Russo III

Symbolic speech, like Kaepernick employed
enjoys robust protection by the First
Amendment; laws that ban it must be void.
Allegiance is a farce, if it's coerced.
But in the workplace, laxer rules obtain; 
employment can depend on staying mute.
The contract's all about mutual gain
and Management wins when there's a dispute.
A lot of teams could use his good right arm
but none dare face Trump's tantrums and his ire
while Donald warns attendance would take harm
if Colin were the quarterback they'd hire.
Trump wants Black athletes quiet in their place
but still pretends he didn't run on race.

Russo II

Symbolic speech, like Kaepernick displayed
enjoys robust protection by the First
Amendment against laws that might be made.
Allegiance is a farce, if it's coerced.
But in the workplace, laxer rules obtain; 
employment can depend on staying mute.
The contract's all about mutual gain
and Management wins when there's a dispute.
A lot of teams could use his good right arm
but none dare face Trump's tantrums and his ire
while Donald warns attendance would take harm
if Colin were the quarterback they'd hire.
Trump wants Black athletes quiet in their place
but still pretends he didn't run on race.

Russo

Symbolic speech, like Kaepernick displayed
enjoys robust protection by the First
Amendment against laws that might be made.
A pledge of loyalty can't be coerced.
But in the workplace, laxer rules obtain; 
employment can depend on staying mute.
The contract's all about mutual gain
and Management wins when there's a dispute.
A lot of teams could use his good right arm
but none dare face Trump's tantrums and his ire
while Donald warns attendance would take harm
if Colin were the quarterback they'd hire.
Trump wants Black athletes quiet in their place
but still pretends he didn't run on race.

Vayera M

The voice of God? Or some demonic wraith?
commanded Avraham to bind his son
where Reason balked, he carried on, on Faith
although his seed's invested in this one.
He'd saved his nephew from the fiery rout,
but dared not go to bat for his sole heir.
It took a Shakespeare to ennoble doubt
and lay a hero's vacillations bare.
The man who charged his Maker to be just
won't stay his own hand when the task is hard.
The skepticism tempering Hume's trust
discarded by the mystic Kierkergaard.
But who of us'd endorse the zealot's zeal
without assurances what he'd heard's real?

container for the thing contained

A seamless task, when masons laid the wall
no corner where a side abuts a side.
A single surface circumscribes the hall;
the Oval Office leaves no place to hide.
E pluribus, aspiring to be one
who build each other, rather than compete
but knowing the job's never wholly done
a metaphor in plaster, made concrete.
The staatsbund Kant had hoped would end all war
inspired a league of thirteen colonies
but we've lost sight of what this Union's for
our parties brook no higher loyalties.
Among the stuff Trump threatens to tear down
enlightenment's experimental crown

broken tripod

Tripartite government, as sketched by Locke,
presumes adults fulfill their proper roles
but our democracy's put on the block;
big donors outbid citizens, and polls.
Since Buckley v. Valeo, it's gone wild,
 a "right' to buy high office guaranteed!
All culminating in this orange child
whose only principle's his endless greed.
Our First Amendment guards symbolic speech
for Kaepernick, as surely as for Kochs.
But now, the ante's wholly out of reach
no voice is given to the common folks.
A legislature failing at its job
sold off our proud republic to the mob.

bluffing

Just fifty votes'd suffice to reconcile
this version to the one the House has passed.
But Democrats ain't gonna cross that aisle,
and senator Murkowski's standing fast.
Trump needs a token victory to show;
Republicans nurse doubts he's one of theirs.
The easy wins he promised long ago
look empty as Atlantic City shares.
A charlatan needs sense enough to quit
and try to find another sort of job
before the marks catch on he's peddling shit
and he gets torn to pieces by the mob.
A smarter politician'd blow this town
before his house of cards comes tumbling down.