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

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.

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.

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

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.

"Over There"

The Kremlin quakes; the war's come home at last;
another general will kill no more.
All Moscow must have heard the car -bomb's blast,
and Russians can't pretend they're not at war.
Three years of efforts to assassinate
Zelenskyy so far, all have been in vain.
At home, he's so hard to defenstrate;
the Kremlin wields few levers in Ukraine.
The empire Putin dreamt would make his name,
like Katherine reborn, astride his steed,
insists it has no wish to be reclaimed
to gratify his autocratic greed.
Civilians, far too late become aware
no war's conducted wholly "over there".

Gray Tribe

A new day dawned, Luigi took his shot
and fled the crime-scene on a city bike.
The media were quick to miss the plot
as if downtrodden proles would never strike.
A man falls dead; none can repair the loss
He leaves a world uprooted and bereft.
For life, like health, who can compute the cost?
A human value's not pure 'Right' or 'Left'.
Two parties, each indebted to the few,
instead of working for the public cause,
do only what insurers want them to,
pretending that they're just enforcing laws.
As we embark another gilded age,
a bandit-hero vents the people's rage.

A New Dawn

Assad thought Putin'd always have his back
presuming Kremlin coffers would stay filled
But sanctions bite; gas revenue's now Jack
He'd have to pay for future thousands killed.
Dug in, behind Damascus' ancient walls
What's next, a world of pundits couldn't tell 
He had emigrate, or take the fall
and join his fellow Baathist thugs in Hell.
The blitzkrieg Putin couldn't pull off in Ukraine
rolled like a Spring storm torrent heaven-sent
his mercenaries quit where there's no gain
to leave their boss alone in Yael's tent.
One chinless exile languishing alone;
six million refugees now turn for home.

Blood simple

Another class cut short, and still we balk
to curb this carnage in our very schools.
The lobbyists make sure we only talk
--at most--about the felons, not their tools.
The lecture halls have rows of empty chairs;
the college dorms have floors of empty beds.
Incoming freshman simply aren't there;
the entrance bar's too high, when they're long dead.
Since 'Heller', individuals claim rights
that theretofore inhered unto the States.
Scalia, ruling by his special lights,
abused our highest bench, to legislate.
With time, our whole republic comes undone;
a nation's future's picked off, one by one.

bounded speech

The baseless libels JD Vance purveys
inciting violence in MAGA's cause,
retread a theadbare neofacist craze.
With passions so inflamed, there are no laws.
The People's lawyer calls a nation back
towards Founders' vision, 'though we're more diverse.
Reducing politics to wild attacks,
inevitaby, makes all tensions worse.
The immigrants who've built our nations strong,
are branded scapegoats time and time again.
'Though nativists think only they belong,
equality's inherent in "all Men".
Because Free Speech remains our guiding rule,
JD must be rebuffed with ridicule.

vayera

God tested Avraham; those files are sealed;
We're free to speculate on the result.
For cities on the Plain, he'd wheel and deal
but for his own, won't protest, nor consult.
For Muslims, the prime virtue's to submit,
but Jews object where some consent, and nod.
This episode's the hardest one to fit
for one who'd been so intimate with God.
Poor Yitzhak bore the scars throughout his life
of trauma we can never understand.
A surrogate must chastely woo his wife
unbound, but still strait-bounded by the Land.
The sagest can feel lost without a guide
through texts with which we can't be satisfied

values

Sing, Goddess of the man-destroying wrath
Peleides unloaded on his liege.
'Though Aphrodite'd set them on this path,
Her brother Ares revels in this siege.
When Agamemnon seized his better's girl
he gave offense, no less than Priam's son.
For Homer's audience, in Homer's world,
one had to know what simply isn't done.
Exquisite Helen only dimly grasps
the carnage men inflicted in her name.
Whole worlds pre-empted for a piece of ass,
while paltry few won literary fame.
Penelope's the only worthy prize;
the poet's insight's clear, despite blind eyes.

no honor among thieves

Prigozhin's stable-boy pulled off the swap,
bronze axle-pin replaced with one of wax.
Life's tenuous for Russians near the top;
they pull no pensions once they've got the ax.
From thirty thousand feet, this took a bit
'though decompression might have knocked them out.
If they were conscious by the time they hit,
who'd punched their final ticket's not in doubt.
"Appeal to Heaven"'s still Locke's last resort;
vonStauffenberg's revered for having tried.
Once Putin neutered both the Press, and Court,
fond dreams of perestroika wholly died.
Another rival sent to Davy Jones
the Kremlin wrote the rules for Game of Thrones.

Funeral Games II

Now Shoigu's private army takes the field;
Kadyrov and Prigozhin've done the same.
As Putin totters, stakes have gotten real
The warlords drill their assets for the Game.
The Muslim has no clear play on the throne;
The Patriarch insists that's his to grant.
Kadyrov must take Chechnya for his own
to safeguard his own life, where others can't.
When Alexander passed, he left no son
mature enough to take an empire's helm.
Succession's where great legacies are won;
the people starve while dukes contest the realm.
Old patterns stamped in Europe's scarlet blood
reprised in Ukraine's snow, and ice, and mud.

Funeral Games

Now Shoigu's private army takes the field;
Kadyrov and Prigozhin've done the same.
As Putin totters, stakes have gotten real
The warlords drill their assets for the Game.
The Muslim has no clear play on the throne;
The Patriarch insists that's his to give.
Kadyrov must take Chechnya for his own
if any haven's safe for him to live.
When Alexander passed, he left no son
mature enough to take an empire's helm.
Succession's where great legacies are won;
the people starve while dukes contest the realm.
Old patterns stamped in Europe's scarlet blood
reprised in Ukraine's snow, and ice, and mud.

Blonds in bondage

Maghrebi pirates held Gibraltar's strait
exacting tribute on those narrowed seas.
Norse traders, when obliged to innovate
linked stream to stream, portaging down through Kyiv.
To Mikkelburgh, a wonder to behold!
Before the world had heard of "Romanovs"
Where smelly wares were parlayed to bright gold
some days it's tusks and pelts, some days it's Slavs.
Until they're baptized, everyone's fair game;
"sold down the river" wasn't metaphor.
'Til Voldemar signed up--at least in name--
to live near rivers was to suffer war.
'Til Africa was featured in the Trade
the working class was signed up, raid by raid.

Missouri's finest

Josh Hawley pumped the crowd, one fist aloft
to come obstruct our Congress at its job,
as if the Rule of Law meant "going soft",
and Freedoms were best trusted to the mob.
The State that gave us Truman in our need
to end the War when FDR lay dead,
now sends this chickenshit, unfit to lead;
Like "brave sir Robin", Hawley turned and fled.
Mike Pence saw clearly what he had to do
refusing to be driven from his spot
strange ally staked his ground against the coup
when his own running-mate hoped he'd get shot.
The norms Society obeyed so long,
can't hold when half the "news" they're fed's all wrong.

bring in the clowns

Josh Hawley pumped the crowd, with sweat-slick fist
exhorting them to roar, charge, and obstruct.
On top of insurrectionists' death-list,
Mike Pence looked very likely to be fucked.
The gallows we could see, the bombs they'd brought,
the magnetometers that flashed and beeped
bode ill for any target who'd get caught;
be that the Speaker, or Trump's very Veep.
The clowns live-streamed the felonies they've done
as if what's not on Facebook's not quite real.
In fancy dress, to keep their treason "fun"
while claiming what they'd grabbed was their bastille.
Death fetishists, aroused by chains and ropes
make common cause with losers who can't cope.

Слава Україні!

Ukrainians repulsing Russian tanks,
remember throwing Nazis out before.
The women and retirees in their ranks
nurse no delusions in the present war.
The Tzarist empire Gorbachev renounced
holds no nostalgia for the Kremlin's yoke.
The prospect of oppressors getting trounced
to many, seems the century's best joke.
Old dreams, that Europe could know lasting peace--
As Kant sketched out, two hundred years ago--
had dimmed as fascists everywhere increased
and yet moved forward, be it fast, or slow.
Sunflowers sprouting in the vernal mud
bloom brightest where they've drunk invaders' blood.