas and crude oil in the ground
we bid adieu to pistons and to steam
O brave new world! Petroleum's day's done
awakening from our smoke-darkened dream
empowered by the slowly fusing sun
capacitors may take the place of gas
if batteries can't give sufficient range
no matter what accelerates your mass
it's just the novelty that makes it strange
our generation teeters on the brink
of leaving sheikhs petroleum to drink

early adopter

the Petrol Age is over, rest in peace
electric cars have fewer moving parts
with infrastructure, benefits increase
eftsoon, the quiet ride will win our hearts
no carbuerator, no gas tank, no clutch
the Tesla ought to be maintenance-free
but engineers love flashy toys too much
and gummed the X up with compexity
designers thought the gull-wings a sweet quirk
that proves it's more than just a mini-van
but drivers mostly want car doors that work
and not a frequent-flyer service plan
adopting early can exact a price
but none deny, the Tesla's awfully nice

the shape of things to come

electric cars will wean the world from gas
because they've just got fewer moving parts
complexity's a vestige of the past
however dear that purr was to our hearts
by freely using sun or wind or nukes
and not relying on a single fuel
both Ford and Daimler seem short-sighted kooks
more "obsolete" than "charmingly old-school"
a better battery would seal the deal
to daisy-chain 'phone cells is passing strange
electrics will have much broader appeal
when each charge gets four hundred miles of range
in time, we'll fix the infrastructure bug
I've seen the future, and it's got a plug