Cry 'havoc!"

Our Pentagon gamed all this out before;
the Persian Gulf's no battlefield we'd choose.
with Persians waging asymmetric war,
most simulations show we slowly lose.
Tom Jefferson refused to pay a toll
for shipping on a common route at sea.
But Trump now put the Persians in control
where we had sent Marines to Tripoli.
Two hundred years, free shipping made us strong
and wealthier than Lydia of yore.
But Trump can't tell his public he'd been wrong;
so bid your kids farewell; they're bound for war.
What Congress hasn't weighed turns on one man
wh manifestly hasn't got a plan.

Barbary Pirates

Trump's war in Asia's setting off alarms;
the Pentagon remembers getting stuck.
Advisors all got fired who duly warned,
predictably, our servicemen get fucked.
"Advisors" Ike positioned in Saigon
then requisitioned force, by increment.
Such baleful auguries point to Iran,
where native friends are likewise impotent.
Tom Jefferson would not prevaricate;
no foreign power'd get to charge us tolls!
But Trump gave up the game in Hormuz Strait;
IRGC's now wholly in control.
Elections loom, and Teheran hangs tough
as Persian diplomats call Donald's bluff.

fulminating

The host with pitchforks marches to the beat;
Bob Dylan's lyrics soaring in our throats.
When Miller's brownshirts shoot us in the streets,
We won't be begging him to let us vote.
The mob with torches owns the avenues,
when Hegseth calls our soldiers to"crusade",
a billion Muslims join with Sikhs, and Jews,
and--maybe--this is more than a parade.
"Appeal to Heaven" as Alito said
belongs to We the People, not to him.
nor to his party's venal orange head,
to honor or dishonor at his whim.
That gallows Stephen Miller raised so tall,
will hoist him high, when he's cast down this Fall.

Those who don't know history

Our admirals know well vanRiper's game;
their fleet's deployed, but still they hesitate.
Unwilling to reprise it all the same
that awful turkey-shoot queued in the Strait.
To launch a war--if Congress doesn't mind--
takes just a momentary fit of pique.
But where Trump leads, no allies march behind;
there's none to save him drowning in his Creek.
Trump's foreign venture doesn't play at home,
where memories of wars gone wrong are strong.
This New World Order, going it alone,
is judged by Right and Left alike as 'wrong"
November third, Americans can choose
to jump this ship that's foundered at Hormuz

those who don't learn from history...

The Persians saw no way to end this fast,
once aircraft carriers loomed off their coast.
But they'll have won, if they can merely last;
come January, Trump and Friends are toast.
Each line marked 'R's a loser in this race
They'd rather drill for gas and oil at home
This whole adventure's noxious to his base;
The most corrupt regime since TeapotDome.
The war he'd threatened Kamala'd embark,
Trump launched himself without a forward thought.
So cavalier, committing in the dark
We see what mid-East donors' dollars bought.
Reprising what he hadn't learned before,
America's subsiding in Trump's war.

No Deal

The Persians have pinned Trump against a wall;
they're in no rush to cede, or even bend.
Aware of midterms coming up this Fall,
and he'll pay through the nose for war to end.
They've got the world's economy in hock
and when this crisis ends, is theirs to choose.
The global orders not built for this shock;
its lifeline's been occluded at Hormuz.
Armed Serviees delivered what they're told;
it's not for them to choose which wars to wage.
Executives intent on oil and gold

bereft of strategy, act out of rage.
A war without a rationale in sight
could toll the deathknell for the rabid Right.

slipping

His cultists still insist he has a plan.
With prices lurching sky-ward at the pump,
none have the balls to disabuse their man
their minds and souls are wholly owned by Trump.
Dementia steals the words he'd want to speak;
all adjectives have been replaced by"big".
Sad baggy suits can't hide when diapers leak.
Still, no one takes the car keys from their pig.
The Checks and Balances he never learned
can't guard our civil Rights, nor our East Wing.
When standards of civility are spurned
we've lost the spirit that threw off a king.
The 25th Amendment's got no teeth,
but--maybe--next year, Congress can impeach.

Don't call it "war"

Two trillion dollars to depose Saddam
on top of countless thousands who've been killed,
left Trump's excited to be dropping bombs
and skimming padded contracts to rebuild.
That war's a "racket" Smedley Butler taught
that leaves the planet poorer than before.
But Trump discounts the things that can't be bought
There's opportunity for graft in any war!
Kharg island might be just the thing to hold,
until Iranians lay down their arms.
If they'll just buy his crypto with their gold,
their daughters need not suffer lasting harm.
Insisting that his powers are immense,
Trump tries to hide the mind-boggling expense.

sic transit gloria

The Framers' nightmare, Trump has seized DC
extracting wealth from all who pay him court.
Enlightenment's first stab at Liberty
when tested in the field, has come up short.
Republics elsewhere somehow make it work,
updating systems lest they slowly rot.
But we've now got this venal orange jerk
who aims to make himself a new PolPot.
A third of our electorate still backs
this strutting fascist as he slurs and fibs,
exulting in his partisan attacks
because their guiding value's "own the libs!"
As hegemon, our status couldn't last;
those glory days are firmly in the past.

America alone

Tech billionaires watch markets fade away
as Europe builds capacities at home.
Horizons dwindle where they're free to play;
America's increasingly alone.
"The Wealth of Nations" Adam Smith has taught
expands when parties all cooperate.
What's hard to make, is often better bought;
high tariffs will impoverish the State.
Three generations, we secured sea lanes
and Europe trusted we'd hold perils back.
But now that Putin's avid for Ukraine
his vassal Trump's been told to just retract.
Enablers, focused wholly on their stocks,
have conned our Ship of State right onto rocks.

eating lunch alone

Tech billionaires watch markets fade away
as Europe builds capacities at home.
Horizons dwindle where they're free to play;
America's increasingly alone.
"The Wealth of Nations" Adam Smith has taught
expands when parties all cooperate.
What's hard to make, is often better bought;
high tariffs will impoverish the State.
Vast industries rely on"Just'In-Time"
as parts and feedstocks shuttle back and forth.
We're sliding towards a slower paradigm.
if Trump plays nasty with the Great White North.
Enablers, focused wholly on their stocks,
have conned our Ship of State right onto rocks.

jackboots

Republicans are questioning the cult
that tells them "Alex Pretti was the threat"
a party with no functioning adult
increasingly appears a losing bet.
The NRA had meekly broken ranks;
the Pretti execution's not OK.
Those kooks who'd advocate for owning tanks
perceive Steph Miller's take their arms away.
The knives are out; who's gonna take the blame
for policies Americans abhore?
What's being done in Donald Trump's own name
could usher Lincoln's party out the door.
The Fourth Reich Trump had fantasized he'd found
expired on Minnesota's blood-soaked ground

faith

Mark Carney spoke in Davos to the crowd
who knew they had to formulates a plan
to bypass Trump who spews such crap aloud.
They need to line up with a better man.
A new world order, shutting Trump outside
must be in place before the pending crash.
A global trade-web's not quickly contrived
when old alliances break in a flash.
O Canada! We turn our eyes to thee.
Last  bastion that won't crumble into dust
where citizen and immigrant breath free,
and Europeans still invest their trust.
Our glory days as hegemon are shot,
and only Trump takes pride in what he's got.

Rupture

Half Europe sees it's long past time to dump
those US bonds that keep this ship afloat.
'Though that might be too subtle to move Trump,
and Bessent's not the man to right this boat.
Some hope that Wall Street still retains the clout
to rein him in as Mattis did, before.
This Congress lacks the balls to throw him out,
and many there hope profit comes with war.
The order we contrived at Bretton Woods,
to stabilize the world, and make us rich,
four score and more was working pretty good.
Now, all is blown to Hell by Putin's bitch.
While Trump indulges one more hissy fit,
Mark Carney isn't taking any shit.

echoes of Tienanmen

On Tienanmen, one figure stood,  alone,
bagged groceries forgotten in his hands.
Stark image that still thrills us to the bone:
massed armor halted by one unarmed man.
The violence that Stephen Miller craves
to justify the Insurrection Act,
appeals to one so utterly depraved
he reasons from his passions, not from facts.
Each Cossack isn't welded to his horse;
Jack-booted thugs routinely "ride" in cars.
If we're not peons cowed by shows of force,
Americans won't meekly kneel to Czars.
He did what's right, without regard for fame
immortalized, 'though no one knows his name.

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.

empires in retreat

Dimetriev slipped Witkof Putin's plan,
and Donald Trump turned in"his" homework sheet.
The same old landgrabs since the war began,
but now, it's Russia staring at defeat.
The blitzkrieg failed, Ukraine remained unbowed;
Zelenskyy stood, and didn't stand alone.
True allies sent what budgets had allowed;
the Europeans know this war's their own.
The Navy at the bottom of the sea,
the warplanes that don't dare to go aloft,
Defections decimate the infantry.
Morale in the Red Army's pudding-soft.
The gross examples we've already caught
make clear our presidency has been bought.

Compromised IV

Caligula's got nothing on this clown
but Putin keeps deep files of kompromat.
The"Bubba" film clips show him going down
and that's the least of what the Kremlin 's got.
Depravities he'd studied with Roy Cohn
when he was just  a hormone-adddled lad,
six decades later, he has made his own;
there's not a cell of Trump that isn't bad 
Since Roy, Jeff Epstein'd been his only friend;
that set's now null, as empty as his soul.
He can't conceive a norm he mustn't bend;
where others look for love, he seeks control.
Cruel angry monsters, in their lonely world
incapable of love, keep buying girls.

compromised III

Caligula 's got nothing on this clown
but Putin keeps deep files of kompromat.
The"Bubba" film clips show him going down,
and that's the least of what the Kremlin 's got.
Depravities he'd studied with Roy Cohn
when he was just a hormonal-addled lad
six decades later, he has made his own;
there's not a cell of Donald that's not bad.
Since Roy, Jeff Epstein'd been his only friend;
that set's now null, as empty as his soul.
He can't conceive a norm he mustn't bend;
where others look for love, he seeks control.
A lonely monster in his shit-hole world
unable to buy love, keeps buying girls.

compromising II

The oral sex with Bubba's all on tape,
and Putin's smug to hold such kompromat.
They're both of age; this case may not be rape,
but nothing in this file's remotely hot.
From Burma to an island off of Spain,
commoditizing flesh around the world,
when princess Leia'd danced on Jabba's chain,
Trump's sympathies had not been with the girl.
His minions shrugged at Access Hollywood
and child-sex trafficking may be the same.
While not expecting Donald to be good,
they'd scream if there were Democrats to blame.
A nihilist who'd burn the whole place down/
Caligula had nothing on this clown.