ADVICE TO THE WRITERS ON STRIKE

1
I so support the striking writers.
But for my life can’t understand
Why all these militant "bull" fighters
Bow to producers, cap in hand?
Why not demand that your creations
Not dignify the degradations
Producers force on you and fight
To keep intact your copyright?
Why not proclaim yourselves the owners
Of what you write and make a deal
As equals, not a mere fifth wheel?
You needn’t stick to being loners;
But by incorporation lay
A ground producers can’t gainsay.
2
Imagine writers in collectives
Both dreaming up the scripts for shows
And spurning idiot directives
From suits who run the studios-
The men and women bottom feeders
Are growing into business leaders
But who can't tell a story from
A tale that's listless, limp, or dumb;
Who are not in the least creative
And yet they have the final say
Which may or not lose you your pay.
So why not strike for qualitative
Change- not pennies out of which you’re tipped;
But final say about your script?
3
Put writer’s names beneath the titles
As publishers do books and plays;
Not first of all the movie idols’
Or else directors.' Who'd win praise
Without the writers who’ve created
The chance for these to be inflated
From mortal to a movie star?
Don’t put these people on a par
With writers whose work made them famous
By writing them a depthless part
That turns their acting into art.
Who’s such an awful ignoramus
As not to know they all revere
The actor's writer, Will Shakespeare?
4
So why not try this business model
To organize your strike? You’ll find
You will not have to mollycoddle
What most producers call a mind.
And these will be the consequences:
When you’ve paid off all your expenses-
Your overhead, support, whatnot-
The rest is yours. Divide the pot
Collectively among the partners;
And while you take your leisure’s ease,
You’ll profit from your media fees.
I offer these as partial hearteners;
But keep in mind all these delights
Mean you must keep your copyrights.

THE PAKISTANIS LAWYERS' LUCK

1
Some lawyers who were Pakistanis,
Opposing General Musharraf,
Crash landed on their legal fannies
And ended up in jail. A gaffe,
As any lawyer knew, permitting
At very least a hostile kidding;
At worst, the work of Murphy’s Law.
These lawyers though, quick on the draw,
Won overwhelming adulation
Of every single inmate there
By proving they were on the square
For showing that their congregation
Was being held there by a court
That lacked the country’s moral support.
2
This gave the convicts hope for pleading
Their sentences out for time served.
But when the lawyers held a meeting
They seemed upset and quite reserved-
For with no working constitution,
What constituted restitution
Was quite beyond them. What to do?
They didn’t have the faintest clue.
The prisoners meanwhile by consensus
Decided on a mass escape;
And to this end a plan took shape-
“We’ll push the lawyers first to fence us;
And if the guards don’t shoot them dead
We’ll know to trust in what they’ve said.”
3
The lawyers found this plan upsetting
And pleaded with them not to try.
Some even lapsed back to bedwetting
And none had wished to play bull’s-eye.
The day came dawning bright and cheery;
But when time came to test the theory,
The lawyers locked themselves inside
And prayed to Allah for who died.
But when at last they heard no shooting,
The prisoners were free they knew
And so had proved their theory true.
But stepping out they heard the hooting-
The convicts did control the yards
As Musharraf’s new prison guards.

SUPPORT THE WRITER'S STRIKE

1
Here’s to the men and women writers
Who, fighting for the Writers Guild,
Are up against the network blighters
Whose coffers they have always filled.
They are the ones who, contemplative,
Are first and foremost most creative.
As Leno said with piercing dread,
“Without these guys I’m really dead.”
An actor might give language meaning
And take you off to make believe;
But with no writers to conceive
Which way a character is leaning
The actor’s in an awful bind
Till s/he’s told to shit or go blind.
2
The networks certainly’ve been able
To make it seem the writers block
Talks at the very conference table
Where they’d be willing, round-the-clock,
To suffer through negotiations
About their shows’ reincarnations,
As if it were an act of God’s
That TV shows play on ipods.
They claim they’ll study on-line streaming
But it will take them many years.
No doubt they’re led by financiers
Who all the while are really scheming
To transfer what plays on TVs
And not pay writers writing fees.
3
So here’s a thought in solidarity:
We’ll stand with you; go toe-to-toe
Against the networks’ insincerity
Until you get your quid pro quo.
As other workers, it’s our duty
To help you out; and not get snooty
About how much a writer earns
(When working). They’ve our same concerns-
To make ends meet the cost of living;
To see their kids hit long line drives;
To pay their bills; ex-husbands, wives.
If you’ll hang tough be unforgiving
We’ll stand with you. What I don’t get.
Who wrote your signs? Monks in Tibet!
4
Why shouldn’t you display your writing
While walking on your picket lines
With signs that show whom you’re indicting
That makes folks want to snap their spines,
At hearing their piss-poor excuses?
But make a joke of all their ruses.
One-liners on a public street
Will make the networks feel the heat
As folks dissolve in gales of laughter.
And will because they can ID
With others who want do re mi
For what they do now not years after.
So make your bosses laughingstocks
And turn your streets to writers’ blocks.

TO AESA

1
Why haven’t we raised exploitation
To candidates who want our votes;
To push them on appropriation
Until we’ve forced it down their throats?
They could be tarred as Liilliputian
Who won’t consider this solution:
From poverty and living hell
To affluence and living well.
Why not recruit for this election
A squad of students who’d arraign
The neoclassic ball and chain?
It wouldn’t be an insurrection;
But we at least might make a start
Till gaining strength for martial art.
2
Would we dare call it communism;
Or should we tone it down, afraid
We’d be exposed to criticism
That, at the least, we’re being played
By culture warrior left professors
Who would, no doubt, defend cross dressers;
Or anything that stirs dissent
And turns a youth a malcontent?
Is communism out of season;
Or does it need to be retaught
In line with what Marx really thought?
If it’s the last, it stands to reason
To give a thing its maiden name
Is manifestly what you’d claim.
3
So while Fox News is idolizing
A world that’s run for CEOs,
Why not suggest it needs revising
As do most other status quos?
Why not make common coalition
With others in the exposition
Of exploitation, gender, race
And other facts of plain disgrace?
What better time than an election
When folks are prone to use their heads
To join with others in Op-Eds
That raise us from forced genuflection,
So that as workers we begin
To see we have a world to win.

THE FAMILY VALUES VOTER (for MAX BLUMENTHAL)

I am a family values voter-
Against pro-choice in politics;
Or anything that has the odor
Of liberals and their stinking tricks.
I’d put an end to immigration
Because it leads to cancellation
Of fetuses; and think a queer
Should have a stick shoved up his rear.
I think the god of Muslims, Allah,-
A funny name to call a god
But foreigners are awfully odd-
Should be sent back to his Valhalla.
Especially I’d perfect the Jews;
Or offer what they can’t refuse.

AL ( OUT IN THE COLD ) GORE

Is Al Gore right on global warming?
Most probably. But here’s the thing.
A pol who’s only good brainstorming-
Instead of grabbing center ring
As president- might be well-meaning
But never will be intervening
Effectively to beat the heat.
You must be in the driver’s seat
To make a difference in a crisis.
Who doesn’t know a Nobel Prize
Won’t stop the artificial highs?
So even though Gore’d like to ice us,
He can’t because he got outpolled
And found himself out in the cold

NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS ( for RICK AND STEVE )

Is economics so simplistic
You'd capture it by using math;
Or is it truly agonistic,
As Steinbeck showed in Grapes of Wrath?
Can it be captured in mosaics
Of formulae whose algebraics,
While elegant, put us on hold
As variables uncontrolled?
Assuming perfect information-
Which most economists think bliss
But normal people would dismiss-
Requires a world of their creation.
In other words, a make believe
Where all are absent by their leave.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY PARTY ?

Dude, where’s my Democratic Party?
Why does it go to such great lengths,
When it was once so hale and hearty,
To dissipate what were its strengths?-
Declaring victory prematurely;
But losing it by acting squirrelly;
(I don’t mean nuts like Albert Gore
Who let Bush in the doggie door);
But forcing its outspoken members
Who are prepared to take a stand
To sell it a generic brand,
Till what they've said no one remembers;
But mostly when they’d push our rights,
They freeze like deer caught in headlights.

HUCKABEE ON IMMIGRATION AND ABORTION

When Huckabee claims immigration
Is filling the abortion gap,
He’s preaching to the congregation
That wants an immigration cap.
But if a fetus by abortion
Is liable for the disproportion,
Then why smear immigrants with shame
When fetuses should bear the blame?
If fetuses were not aborted,
That doesn’t mean when come of age
They’d gladly work for any wage
No matter how low down and sordid.
But give illegals that to earn
And fetuses won’t come to term.

A QUESTION FOR THE DEMOCRATS

I don’t mean to be apathetic,
But how am I supposed to vote
For Democrats I find pathetic?
They, all of them, stick in my throat.
When none of them, for attribution,
Will stick up for the Constitution,
As Bush rewrites its every word-
As if the Bill of Rights were turd;
When government without a reason
Denies a person’s day in court.
Why don’t the Democrats retort:
“It’s Bush who's guilty of high treason?”
Perhaps they hope he'll guarantee
That they’ll, as well, rule by decree?

CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL

"I see no reason to pay taxes
Especially tax on my estate
When finally my life climaxes.
Why haven’t I pulled my own weight?
To hell with liberal sociologists,
They’re communism’s ideologists,
Who claim we all were middle class
Before the “right” turned downright crass
And argued that the poor were massing
To take our riches as their own
And that we would be overthrown
Unless the wretches suffered gassing;
Or died, at least, from overwork,
As did my on call day/night clerk."

AMBITION

It always was my fond ambition
To be a writer lots would read;
But turned quite early to sedition
In hopes to make the bourgeois bleed.
It’s really quite extraordinary
That I turned revolutionary-
Read Lenin morning, noon, and night
And me a Palo Altoite.
I finally found that I was wanting;
But never quite gave up my goal
Of trying to damn the bourgeois soul
And so write satire with its taunting.
But know I’ll end like Socrates
Except that I’ll drink antifreeze.

SERVILITY

A citizen’s responsibility
Is finally to take the rap
For Bush and Cheney’s capability
In feeding us a load of crap-
That after 9/11’s scorcher
We should protect ourselves with torture;
Then end a terrorist’s career
By making him just disappear.
For, after all, we’re a democracy
Where all who have the right to vote
Can claim control of the remote.
So isn’t it the worst hypocrisy
That after years spent in Iraq
We still believe their double-talk?

BLACKWATERED

What! Not denounce the Turk’s atrocity
Because it might hurt Bush’s war;
Insuring Turkish animosity
So they slam shut their borders door-
Stop weapons traveling through their borders,
Like tanks, and missiles, guns, and mortars;
The very thing a soldier needs,
Besides a set of worry beads,
So that s/he knows s/he won’t be slaughtered;
But has at least a fighting chance
Of not being Dien Bien Phued like France.
Unless, of course, s/he gets blackwatered.
So take your pick; slow death by Turks;
Or rapid fire by US mercs.

ANONYMITY FOR WHOM?

“If I am promised anonymity,
I guarantee you’ll get a scoop.
I lived with him in close proximity;
And tell you he’s a nincompoop.
Was with him when he planned hysteria
With the Israelis against Syria,
By fabricating evidence
Would make the Mid East hypertence.
So the Israelis wreaked destruction
On nuclear production plants
(They thought); but they'd killed maiden aunts
Were being given dance instruction.
So secrecy…Well Cheney’s pards
Are ex-Blackwater body guards.”

THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS

Should any care for an election
In which big money plays a part
In helping us shape our conception
Of candidates who have a heart;
Who’s not a pol who is self-seeking;
But bent on helping our critiquing
Of why we cannot make ends meet
When we look at our balance sheet;
Who’ll help to free us from impressment
As members of the National Guard;
Or those who slave for a green card?
But when it comes to your assessment
Of candidates will cause less mess,
Beware whose speech ends in “God bless.”

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE STINK

No words will prove a terminator
By which old evils come to naught;
But just might play facilitator
To revolutionary thought.
I tell myself this and keep trying
In hopes that I am signifying;
And will not prove a laughingstock
Who merely spouts in poppycock.
But fear I’m doomed to sermonizing,
In antiquated forms of verse,
Against the power of the purse-
A power that needs satirizing.
But satire’s play is all with words
That helps you see, not smell the turds.

ON THE 50th ANNIVERSERY OF HOWL

It’s the 50th anniversary
Of Allen Ginsberg’s classic, HOWL;
But once again we’re in the nursery
Of an administration’s bowel.
Here Bush and Cheney aren’t transmitting
Such words as fuck, god damn, or shitting,
Unless you pay the FCC
The price of speech which once was free.
So here’s to Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Who stood up for the Bill of Rights
With Allen Ginsberg in his flights
Of fancy for the rough and sweaty
Business of writing poems that can
Make fools of D.C. and Iran.

FOR HARRIET FRAAD

A tour that took us to Hypocrisy
In these revered United States
Should start with tourings of democracy
Far earlier than stall playmates.
For this can hardly hold a candle
To when we first flew off the handle
And robbed the Natives out of hand
Then sent them to the Promised Land.
America was homicidal
Much further back than our attack
By Bush and Cheney in Iraq.
Our god has kept us from requital
Because we have abjured false pride
Not advertising genocide.

FOR DAVID RUCCIO

Although my satires may grow dated,
At least with reference to the “who;”
My themes will never be negated-
For humankind’s themes, like the flu,
Require a treatment by physicians,
Especially the politicians;
For flus in politics infect
The human race with disrespect
For" others" of the wrong complexion,
Or gender, sexual preference, class;
And have been known to give them gas.
When satire can’t cure an infection,
At least it cheers you with a joke
Before what’s left goes up in smoke.

A VISION OF JUDGMENT

1
St. Peter ranged the gates of Heaven
And jangled keys in long disuse;
And thinking of a 7 Eleven,
He thought about his breaking loose
And dropping down to get a slurpy?
He felt himself a total twerp. He
Was always standing at his post;
But lately hadn’t played the host
To any who desired lodging
Because they usually got caught
By Satan who proved they were rot.
“Despite their prayers, it’s camouflaging,”
The devil said. And Peter let
Him drag them down to pay their debt.
2
This debt, of course, was never ending
Which Peter thought was somewhat harsh.
He cringed when he thought he was sending
A sinner to the fiery marsh.
But when these thoughts rose to crescendo,
He calmed himself with his Nintendo.
If God had wanted to cause pain,
Let them, reborn, live in Ukraine.
“A sin,” he thought, “is a malfunction,
Unless engaged in all the time
(As poets sometimes browbeat rhyme)
In which case it becomes dysfunction.
But that deserves a padded cell
Not burning in unending hell.”
3
But ever since the Good Lord Jesus
Had told him what he bound on earth
Was bound in Heaven “so it frees us
Of having to judge mankind’s worth,”
St. Peter thought it unendurable
Because he thought most sin was curable
If nurturing provided for
A lot of loving then some more.
Then, too, with many fewer paupers
The world might be a finer place
The kind you’d want to call My Space;
Especially one that’s filled with shoppers-
For shopping, he thought, did more good
Than all the churches ever could.
4
It’s not that he was growing cynical;
But he felt Heaven had lost touch
With troubles that were clearly clinical.
True evil was a bit too much
For which there’s clearly no solution;
But when it came to destitution,
It’s money makes a fighting chance
To kick most evils in the pants.
And then there was cooperation.
If only that could be unfurled,
Mankind could make a better world.
Instead it seemed annihilation
Was mankind’s order of the day;
Or, at the least, well on its way.
5
Now finding all these thoughts depressing,
He sat upon his judgment stone
That Heaven raised for his accessing
So he might have an earthly zone
Near Heaven’s Gates to judge a hero;
Or who got sent to less than zero;
Who’d be allowed to cop a plea
And finally get their jubilee
From serving time in Purgatory.
It was all Peter’s judgment call
Which he’d have done with once for all,
Except God made it mandatory-
Excluding him from Paradise
For his denying Jesus thrice,
6
At least until the final ending-
The one folks called Apocalypse.
He thought that end was fast impending
For all the angel fellowships,
Reporting back from Jacob’s ladder,
Said folks had gone mad as a hatter;
And that the Whore of Babylon
Was living in the Pentagon,
At Donald Rumsfeld’s invitation.
Though Rummy’d now become defunct,
He’d left her there securely bunked
Awaiting peace’s abdication-
So she could place marks of the beast
On soldiers in the Middle East.

7
Of course he’d read about Gomorrah
And Sodom but now mankind had
Despite the stories in the Torah
Destruction fifty times as mad.
And mostly it was concentrated
In D.C.; and was celebrated
By an administration that
Would use it all in nothing flat.
The Bush and Cheney presidency-
With Bush the weaker of the two
Perhaps because of low IQ-
Would claim it was in self-defense. He,
Old Cheney that is, might connive
To cook and eat the world alive.
8
Just then the saint heard high commotion-
“A wondrous noise not heard of late;”
Of one who surely sought promotion
To rest in peace in Heaven’s state.
But suddenly the noise abated
Then once again grew agitated;
Until St. Peter grew confused
And thought he’d drifted off and snoozed.
But then again the noise grew louder.
He recognized the voice, he thought
As Satan’s, sounding overwrought;
And yet another’s voice, much prouder.
He called to Death and asked who’d died.
“Dick Cheney,” Death said satisfied.

9
Death’s attitude to Cheney’s dying
Was difficult to say the least.
To say Death wanted Dick deep-frying
For having turned the Middle East
Into a land where men did battle
To keep gas pumping in Seattle;
Or turn it an amusement park
For Jesus freaks where they’d skylark
Would miss the point. For Death’s position
Was Bush and Cheney brushed aside
It’s Death decided how men died.
That job was his by definition;
But Cheney had usurped his work
And made Death feel a lowly clerk.

10
For Death, it’s as if Paris Hilton,
So recently released from jail,
Felt strong enough to go a tiltin’
With bangers and not break a nail.
Death prayed that Cheney should so suffer
The pains of Hell that just got rougher.
To see Hell’s pains so amplified,
Would make this fool pay for his pride.
And suffer so for an infinity
Well-past the time when awful Death
Would finally squeeze out His last breath;
But happy knowing asininity,
In Cheney, would be punished still
While Death was resting on Boot Hill.
11
Of course there was a bit of trouble,
As certainly there always is.
The surgeons worked, all, at the double
Or triple with most in a tizz
To save Dick’s life and keep him living
(Though one or two had some misgiving);
Yet even these were still quite loath
To flout their Hippocratic oath.
“So, finally, he’s dead,” said Peter.
“Of course he is… Well maybe not.
The doctors just might clear the clot;
But I’ve made sure this one’s a bleeder.
So let’s get on and try his soul
And send it down to Hell’s black hole.”
12
“Don’t tell me that the man’s still dying,”
Said Peter looking square at Death.
“No, let’s not go there,” Death said sighing.
“He’s living on assisted breath.
Let’s not repeat Terry Schiavo
Whom Christian freaks tried hard to save. Go
Ask her about her own ordeal
On life support till her appeal
Was finally granted its last hearing.”
“The Christians did seem rather odd.
You’d think they’d welcome seeing God.”
“And her within both sight and hearing
Of Heaven’s throne while down below…”
“Enough. You’re right. That was de trop.”
13
St. Peter shrugged and then he nodded.
“He’s not the one from Arkansas?
You know the one I mean. He spotted…”
“Oh, no,” said Death with a guffaw.
That’s Clinton, you mean. What a pecker!
He calls it ‘Willie- the home wrecker.’
A Democrat. Not GOP.
A President. Dick’s a VP.”
St. Peter smiled. Death was omniscient
In human things. A looky-loo
Especially at those in “Who’s Who.”
“Yes,” Peter said. “That’s quite sufficient.
If Satan’s ready so am I,
As long you’re certain he will die.”
14
Then, once again, they heard a shrieking
That screamed “But I’m alive not dead.”
The voice was fuming, raging, freaking
Then pleaded where ‘twas being led.
“Unto the throne of great St. Peter,”
A voice replied. It was a beater
Who drove reluctants to the stone
Who might decamp left on their own.
Some claim they go phantasmagorical
When they have no escorting hosts
Returning in the form of ghosts
Back home where they lived when historical.
So all are sent with palace guards
Who’ve black marks on deportment cards.
15
Just then a rent between dimensions
Forced Cheney to come stumbling in.
Still swearing, spouting his dissentions;
He promised he’d have discipline
For any devil proved a leader..
But then stopped short as he saw Peter;
And seeing he was not in Hell
But was beneath the citadel
Of Heaven, he stood flabbergasted.
And looking round at what he saw
Was for a moment lost in awe.
Then whirling round again lambasted
The devil as a so-and-so;
And said “I’m still alive below.”
16
“Why you’ve engaged in my kidnapping
Before my time on earth was done.
You’ve got the liberals toe-tapping
And all because you jumped the gun.
Look down there at those doctors fighting
To save my life. By extraditing
My soul you’ve taken any chance
I’d show them who still wears the pants…”
This last was met by laughs and snorting-
Since Cheney wore an open gown
That barely reached to his hometown
And showed his butt and little short thing.
Their laughing made him understand
Not he, but they were in command.
17
But Peter did as Dick requested
And looked to earth so far below.
He marveled how the doctors quested
To save the war’s politico.
The doctors, six of them, were trying
To save just one man who was dying
While soldiers in Iraq must share
A medic trained by Quasi Care-
An HMO that specializes
In training dropouts for the war
And specially the Med Care Corps.
For every soldier patched up, prizes
Were given to the medic who
Could send the man back postage due.
18
But Peter also noted nurses-
More than a few were Democrats-
Behind the doctors mumbling curses
Which sounded quite like “…drowning rats;”
As well as medical technicians
Who wished they had no inhibitions
About the fact they were pro life
When patients were under the knife.
The saint turned back and looked at Cheney
And smiling said “Be of good cheer.
We’ll just get started with voir dire.
You’re still alive. You’re outcome’s grainy.
So why don’t we just go ahead
In case…In case you end up dead.”
19
“Voir dire! You mean a trial by jury?
But I thought God put you in charge?
Said Cheney in a spitting fury.
“He did. But often I enlarge
My judgment’s base. More democratic.
You’ll find a trial’s much less dogmatic.
I want to make a judgment call
That won’t be second guessed by Paul.
The man’s completely pathological
When it comes to condemning sin.
When I admitted Ho Chi Minh
His arguments weren’t theological,
Unless you count belief in God,
Which, frankly, I find’s mostly fraud.”
20
On hearing this old Cheney spluttered,
Fell back a step and stood aghast.
Then he, regaining some poise, muttered,
“And you, St. Peter?” “ I’ve stood fast.
But still Ho was a politician
Provoked for cause not blind ambition,
As Jesus was when he got news
About the temple-lending Jews.
Belief in God is not essential
To enter in to Heaven’s realm.
It’s what you do when at the helm
Of your own life that’s quintessential
For making me believe good sense
Should honor you in coming hence.

( to be continued )

WHAT'S ECONOMICS FOR, ANYWAY(for JACINDA SWANSON)

The quality of life that matters
Is seeing social justice done;
Democracy not all in tatters;
And civil rights at number one;
Where economics isn’t thieving
But can contribute to relieving
Those down and out both new and used
Who are not in the least amused
When they learn that it’s exploitation-
Which they had all ways held in awe,
Enshrined in custom and the law-
That stops them from cooperation;
That that might be the missing link
Would rid the world of bourgeois stink.

IN PRAISE OF THE ECONOMIST’S STAND ON CIVIL LIBERTIES

The WAR ON TERROR is uncivil,
As Bush and Cheney know so well.
The problem is their endless drivel
About how we must bid farewell
To freedoms that the Constitution
Now grant against our persecution-
Till we’ve become acclimatized
To what’s no longer civilized.
But won’t society thereafter
Be safer from a sneak attack
When terrorists are on the rack?
Imagine then bin Laden’s laughter
As he sees that his hit-and-run
Revitalized LEVIATHAN.

FOR FRANK RICH

Relying on our own lucidity,
We might have bid a fond adieu
To our morality’s stupidity
About the tapping of a shoe.
As if it proved beyond all doubting,
A senator was out and scouting
For an encounter with a guy.
The charge, you’ll say’s, hard to deny.
But where’s the crime when you’re consenting
Adults deciding to have sex?
The fact is that we're stone rednecks
When we set coppers to preventing
What’s our undoubted legal right:
To having sex without foresight.

FOR BEAUMARCHAIS

The actions of our politicians-
"To smear and smear for some will stick"-
Makes most of them brilliant tacticians
In how to play a dirty trick.
Therefore the U S Constitution
Won’t countenance the dissolution
Of politicians leading role
Atop the army’s totem pole.
So if your enemy’s been fitted
With something like a bald-faced lie,
Especially one he can’t deny,
You’ve won, if he’s the least half-witted.
The trouble with George W
Is that he doesn’t have a clue.

FLORIDA OR A STATE OF EXISTENTIAL INANITY

Free speech was tasered when John Kerry
Was speaking in the Sunshine State.
The state’s a kind of sanctuary
For any who would use live bait
To test exactly what’s essential
For rendering inconsequential
The Constitution’s litmus tests
For voting, speech, who are its guests;
Who makes the final attribution
If someone’s body’s really dead
Or if it’s only in her head.
For Florida’s an institution
Where you might go to live if mad,
A kind of brother to Baghdad.

HELP WANTED

“Help Wanted” ads belie security
Which General Petraeus says
Is guaranteed beyond a surety,
According to him and the Prez.
And yet he calls for more contractors
To act as soldiers benefactors-
By freeing them as roustabouts
To take a part in more shoot-outs.
The general sees “forward motion”
Although he will not name the year
In which Iraqis disappear
Beneath this contract workers’ ocean
Of immigrants whom he’d submerge
Below the army’s mighty surge.

AND YOU THINK YOU'VE GOT IT TOUGH

The one true god off in Absentia
But present in the world he rules
Must suffer from a weird dementia
Perhaps from falling off barstools.
He’s got to suffer from the tension
Of being threatened with a pension
As politics tries to create
A god who’s separate from the state.
He’s got to give the Arabs credit
For giving him a fighting chance,
Unlike the wretches who rule France.
America, as well, might get it-
If only the John Roberts’ Court
Can cut the Constitution short.

LEVIATHAN REDUX

If politics concerns authority,
Then authors of the parlous sort
Won’t care as much for a majority
As long as they control the Court.
The Court controls the Constitution
And so can oversee dilution
Of all our democratic rights
Until we’re in the worst of plights-
When citizens, out of commission,
Must go along; do what they’re told,
As if they’re prisoners just paroled.
Hence, Bush and Cheney’s imposition
Of terrorism’s 911
So they can build Leviathan.

A METAPHYSICAL DISCUSSION

The Christian gods in convocation
With all the pantheons of gods
Sat frightened in their congregation
As they discussed the awful sods
Who claimed their needed benediction
On politics was but a fiction
Which humans needed once. No more,
Since gods were merely metaphor
For humankind, its ingenuity;
And that the gods would disappear
When humans did away with fear.
“They’ll need us then in perpetuity,”
An ancient god said short of breath.
“For which of them does not fear Death?”

HILLARY PILLORY

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Were sitting down to lunch one day
When Satan dropped in for a beer. “It
Has come, He said, “ the dossier
You wanted on the one called Hillary
From college when, locked in our pillory,
As naked as the day she’s born
She took her whipping and was sworn.”
Then added, “So she’s in foreclosure.
As soon as she’s their candidate,
I’ll pass the old collection plate.
Too soon, we’d risk too much exposure-
Because she’d be an also ran
And so could not invade Iran.”

HIDDEN MOTIVES (for TROUTFISHING)

Apocalyptic Christianity
Is favored by the Pentagon
Because it breeds men whose inanity
Is needed so we’ll carry on
The wars Jehovah says are needed
Because of how His Son’s mistreated
By wimpy Christians, Muslims, Jews.
These men will lead the wrecking crews
Who’ll march forth holding up the Bible;
And not stop till they’ve sacrificed
The world as it did Jesus Christ.
And death to those who’d slander, libel
These soldiers who while on crusade
Will make the world safe for free trade.

APOCALYPSE NOW

If you examine global warming
From an apocalyptic view,
You’ll see it’s hordes of demons swarming
To turn the earth to barbecue.
Since mankind’s given up the Father,
The demons in a boiling pother
Are climbing out their pits in hell
And bring the heat from where they dwell.
Unless we turn back to Lord Jesus
And show Him He’s our favorite Son,
He won’t pick up our 911.
But why would such a God so squeeze us…
Unless He’s like a CEO
Protecting His portfolio?

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS (an evangelical plot ?)

Who hasn’t heard that making speeches
Or writing what you want to write
Is educational and teaches
Us how to recognize a blight?
But now we are to be corrected
So other folks won’t feel rejected
With words like “nigger,” “faggot,” “bitch”
That set folks off at fever pitch?
No doubt, these words are truly awful.
But how will progress ever dawn
If we restrict the lexicon
To what’s discreet and make it lawful?
What’s next? That government detain
Who take the name of god in vain?

HIERARCHY

When anarchists claim hierarchy
Is incompatible with man,
You know that’s just so much malarkey
Except in modern day Iran.
If mullahs charge who boogie-woogies
Deserve arrest and super noogies,
Then that is what their people do
Because the Koran tells them to.
The Koran is the word of Allah
Beyond whom none thinks more supreme
(All honor to Him and esteem).
But when they get to their Valhalla,
The mullahs sit with Him in state
And there direct Him whom to hate.

THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR (for LUIS MESSINA)

Oh God, another school year’s starting.
But how am I supposed to teach
When mostly my time’s spent outsmarting
The students who believe free speech
Means passing notes and whispered talking;
Or listening to their Ipod’s squawking?
And when instruction has begun
Some kid yells out “This ain’t no fun.”
Of course it’s not when what I’m doing
Is trying to wrap his little head
Around some books he hasn’t read.
Might just as well stop cattle mooing.
Too, with attention like a flea’s
He’s yet to learn his ABCs.

OBEISANCE

Bush paid a visit to reality
And found he played a leading role
In ruining this famed locality
By turning it to a hellhole.
He stumbled back like death warmed over
And vowed he’d never go a rover
To any land whose multitude
Had so completely come unglued
Because they thought it was demeaning
To drown in blood, and guts, and gore
While fighting someone else’s war.
His aides said Bush would be convening
The Congress to help him demand
Obeisance to the fatherland.

CYNICAL

It’s difficult not to be cynical;
But what am I supposed to do
To keep from going daftly clinical
Locked up in this religious zoo-
A country that believes the Bible
Is scientific writ, not tribal
Stone Age hocus-pocus of gods
And demons both of them facades
For ignorance of scientific
Attempts to make cause and effect
A prospect humans can inspect,
Without help from the beatific.
There is no god in the machine
But’s saved on your computer screen.

THE ARGUMENT

We need a party analytic
Defending gender, race, and class
Against the outraged bourgeois critic
Who claims PC is a morass.
The Dems have always flushed these issues
As if they were used toilet tissues;
Republicans in paradise
Dismiss them as mere beggars-lice.
So do we need another party-
That brings these issues to the fore
And campaigns for them door-to-door,
Not treating them as if foolhardy?
The answer’s a resounding “YES!”
But when is anybody’s guess.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WELL-EDUCATED (FOR ALFIE KOHN)

Is education proved by testing,
Especially NCLB's;
Or proved by never ending questing
To reach a mind’s true apogees?
Is it accomplished by lipsyncing
The facts produced by other’s thinking?
Or is it proven when your thoughts
Are challenged by Gordian knots?
Will you have proved it curing cancer?
Or teaching kids to read the books
That help produce faraway looks?
I truly wish I had an answer.
I do know standards’ tests will find
A bureaucratic one-track mind.

THE 400 CLUB ( FOR JOHNNY CONNER )

Another Texas execution
With clemency rejected by
A governor whose resolution
Is shouted as a battle cry:
“If you are black and do a killing,
The state of Texas does the billing-
Collecting for the victim’s friends
And family to get amends.”
So say good-bye to Johnny Conner
Whose lawyer got a law degree
To practice for death penalty
Convictions like an Afrikaner
Which means though your defense was slack
In Texas he was just a black.

POISON

Have corporations lost their bearings
Promoting toxic waste and junk
Which when consumed gives air the bearing
Of a disintegrating skunk;
Or what about the toilet fodder
That’s floating in our ocean water;
Or global warming’s no man’s land
Which science shows is near at hand?
Or were they all quite certifiable
When arguing that mankind’s cursed,
Unless it put their profits first?
Of course this won’t be falsifiable.
For when this all comes to a head,
We’ll all have died from Chinese lead.

SUICIDE

They say that jumpers when they’re falling
About the time they’re halfway down
Can’t quite recall life so appalling
They’d end it as a common noun.
Of course by then impetuosity
Is reaching terminal velocity;
And thus too late for them to quit,
The sidewalk makes them a smash hit.
And though their ending is quite frightful
Before they reached the bitter end
They’d finally come to comprehend
That life might really be delightful.
Too bad they can’t say “ live and learn”
Until the point of no return.

CRONYISM

I am opposed to placing cronies
In charge of government and so
The Bush administration’s phonies
Should all receive the old heave-ho
Especially for their proclivity
For stunting human creativity,
Except when they promote cross-checks
On having safe, protected sex;
For arguing that toleration,
Equality, and gender rights
Should be confined to Brooklyn Heights,
As Indians to a reservation.
But cronyism’s here to stay
Just waiting on the Dem's heyday.

A TRIBUTE TO JOHN LOCKE

American sophistication
In politics depended on
Our revolution’s consecration
Of John Locke and his lexicon
Of property held by an owner
Got from his sweat or by his boner
Which justified his holding slaves
And killing off of Indian braves.
Now this in turn made us betrayers
Of revolution’s discontent
As all of us became hellbent
On living lives as good taxpayers-
Except, of course, the superrich
Who played us all with perfect pitch.

THE WAR LOVERS

The War on Terror is proceeding
As well as any might expect
With soldiers and civilians bleeding
With Bush and Cheney’s intellect
Still every bit as stupefying
As watching clothes as they’re drip-drying.
Meanwhile they urge us on to kill
But do not want to foot the bill.
So soldiers buy their guns on credit;
And body armor’s wherewithals
Would not protect you from paintballs.
But still and all I don’t regret it-
The fighting now is all co-ed
And we must sleep two to a bed.

THE MAD BOMBER

The jostling between Obama and Clinton over who would make a more responsible president goes on. In response to a reporter's question last week, Obama hesitated before saying that he would never use a nuclear weapon against terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Clinton pounced on that ... "I don't believe any president should make blanket statements with the regard to use or nonuse" of nukes, she said. (Newsweek August 13,2007)


So Hillary’d at least consider
The use (or not) of nukes in war,
Which makes of her the kind of critter
America is hated for-
A Dr. Strangelove who’s subhuman,
As was her mentor Harry Truman,
Who’d prove that she is supermom
By dropping the atomic bomb
On terrorists who have no nation
(Unless she thinks she’ll strap one on
To fuck the mullahs in Iran)
By bombing them to desolation.
I never used my right to vote
But will before that’s “all she wrote.”

THE MIRACLE OF AGGREGATION

The “miracle of aggregation”
Says one dumb voter cancels out
The others in the population
Which leaves the well-informed with clout
To be decisive in electing
The candidate who’s worth respecting.
If this were true, then it connotes
The well-informed get all the votes.
So we’re protected from deception,
If I have got this figured right,
By only letting vote whose light
Protects them from all misconception.
What happened in 2004?
The well-informed approved the war?

WHY RELIGION ?

A blogger friend asked why religion
Was featured in my many posts.
I said I thought it but a smidgen.
But on consideration, roasts
Of God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus
Have figured in my exegesis
Of how we first must demonize
Whomever we would brutalize.
And, factually, Christian theology
Has always proved a seconal,
In concert now with pro football,
Before we practice our proctology
By dulling us with gravitas
Before the world pays through the ass.

FALL GUYS

It happened as George Bush was flying
Home from Iraq on Air Force One.
He'd been locked in his bathroom trying
To take a dump; and when he'd done
He stepped out of his bathroom closet
(He'd left behind a huge deposit)
To see the cabins emptied out,
With none responding to his shout.
But heaps of clothes, as he well-noted,
Lay scattered on the seats and floor,
Like sale day at a K-Mart store.
"My God," he thought, "they've been promoted
And raptured up." Then Tim LaHaye
Came stumbling in and looking gray.

"For God sakes, George, what were you thinking,"
Said Tim LaHaye, recovering some.
"They're gone. All gone. In just a blinking,"
Said Pastor Tim now looking glum.
"The pilots, too, are gone. You've slain us!
Because the stench from out your anus
Got loose through some small ruptured vent,
They needed air so out they went."
"Their clothes?" asked Bush. "It penetrated
Through everything down to the skin.
It smelled in very truth...like sin."
"And all because I defecated?"
He asked. The man just couldn't see
That was how he made policy.

"Oh, Lord," LaHaye said, "what a scandle
That you and I were left behind.
How will our Christian brethren handle
The seeming fact that God declind
To give us, as good Christians, credit...?"
"Oh shut up, Tim. Let's just forget it,"
Said Bush who rushed to take control
Of Air Force One, if not his soul.
"I have a plan for rectifying
The fact that God's not proved our pard.
Remember I flew for the Guard."
"Oh God, George, no " LaHaye said crying,
"You can't mean you believe your press?
You'll land us in an awful mess."

He did but it went undetected-
Their bodies never would be found.
The faithful claimed they’d been elected,
And lived in Heaven’s hallowed ground.
They’d both stripped naked, then, ejecting,
They’d left no bodies for inspecting:
For when Bush pulled the lever that
Ejected them, they turned to splat-
The seats fell out but with no power
To shoot them out the flight deck floor
The engines sucked them in; and gore
Shot out the back, a bloody shower
With not a trace of DNA
To prove 'twas Bush or Tim LaHaye.

PRAYER RESEARCH

When W's administration
Gave 2.3 mil for research
To see if praying"s calculation
Would help the laws of NATURE lurch
Into a cloud of glorious wonder
Where God Almighty'd knuckle under
And tinker with the status quo
Which He'd built up some time ago,
He pissed God off. " My intervention
Came only once. I sent My Son
To answer mankind's 911,
You idiot. Now pay attention:
Who would blaspheme, pray Me ad hoc,
I'll send to Hell or your Iraq."

HILLARY

It's " Hillary" not Hillary Clinton,
Now that she's on the campaign trail.
What's in a name? Just try and mint one
That doesn't make you sound retail.
There's Cher's, of course, and Brad's and Gracie's;
And , musically, there's surely Basie's;
But all of these and more made names
After accomplishing their aims.
But fixing one by prearrangement-
Proclaiming you're already great-
Is tempting FORTUNE with your fate.
Why even Eisenhower's change meant,
When folks proclaimed their "I LIKE IKE,"
He'd "won" a war against the Reich.

THE VAGINA DIALOGUES 1

VIRGINITY PLEDGE

"I swear to God and Holy Trinity
I won't have SEX with any guy
But will in fact keep my VIRGINITY
Untill I'm married. Hope to die.
But if it happens that I'm lacking
The self-control to keep from macking
And lost in LUST I take a chance
By pulling off my underpants,
I'll never let IT come between us,
Near my virginity's mystique;
I'll rather turn the other cheek.
So IT will never pass my Venus;
And I won't have to recommit
Because I take IT where I shit."

THE VAGINA DIALOGUES 2

THE SECONDARY VIRGINITY PLEDGE

"What happens though if I can't save it?
Will I have fallen out of grace?"
The PREACHER said," By affidavit
If you will swear that your DISGRACE
Is locked up tight, a new virginity
Will fast be granted by the TRINITY-
For GOD can take away your stain
As you might clean a windowpane.
Think deeply, child, how you might help it
To keep you off the razor's edge
Before you take this HOLY PLEDGE."
"You mean," she asked," that if I scalp it
That I'll be gotten off the hook?
But check it out. I've done it. LOOK!"

THE VAGINA DIALOGUES 3

Why all this arguement by PREACHERS
On keeping VIRGIN PUSSIES closed?
If some teenager wants to breech hers,
So long as breeching's self-imposed,
Then isn't it at her disposal
To do with on her own proposal
Without her causing some affront
By sticking something up her CUNT?
When preachers claim that sexuality
Is, outside marriage, loathed by GOD,
Then they should find LOT'S DAUGHTERS odd-
They did away with all normality
By fucking daddy till GOD BLESSED
These girls with children by INCEST.

ADVICE FOR THE NEW POET LAUREATE

Congratulations, Mr. Simic,
Elected Poet Laureate.
I pray, Sir, that you will not mimic
Your predecessors’ hoary rut.
I know indeed, Sir, you’re a poet;
And like a Sherman you should show it-
I mean the general William T.
Who burned the South so all might see
How well the ashes of destruction
Gave rise to civic free-for-alls.
No poetry, like Donald Hall’s,
Can ever be the liposuction
Of fatty brains. For now, a truce
To see if you’re of any use.

CANDOR IN AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

Democracy is multiplying
The number of deluded fools
Who think by voting they’re supplying
The politicians with the rules
For speaking publicly with candor;
But make the lying that much grander:
Like Clinton, Bush can “feel your pain”
(With feelings no one can explain);
Or what about good ole boy Carter
Who claimed the Shah would not oppress
His people but brought them progress;
Or JFK, the sainted martyr,
Who lied about the Bay of Pigs
For Cuban bishops and bigwigs;

And then, of course, the grandest liar,
Who earned the title Tricky Dick.
Dick Nixon was the codifier
Of what it means to politic
In this “most democratic” nation.
He demonstrated dedication
To lies that made his colleagues gape
The while recording all on tape!
There’s Reagan’s Iran-Contra scandal-
So caught off guard he japed and lied,
Then went out for a horseback ride.
But none of these can hold a candle
To Bush’s lie when he said “Jeez,
Sadam’s got WMDs.”

The others, of our so-called" leaders,"
Were mired already in their wars;
And weren’t the unctuous special pleaders
Who, out to settle daddy’s scores,
Turned representative democracy
Into a Cheney-led theocracy
That elevated Bush to God
So all He had to do was nod
To rain down fire and desolation
On us, Iraq, our civil rights.
This God of War has appetites
Which fed has eaten up the nation.
He showed He has the right to rule
Because the voters are a Fool.

Make no mistake, responsibility
Rests firmly in the voters’ hands.
Democracy means the ability
For people to rule their own lands.
No matter frightened to submission,
You’ll not escape the inquisition
When others ask us “Can we vote?”
You answer “Yes.” That’s all s/he wrote.
So just because you’re from Jerkwater,
America you can’t gainsay
What happens when comes Judgment Day.
Like cattle, we’ll be led to slaughter
By “foreigners” who understand
We made their world a no man’s land.

DEMOCRACY'S A FINE THING

Democracy’s a bright idea
Which everywhere we should impose
On those who lack a panacea
For ridding them of status quos
Which we have deemed to be tyrannical
No matter how we have to manacle
Those we would help, so they’ll not choose
Whom we’d find difficult to use.
Meanwhile at home whole generations
Would gladly give away their votes
For ipods or for power boats.
And they deserve congratulations-
Without political ennui
Democracy could never be.

AMERICAN AGGRESSION

A people proud of its aggression,
In order that the world be free,
Is ignorant of its depression
With standing at the DMV.
The DMV is unbelievable
At turning people into peevable
Monstrosities who entertain
The thoughts from their reptilian brain.
Hostility's environmental-
It’s not that we were born to piss
Into the mouth of the abyss-
It’s taught us by subconscious mental
Cues cognitively friendly to
A government with no IQ.

BUSH'S PSYCHOSIS

The doctors said the Bush psychosis
Was that he thought that civil laws
Were just a democrat’s neurosis,
Promoting deadly brouhahas.
While traveling south of Mason-Dixon
He said he stopped and talked to Nixon
Whose ghost said never compromise
Until you’ve left free enterprise
To solve your problems, like Somalia-
By filling up all their war zones
With self-help books and cell ring tones
Which would disperse their melancholia
And hailing fellows as well met,
They’d dine upon the diaper set.

(to be continued)

GRAVE DIGGERS

To hide that you have no intention
Of doing what you say you’ll do,
Agree "in principle." Pretension
Is better served when much ado
Is made to seem as though directed
Directly at those most affected-
A hedge fund buys a company
And claims in principle to be
Not interested in the splitting
Of assets just to make a buck.
Be certain, though, their claim’s a shuck.
For businessmen do what’s most fitting-
Leave workers as their helpless thralls
Who’ll finally build their Taj Mahals.

DELIGHT IN WAR ?

Delight in war is to the merit
Of soldiers; but in statesmen crime.
Their sons and daughters wouldn’t bear it;
But ours, whom they think are small-time,
Are sent in country to a billet
Where they learn quickly how to fillet
"Our" enemies in others’ lands-
In jungles or on desert sands.
If George Bush had to send his daughters
Or England send a royal prince,
It might not take long to convince
These “leaders” that their cannon fodders,
If precious to them as are ours,
Should never serve as steak tartares.

THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE WORLD

The longing eyes of politicians
Predict the ruin of the state.
They send out army expeditions
In hopes that they might captivate
Not enemies but their own nation;
And hope none see the usurpation
Of power which they would increase
By mounting on the mantelpiece
The pictures of our sons and daughters
Who, killed in action, seem to say
“I did it for the USA.”
So we approve the fire and slaughters
To justify them in repose,
As “statesmen” lead us by the nose.

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

It is always observable that the … sciences are the last to suffer under despotisms.
Dana

Who says that science doesn’t suffer
Under the despot W;
And sidekick Cheney who would snuff her
In favor of his witches brew
Of Christian freaks who claim that science
Is wrong when it’s not in compliance
With Bible teachers who believe
We are descended from an Eve?
Now Christians have a new museum
That shows that dinosaurs and man
Existed in the same time span,
Without the need to referee ‘em.
I’ve heard that people leave there awed-
Which always marks successful fraud.

WHY ALBERTO GONZALES HAS SURVIVED SO LONG

Gonzales, told of violations
Committed by the FBI
About the wrongful applications
Of letters that would sanctify
Their peeping into others’ business,
Denied it was a part of his mess.
Except these letters seemed to show
Alberto was about to go.
When told of this, Al grew more candid;
Said Edgar Hoover’d left behind
Some documents would change the mind
Of any who grew too high-handed.
And when he'd left the hearing room,
The senators adjourned in gloom.

PURITANICALISM

A libertine's a nonconformist
Who knows s/he's happy having fun;
But that's what makes the Christians warmist
And why they want to overrun
All those whom they think are notorious
For living lives that aren't laborious-
Who gamble, drink, do drugs, love sex;
And, yes, who sometimes write bad checks.
If they could make a Christian golem,
They'd send him out to be a scorn
To men and women who make porn.
Like that...they'd snap your spinal column
For wanting really to be bad;
But not kill Muslims in Baghdad.

These Christians are the self-appointed,
Self-righteous guardians of men
And women; who think God anointed
Them to convert the lion's den
That has rejected Christianity
In favor of mankind's humanity;
Who think that common earthly blights
We might amend by human rights.
This thinking, though, leaves them scared shitless.
And rightly so. It would seem odd,
As children of whom they call God,
If He'd created us so witless,
We couldn't make a common cause
With "Others," as we do in-laws.

They're so absurdly puritanic:
When Janet Jackson flashed some breast
These Christians flew into a panic
(Some even died in the midwest),
Believing that "Jew" television
Was under Satan's supervision-
As was, they knew, the DMV
And, probably, the FCC.
They poured from homes and sought their preachers
Who knelt them in the streets to pray
In hopes this devil's devotee
Would suffer cancer to her "features."
Meanwhile, their forces in Iraq
Go killing Muslims block by block.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS (an evangelical plot ?)

Who hasn’t heard that making speeches
Or writing what you want to write
Is educational and teaches
Us how to recognize a blight?
But now we are to be corrected
So other folks won’t feel rejected
With words like “nigger,” “faggot,” “bitch”
That set folks off at fever pitch?
No doubt, these words are truly awful.
But how will progress ever dawn
If we restrict the lexicon
To what’s discreet and make it lawful?
What’s next? That government detain
Who take the name of god in vain?

INANITIES IN PUBLIC LIFE-THE KANSAS BOARD OF EDUCATION

The Kansas Board of Education
Has argued the descent of man
Is totally in violation
Of God Almighty’s master plan.
So they’ve abolished teaching science
Whenever it displays defiance
Of what the Bible says is true.
So gravity was made taboo.
For otherwise there’s no Ascension
Of Virgin Mary and her Son;
And then they’re stuck where they’ve begun-
On earth and dead in this dimension.
And no one wants to come to terms
With opening that can of worms.

FROM TOCQUEVILLE

It’s more than ever characteristic
That information from a spy
Is useless as a plan’s heuristic-
In fact it counts as pure sci-fi-
When government's luxuriation
In power is of short duration.
As peril grows it will decrease,
Till finally it’s known to cease,
Especially if the spies are liars.
What wasn’t counted as a sin
Means old spies take it on the chin
When newly minted occupiers
Of seats of power want their lies
To serve them as their own disguise.

BLAME

Who claims the U.S. is predacious
And blames it on George W,
Has fallen victim to fallacious
Polemics that s/he should see through.
Americans were categorical
In killing off the prehistorical
Natives they found on their own spread;
And did it after breaking bread.
Went pushing west in rough-and-tumble;
And left behind, besides heartbreak,
A people always on the take.
But now you hear these same folks grumble
At Bush and Cheney- anyone
Except who’s raised a native son.

WHY RELIGION?

A blogger friend asked why religion
Was featured in my many posts.
I said I thought it but a smidgen.
But on consideration, roasts
Of God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus
Have figured in my exegesis
Of how we first must demonize
Whomever we would brutalize.
And, factually, Christian theology
Has always proved a seconal
In concert now with pro football
Before we practice our proctology
By dulling us with gravitas
Before the world pays through the ass.

A QUESTION FOR HILLARY/OBAMA

What say you, HILLARY/OBAMA?
Gay marriage is it moral or
Too much to handle, too much trauma?
Is it a question you abhor?
As presidential politicians,
Your own political beauticians
Who manicure your every word,
Both what you've said and what deterred,
Have tried to shape your commentary
So you can capture Christians who
Might otherwise bid you adieu.
But for the love of God and Mary-
Who had a kid but never wed-
Why can't gays share a marriage bed?

A PRAYER TO SIMMONIDES

All hail, almighty Simmonides
Who when rejected as a groom
Cursed in iambics high and mighties
Until they longed for deathly gloom.
Help me as well to be a pastor
That herds his foes to like disaster;
That blisters out a deadly curse
In octosyllables of verse.
Infuse me with your sense of humor
That I may torture on a wrack
All those who sent us to Iraq
And worse- I’d blossom to a tumor
Until at last George goes insane,
If I should find he has a brain.

VOTERS FOR GOD

I know that what I say’s committable;
But truly I’m by duty bound
To say religion’s not admittable
To test a candidate’s background.
But in this most religious nation
There’s certainly a correlation
Between what candidates may think
Of god and whether voters shrink
From giving votes. The prime condition:
The candidate believes in god.
To not do so means s/he’s outlawed;
Might even be tried for sedition-
For most folks think “In God We Trust”
Is, constitutionally, a must.

Just why this is should be debated;
But then we'd all be horrified
At what we found elucidated.
And once it was declassified,
You'd no doubt find it so appalling
You'd argue for the overhauling
Of who might vote and who should not;
But then democracy would rot.
So let it go. It's far too numbing.
Despite the fact we've been to school,
America is like Kabul.
While voters wait the second coming,
They substitute a candidate
Who'll pull it off as chief of state.

WORLD WARS

Who says that we are undermining
A world that longs for settled peace?
Since wars are growing not declining,
Who says the world wants wars to cease?
The world is filthy with aggression;
We’ve only made it our profession.
And fools who say atomic bombs
Could put an end to Vietnams,
Don’t get the point. Who makes a profit,
If all our enemies are dead?
Where would that leave us? In the red.
So all who want to Gorbachev it,
Should get a clue. For like chain stores,
We franchise out our world wars.

" JAYSOOSIAN" ETHICS ( FOR TOD LINDBERG )

When doctors stop a man from dying
Or bring him back when he’s passed dead,
A preacher finds this mystifying
For given all that s/he has read
This is the province of Lord Jesus
According to the exegesis
Of testaments s/he feels are blessed.
But Jesus never cracked a chest,
Massaged a heart that started beating
Again though it’s reluctant to,
And brought us back when we’re passed due.
Perhaps we need another reading
Of Jesus as a man not god
Whose ethics we can all applaud.

Imagine if a Christian preacher
When preaching to her multitudes
Said in our lives we each should feature
What Jesus called beatitudes.
Not so we can achieve salvation
But just to make a better nation;
And all the earth a place to dwell
Instead of one drab prison cell.
To all of those who are not willing
To let us live the Golden Rule,
Who profit from the world cesspool-
Like Cheney with his oil drilling-
We’ll stand opposed to these outlaws
Until they join our common cause.

( to be continued )

THE SURGEON GENERAL'S NIGHTMARE

The Surgeon General reported
That Bush had urged he stay the course
And to announce if you aborted
Or had protected intercourse
You’d be declared a baby killer
And would be whipped tied to a pillar;
And after whipping you’d be boned
Then taken to a pit and stoned.
You’d then be shipped off to a Saudi
Where you’d be made to clean the dung
In his commode with just your tongue.
If you survived this, anybody
Could tie you to a minaret…
But then he woke all drenched in sweat.

A CONVERSATION IN AN ARMY RECRUITING OFFICE IN LOS ANGELES

“The General says our recruiting
Has gone to hell. No end in sight.”
“If only they’d stop all this shooting,
We’d get some soldiers who would fight.”
“We take drug addicts; alcoholics;
And anorexic melancholics;
Convicted felons in their primes;
We’d even take a troop of mimes.”
“Or what about the holy rollers?
They don’t fear death for they’ve a yen
To prove they can be born again.”
“Hell. What about disgraced comptrollers?”
“I’d even take a Peter Pan;
But draw the line at Lindsey Lohan.”

BENEDICT'S VERSION OF SALVATION

The Pope declared that Man’s salvation
Depends upon the Catholic Church.
The others don’t lead to damnation;
But Benedict said his research
Showed them not churches but communities
That cannot offer full immunities
From occupying hellish cells
Where devils torture infidels.
The other Christians were united
In disapproving what he wrote;
But found themselves in the same boat
When Bene wrote Jews were misguided;
And making, without big to-dos,
An offer that they can’t refuse.


( to be continued )

JONAH AND LEVIATHAN

The federal government is hiring
Or will be soon as boomers near
The age at which they’ll need hot wiring
To even get them into gear.
Not only that but our futurity
Depends upon Homeland Security
To help ensure we are aligned
To praise George Bush as mastermind.
As Surgeon General Carmona
Found when he wasn’t in accord
With Bush and was thrown overboard,
As once was thrown that other Jonah;
But like the first, from out the whale,
Carmona lived to tell his tale.

MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA PROPOSES TO MIRTHALA SALINAS

Mayor Tony said to Ms. Salinas:
“Mirthala, take a ride with me;
But keep what goes on here between us.
We wouldn’t want it on TV.
You know that Clinton had his Monica
Whose dress he stained with his veronica.
I’m not that kind of man; not crude.
I’d have you do it kneeling nude.
I know you work for Telemundo
And I could grant you interviews
(Though off the record) you could use
About some bigwigs you could wound. So,
If you will act as my mouthpiece,
You’re first for every press release.”

A TEACHER'S OPINION

Are ghetto kids such blind fool losers
They’d rather smoke a little weed
Or hang around with OG boozers
Than get their studies up to speed?
Or ipod bobbing to a rapper
While sitting in a PE crapper
And dream about most anyplace
Than tackling the paper chase?
God knows I don’t have any answers;
But something says they’d bust a gut
If amerikkka hadn’t cut
(Or wanted to) them out like cancers.
If out and free of that cesspool,
Then maybe they’d get straight with school.

A TEACHER'S LAMENT

If courts can hold a parent liable
For helping sons and daughters drink,
Then shouldn’t it be justifiable
That they’re obliged to help them think?
To be in school and not be truant;
That when they come to school they’re fluent
With what it takes to hit the books
And not give teachers dirty looks
When she or he gives an assignment
That takes some effort, trouble, time
Without them thinking it’s a crime
That keeps them homebound in confinement.
But maybe that’s the trouble : home.
They’re victims of Stockholm Syndrome.

CLARENCE THOMAS UPHOLDS A DEATH PENALTY CONVICTION

“I say with certainty the Founders
Believed in an almighty God
Who wreaked His punishment on bounders
In ways that kept His people awed.
Therefore, I claim the Constitution
Demands for crimes a retribution
Commensurate with what you did.
And ,so, I will not now forbid
Your being torn apart by horses
For shouting ‘ Bush would not attack
If his twin girls were in Iraq.’
The Constitution says brute force is
Not to be used if it’s too weird;
But I asked God who said I’m cleared.”

CHARTER SCHOOLS

Do charter schools have any answers
To raising students lowly scores?
Or do they kowtow to financers
Of education’s civil wars?
There’s ample proof there is no charter
Has ever made a student smarter.
So why should L.A.’s Board of Ed.
Think they’ll increase the score’s point spread?
So if this seems a little iffy,
Remember that a public school
Is subject to the golden rule
Which states quite plainly: in a jiffy
If test scores are left in a ditch
The charters gone but it’s left rich.

VOTERS EXCITED

Voters Excited Over ’08 Campaign; Tired of It, Too
( NYT 07/09/07 )

With previews of next year’s election
So prodigal in every state,
The voters think it’s their selection
Will chiefly choose the candidate.
The cost, of course, will be horrendous
As strangers try now to best friend us.
It’s money though that pays the bills
And outmaneuvers our freewills.
A candidate might say “God willing;”
But even God can’t pay the fee
For prime time on network TV.
No, candidates who get top billing
Are bankrolled by the superrich
And we play catcher to their pitch.

WHY RELIGION ?

A blogger friend asked why religion
Was featured in my many posts.
I said I thought it but a smidgen.
But on consideration, roasts
Of God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus
Have figured in my exegesis
Of how we first must demonize
Whomever we would brutalize.
And, factually, Christian theology
Has always proved a seconal
In concert now with pro football
Before we practice our proctology
By dulling us with gravitas
Before the world pays through the ass.

INANITIES IN PUBLIC LIFE- LINDA CHAVEZ

Before Ms. Chao was nominated,
George Bush’s premiere nominee
Was Linda Chavez, vaccinated
Against all things that seemed PC-
Especially exaggerations
About what might end deprivations,
Like raising the minimum wage
From what it was in the Bronze Age.
She argued that employers suffer;
And workers, too, from losing jobs
To foreigners who live on cobs.
So Linda like a Bush flick fluffer,
Would surely have kept labor hard
By driving wages Myanmared.

INANITIES IN PUBLIC LIFE- ELAINE CHAO

Elaine repealed the regulations
That were designed so labor law
Could be enforced, like arbitrations
That stuck in her employer’s craw.
She argued that the cause of workers
Was showing bosses they weren’t shirkers-
Would work two hundred hours a week,
Not stopping once to take a leak;
Would show employers their communion
By offering to work for less
When companies were under stress;
Would certainly reject a union;
Be satisfied, in early graves,
They were productive as wage slaves.

INANITIES IN PUBLIC LIFE-THE KANSAS BOARD OF EDUCATION

The Kansas Board of Education
Has argued the descent of man
Is totally in violation
Of God Almighty’s master plan.
So they’ve abolished teaching science
Whenever it displays defiance
Of what the Bible says is true.
So gravity was made taboo.
For otherwise there’s no Ascension
Of Virgin Mary and her Son;
And then they’re stuck where they’ve begun-
On earth and dead in this dimension.
And no one wants to come to terms
With opening that can of worms.

INANITIES IN PUBLIC LIFE -DAVID HOROWITZ

I vilify to call to order
Inanity in public life;
But if my verses prove a mortar
That, detonating, add to strife,
Then I admit I would strike terror
In all promoting public error
By firing off my ridicule
To help the world be rid a fool-
Like Bush and Rove, Rumsfeld and Cheney,
Or Condi Rice, or Tom DeLay,
Ann Coulter, Yoo, the CIA,
Or any of the miscellany
The Bush administration shits,
Especially David Horowitz.

For Horowitz was once left radical,
Or so he claimed in ’69,
But then transformed himself fanatical
Conservative whose bottom line
Is charging radical professors
With using classroom tongue depressors
To gag their students not PC,
Preventing them from their degree.
As well, his views on Reconstruction-
That former slaves were hypocrites
Denying slavery’s benefits-
Should serve us to make this deduction:
The Academic Bill of Rights
Is what it claims, for whom it fights.

RELIGION IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE

For Christian preachers who are plotting
Religion in the public square,
Perhaps you ought to go glob-trotting
And see Iran and its nightmare-
Enforcing on a single nation
The status of one congregation;
Who think there’s nothing left to teach
Except for what their mullahs preach;
Who send out goon squads as marauders
Investigating all parked cars
To see who’s leading seminars
On J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potters
Then, after beating them for fraud,
They’re strung up in the name of god.

MARK CHAPTER 13

No government whose opposition
Is like that of the Democrats
Will long endure an inquisition
Of whom it takes as its brass hats.
Attorney General Gonzales
Is proving though a Mount of Olives-
The tribulation has begun
As Bush advisors cut and run.
For W’s the tribulation
That Jesus warned about in Mark
And ended with a “Watch” and “Hark”
To his apostles consternation.
When Bush’s temple is destroyed,
All he will be is unemployed.

THE CHASTITY RING THING

“I wear this silver ring so Jesus
Would want to take me as his bride.
And you should, too. He will appease us
So long as He's kept deep inside.
For nothing says that you can’t linger
Inside your pussy with your finger;
Or you could use a candlestick
Or anything not human dick.
As long as you maintain your chastity,
A boy can use your mouth or tits
As long as he just gets base hits.
Or use your ass! My boyfriend blasted me
In both my mouth and little bum
But didn’t get to kingdom come.”

PALESTINE

There’s nothing quite as fundamental
To us, the U.S., as beliefs
That Arab “terrorists” are mental.
In this, we prove we are naifs-
America has no competitor
For being the world’s most deadly predator.
We make the Nazi war blitzkrieg
Look like it played in Little League.
Indeed, for Arabs keen on freeing
Their peoples from Israeli stress-
Backed-up, of course, by the U.S.-
So they can live a human being
Have little choice but shout catcalls
Or turning human cannonballs.

FROM HOBBES' " OF MAN "

As Hobbes announced, to be effective
Our better Judgment can suggest
What circumstances our invective
Might better leave our victims stressed.
By blowing things out of proportion
You can accomplish your abortion,
Because it isn’t truth we speak
But how to turn a man a freak.
Hence when pronouncing maledictions,
Be sure comparisons are fraught
With stink, as from a chamber pot.
In this way you’ll achieve convictions
In which the victim stupefied
Has one escape – by suicide.

LABOR NOTES ( for JOEL JORDAN )

Jobs, Wages, Health Care, Pensions--All in Jeopardy as Chrysler Is Sold to Private Firm
( from LABOR NOTES June 2007 )

If Labor Notes is the quintessence
Belaboring the labor news,
Why not just take antidepressants
Or cheaper far some brews and booze
And give up on inane insistence
That labor triumphs by resistance?
How many more years will be spent
In living like it’s always Lent?
Will unions stop our exploitation?
Will they pass surplus labor laws;
Unite us in a common cause
That finally brings a (Re)formation
That nails the bosses to the door
And gives us what’s worth working for?

No doubt, you’ll claim this is Utopia.
But wages, pensions, health care, jobs
And all their wretched cornucopia
Of hand-me-downs have made us slobs.
It’s not that I’m opposed to union.
It’s rather I prefer communion
With all the peoples of the earth
In realizing our net worth.
So stressing out with high anxiety
About “your” firm when it’s bought out
Should make you skeptical with doubt;
But not about it’s impropriety
Because it’s “theirs” till Judgment Day
Unless we take them “out of play.”

MENAGE a TROIS

Olmert and Bush Discuss Ways to Strengthen Abbas NYT 6/19/07


When Bush and Olmert start discussing
How they might help out Al Fatah
In hopes Abbas stops Hamas’ fussing,
You have what’s called ménage a trios.
And for a while the three will revel
Until Abbas must pay the devil-
Who’s, no doubt, laughing up his sleeve
As He foresees that Tel Aviv
Is where Abbas must go in hiding.
It is the only place on earth
Where he might make an afterbirth-
When Israel stops pillow fighting
And uses WMDs
To clear the camps of refugees.

HALFWITS

Success has always been a great liar.
Nietzsche

This can’t account for Bush and Cheney.
In fact, they show the opposite
(I’ll grant you neither one’s too brainy-
Together they aren’t one halfwit)
For it’s great failures made them liars,
While preaching to their own church choirs
About Sadam and how they’d seize
His cache of WMDs.
But really what has proved more shocking
Is that they got help from the press
Which made their lies a huge success.
Instead of being sharp and mocking,
Exposing all their lies’ choke holds,
The press airbrushed them centerfolds.

UNTITLED

I find it damnably distressing
That I can feel completely vexed
About so many folks obsessing
On Bible stories as a text
On how to build a great society.
Why can’t they see the impropriety
Of damning those in politics
Who disagree, as heretics?
Why can’t they see that their convictions-
Which they’re entitled, so were told
By such a one as Rawls, to hold
In private- lead to crucifixions
In public life. When they’re discards,
Who will be left to guard the guards?

TYRANT MARTYRS

The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies
And his rule begins. Kierkegaard

The tyrant dies. His rule has ended.
The martyr dies. His rule begins.
In neither case is either splendid
Because they prove fraternal twins.
The difference is in their proclivities
In how they manage our captivities.
The one commands our asking price;
The other that we don’t think twice.
The tyrant goes for your carotid,
If you should make his wanted list;
The martyr shags you in a mist
Of old beliefs already rotted.
The tyrant feeds on politics;
The martyr off of heretics.

PRAISE THE LORD

Justice Dept. Reshapes Its Civil Rights Mission
Focus on Racial Issues Gives Way to Cases Involving Religion
( NYT 06/14/07 )


If publicly I say “God damn it,”
Am I assured my civil rights;
Or will Gonzales so program it
To say blaspheming disunites
A totally God-fearing nation
Then order up his congregation
Of Christian law school Jesus twits
To try and make me call it quits?
Or will he sit and draft a memo
And give it to the FBI
That lets them hang me out to dry
(The latter’s his preferred MO)
But after I have praised the Lord
While baptized on a waterboard?

ON REVOLUTIONS

“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”
Chesterton


If something is, in truth, worth doing,
Then it’s worth doing badly since
Whenever something new’s debuting
It hardly ever has blueprints.
This means that every revolution
Will suffer from the convolution
Of overthrowing all the laws
With no more than a “just because.”
If this should lead to some confusions,
It shouldn’t really. Justice does
Quite often redefine who’s scuzz;
And they in turn need blood transfusions
Before they bid old lives adieus;
Get down to work and pay their dues.

DISCLOSURE LAWS

“Democrats Lose Traction on Reform”

(Washingtonpost.com 6/11/07)


Last month, the house passed legislation
Expanding their disclosure laws.
Some members though in convocation,
Reluctant to dump Santa Claus,
Said, “Ethics claimed all our devotion;
But now that we’ve some forward motion,
Why register who bundles checks
And sometimes gives us oral sex,
Before we have a huge majority
Of Democrats both in the House
And Senate for then we can douse
All talk of ethics? Our authority
Will be believed. Who cares we lied?
We are the peoples better guide.”

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS (an evangelical plot ?)

Who hasn’t heard that making speeches
Or writing what you want to write
Is educational and teaches
Us how to recognize a blight?
But now we are to be corrected
So other folks won’t feel rejected
With words like “nigger,” “faggot,” “bitch”
That set folks off at fever pitch?
No doubt, these words are truly awful.
But how will progress ever dawn
If we restrict the lexicon
To what’s discreet and make it lawful?
What’s next? That government detain
Who take the name of god in vain?

FOR G.K. CHESTERTON

" It's a test of good religion whether you can make a joke about it."
Chesterton

If it’s a test of good religion
That it can be made out a joke,
Then hope to God it’s just a smidgen
Or Jesus freaks will let you soak
In gasoline then set you burning
Until you’ve proved you’re more discerning
About their church. When you’ve atoned,
They’ll take you out and get you stoned.
If all this seems a bit horrific,
Remember these folks are obsessed
With wanting Satan laid to rest.
Restored now to the beatific,
You’ll see your jokes just don’t amuse
Unless about Islam or Jews.

FOR BROTHER ARAB BLOGGERS

All Hail, my brother Arab bloggers!
Continue in your dissidence
By drilling down like deadly augers
Unearthing all the evidence
That gives the lie to politicians
For what they say or by omissions.
Show how these "leaders" moralized
What hardly could be legalized.
Show them as liars so pathetic
That when they perpetrate a fraud
They do it in the name of god.
Show how they use god as cosmetic.
If all of the above's taboo,
Then show it of George W.

THE DEATH PENALTY (for the SUPREME COURT)

“If I may ask you, Mr. Juror…
I’m sorry. What’s your name?” “It’s White.”
“What do you think of all the furor
That’s only lately come to light
Such that if you've a predilection
For voting death upon conviction,
You’re much more likely to convict?”
“I’d say that I should still be picked.
Who else will stand up for the victim?
Give them due process of the law?
Give criminals their last hurrah?”
“And so you’re saying you’d convict 'em?”
“I’d let my conscience be my guide?”
The D.A. said, “He’s qualified.”

RATZINGER'S DILEMMA

“God overflows with generosity,”
Writes Ratzinger while searching out
The face of god. But man’s ferocity
Is caused by what? He's prone to gout?
The pope claims that God's engineering
Has put the lie to domineering.
But if that's what God really did,
Then why supply us with an id
Which vastly increased our black humors?
God’s either generous or not.
So popish logic goes for naught.
He gave us rage, mass grave entombers.
So "white" of Him. So sing te deum
But to a God of human mayhem.

Ratzinger claims that our dissection
Of Jesus’ miracles casts doubt
Upon the truth of Resurrection.
Take, for example, bailing out
The bride and groom who were complaining
Their wine was gone. The jugs remaining
Held only water. On a whim
Lord Jesus filled them to the brim
With wine. The pope says look to meaning-
(Though miracles might prove too much
Mohammed had the “magic touch”)-
For Jesus by his intervening
Was showing how much God loves you,
But that assumes the story’s true.

Ratzinger claims that historicity
Is not important to the sense
Of what God did. With this felicity-
Which says you don’t need evidence
For little facts like was a Jesus
The god himself come down to ease us
Of our immortal pain in hell-
We bid the real good-by and dwell
In fantasy which knows no fiction.
Now Ratzinger is not a dope,
Although he bears the title “Pope,”
So if we honor his conviction
We’ll need some proof or a la mode
Why not live Brown’s “Da Vinci Code.?”

Without some proof this brilliant scholar
Is nothing but a critic who
Is strangling on his Roman collar-
Which cuts off air to his IQ-
In his attempt to make god Jesus
But purely from an exegesis
Of an unlikely tribal text.
What leaves this reader more perplexed
Is how old books writ by committee
(Except perhaps the books by Paul
Whose brain was injured in a fall)
Are trusted outside Salt Lake City
Where anything can be believed
So long as it can’t be perceived.

We’re certain that the Book of Mormon
Was written twice by Joseph Smith;
That when he finished his brainstormin’
The tablets vanished into myth-
Flew up to heaven where slave traders
No doubt became the books curators-
Which left Joe Smith in full command
Of other farmers’ wives and land.
What’s this to do with Joe Ratzinger?
It helps to have a modern perch
To see how founders of a church
Might make for laughs on Jerry Springer,
If it weren’t sad their brouhahas
Keep humans from a common cause.

As Lenin said, it takes ten pages
Of opposition argument
To show what’s false in what a “sage” says
In just one page. But’s evident
He didn’t mean the categories
Of heavens, hells, and purgatories
Or anything like virgin birth;
Or anything not of this earth.
So let me make a last proposal
By asking how the mind of man
Could ever know a god’s game plan
Unless the gods at our disposal
Were really just a state of mind
From darker ages of mankind?

BUSH'S MONICA PROBLEM

“Ms. Goodling, you have just admitted
You acted on behalf of Bush
To find out all who weren’t committed
To him. You gave a little… push
To women, men who didn’t measure
Up to the man you so much treasure.
Was all of this your own design?
Did Bush or Rove…” “I crossed the line.
I had to make some tough decisions.”
“Like?” “ Who might lie down on their jobs.
You know we get some awful snobs.
As well, I checked for circumcisions…”
“But, Monica…” “Oh, not for sex
They merely were... security checks.

“Besides you know I’ll never swallow
That justice comes from manmade law.
It is Lord Jesus whom I follow
Or, rather, God’s ménage a trios-
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-
That helps decide if I’ll revere it.
If Jesus calls upon me to
Decide who comes red, white, and blue,
Then who am I that I would question
What Jesus in God’s name has said?
I'd rather lose my maidenhead.
So in reply to your suggestion,
It’s true I gave a little push
Whom God foretold would turn on Bush.

“But as for having those relations
In which I’d lose my maidenhead,
I found out all their situations
And never took a one to bed.
By laying hands upon a penis;
Or woman on her mound of Venus,
I’d ask if Jesus was their pard,
Who has a crush on Andrew Card.
These served me as a lie detector;
And if their juices didn’t flow,
It’s true they got the old heave-ho.”
“You’ve worked as well the private sector?”
“Yes. For a while I've helped research
Who might besmirch the Catholic Church.”

THE EVANGELICAL PROSECUTOR'S PRAYER

Please, Jesus, will You be my Savior?
Please run for president again;
And I’ll excuse Your bad behavior
As President George Bush. Amen.
You only had enough osmosis
So Bush and Cheney could engross us.
Let Thompson be your antidote,
Not Rudy in his petticoat.
I know You are our Founding Father-
Well, actually, the Father’s Son
(I don’t completely get that one)-
But if You’d take the time and bother
To help Fred Thompson to a win
I could convict on grounds of sin.

For we’d amend the Constitution
To make provisions more robust
Against all who teach evolution
Because they dis In God We Trust;
And do away with all distortion
About the right to an abortion;
As well as make who swing both ways
Or, worse, the unrepentant gays,
Give up demanding to be married;
And stop them laughing up their sleeve
At virgin birth as make believe.
Then when these evils have been parried,
We’ll be Your City on the Hill
Where charging sin brings a true bill.

MOKTADA AL-SADR'S SECRET VISIT TO IRAN

The scheming Moktada al-Sadr
While laying low in new Iran
Was taught how best to turn jerkwater
Islamisists, who fight for clan,
Into a force for nationality-
"You must provide the hospitality
To welcome co-religionists
By purging them from your shit lists.
If not, you'll go the way of goonies.
But when the infidels are out,
Our God will give your mullahs clout
To deal with Christians, Jews, and Sunnis.
For then, like sacrificial goats,
Allah will let you cut their throats.

"We must establish co-prosperity
That stretches throughout Muslim lands;
And so must deal with great severity-
And this we know Allah commands-
With all who think we've counterfeited
What Allah claims must be admitted:
There is, He says, no God but God.
All others get the firing squad.
So go back home and rouse your forces.
Prepare jihad to engineer
The co-prosperity of fear."
Moktada said, Now hold your horses.
Who leads us, brother?" "God Whose palm
Has kindly handed us the bomb."

Moktada said, "What are you saying?
It sounds in very truth a threat."
"You donkey's penis, quit your braying.
You are 'in very truth' our pet.
So go back, make your fiery speeches.
Make certain that each one impeaches
Americans as devil's spawn;
And when their armies are withdrawn,
The words you speak will clear the clutter
Of Catholics, Christians, Sunnis, Jews,
The gays and others born to lose;
And when their blood flows in the gutter
No one will care that thousands died
Because it's merely genocide."

( tbc )

FALL GUYS ( FOR SALMAN RUSHDIE )

It happened as George Bush was flying
Home from Iraq on Air Force One.
He'd been locked in his bathroom trying
To take a dump; and when he'd done
He stepped out of his bathroom closet
(He'd left behind a huge deposit)
To see the cabins emptied out.
No one responed to his shout.
But heaps of clothes, as he well-noted,
Lay scattered on the seats and floor,
Like sale day at a K-Mart store.
"My God," he thought, "they've been promoted
And raptured up." Then Tim LaHaye
Came stumbling in and looking gray.

"For God sakes, George, what were you thinking,"
Said Tim LaHaye, recovering some.
"They're gone. All gone. In just a blinking,"
Said Pastor Tim now looking glum.
"The pilots, too, are gone. You've slain us!
Because the stench from out your anus
Got loose through some small ruptured vent,
They needed air so out they went."
"Their clothes?" asked Bush. "It penetrated
Through everything down to the skin.
It smelled in very truth...like sin."
"And all because I defecated?"
He asked. The man just couldn't see
That was how he made policy.

"Oh, Lord," LaHaye said, "what a scandle
That you and I were left behind.
How will our Christian brethren handle
The seeming fact that God declind
To give us, as good Christians, credit...?"
"Oh shut up, Tim. Let's just forget it,"
Said Bush who rushed to take control
Of Air Force One, if not his soul.
"I have a plan for rectifying
The fact that God's not proved our pard.
Remember I flew for the Guard."
"Oh God, George, no " LaHaye said crying,
"You can't mean you believe your press?
You'll land us in an awful mess."

He did but it went undetected-
Their bodies never would be found.
The faithful claimed they’d been elected,
And lived in Heaven’s hallowed ground.
They’d both stripped naked, then, ejecting,
They’d left no bodies for inspecting:
For when Bush pulled the lever that
Ejected them, they turned to splat-
The seats fell out but with no power
To shoot them out the flight deck floor
The engines sucked them in; and gore
Shot out the back, a bloody shower
With not a trace of DNA
To prove 'twas Bush or Tim LaHaye.

Which goes to show my story's morals-
Religion needs a bunco squad
To show it resting on the laurels
Of yesteryear. It's now a fraud.
For if you know a bit of science,
You know religion's in defiance
Of laws that physics has explained.
The miracles it entertained
Are nothing more than wanting mama
To take her little ones in hand
And show the way to Never Land.
But if you would escape life's trauma,
Then join and make a common cause
With others, as advised by Oz.

BYE BYE, JERRY

As Jerry Falwell fell while dying
(Not taken by the hand of God),
He knew it was because of lying
About the fact that he was odd.
He just gave up. A sex offender
Who all his life denied his gender-
For Jerry was a Geraldine
Who'd always longed to be a queen.
No longer could he take disguising
(Although he'd tried with all his wits)
A growing man-size pair of tits.
The crisis of his feminizing
Came as he felt his 'ballers pass
Him overhead and grab his ass.

FROM AN ATHEIST

I don't mean now to beg the question;
But, really, your belief in god
Seems rather like an indigestion
Brought on by overcooking fraud;
Or any other such comestible
Your mind/brain finds now indigestible.
If you would rid the world of grief,
Why not give it comic relief?
And not your dreary eschatology
Which only ever makes a hash
Of what was always balderdash.
Take, for example, Scientology-
What kind of gods create Tom Cruise
Then jump away from their snafus?

LIQUOR STORE STICK-UP (A RAP IN OTTAVA RIMA )

1
Clerk counted the cash; made a time-lock drop;
Fingers tell him "take it" but legs won't walk.
Near closing time at the Liquor Quick Stop,
When a whore drags in off the auction block.
Orient eyes say for a pint she'll swap
Whatever he wants from her private stock.
Clerk's wife and kids home snuggled down in bed;
While down behind the counter whore gives head.
2
Out on the street they call her Miss Saigon-
Mouth and pussy hot as a naplam bomb;
A war bride's baby whose daddy moved on;
She learned sucky-fuck from her Viet mom.
Pro at 14; was a cop her first john,
Used to be a grunt in the Vietnam.
Caught, dealing dope, she stuck her ass up bare;
Said: Cop, take a shot with your ground-to-air.
3
Down on her knees showing silicone tit,
Once a soft touch now insensible brick.
Her cat scratch tongue and lips and hand don't quit
Till she's sucked him bone dry and slurped his thick.
Her eyes smile up, but stare in her obit;
Handbags got a gun but she ain't that quick.
Very last thought before she's bagged airtight:
White motherfucker got it free tonight.
4
Drags her in a storeroom; dick still erect;
He ain't felt this good since he left Art Tech.
Tops in his class at the Special Effect;
The Movies said: Genius, write your own check.
Too much, too soon, and he totally wrecked;
Lucky that his lady studied home-ec.
Then staring down at delirium's titty,
He saw his road back to living Fat City.
5
Props her in a chair; wrestles off her dress;
Steps back and whistles at his late night guest;
Thinks: Doc did her tits was genius, no less,
Carved Botticelli's on a silk thin chest.
He bends down close pets her pussy's recess
Knows it was trophied in the old time West;
Sets in to skin it with a razor blade;
Now he's got a pussy scalp custom made.
6
He weaves the silky pelt through his gold throat chain,
A spoil of war in the human skin game;
Been played like that since the Abel and Cain;
"Victim" is History"s immortal brand name.
Each against all for the capital gain.
Justified Sinners make the Halls of Fame;
Like Natural Born Scientists in Nobel guise
Helped "give 'em hell" Harry make Nippon fries.
7
Clerk only wants the American Dream;
Doesn't give a shit its history's obscene;
Doesn't give a damn who he's got to demean
To get his credits on the silver screen.
Thinks: a whore, no matter how it might seem,
Just ain't human- it's a vending machine.
He hurries back up front to shut the store;
Then cleans the "change" she dropped at Death's door.
8
Time to start work: he ropes her ankles tight;
Hangs her head downward from a ceiling pipe.
Then slits her wrists with a razor blade's bite-
Got to drain blood before she turns to ripe.
Splits her flat belly; spills her guts outright,
Swabbing out the hollow using Handiwipe.
Rub a dub dub blood and guts in a tub
Thinks: I'm halfway back to the Country Club.
9
Cuts her carcass down; folds back her new crack-
Butchered piece of meat got to be repacked.
Lugs out a carton of Maxi Pad Pack;
Soaks it in rum make a taste your last act.
A wino said it's like drinking shellac;
Just what he needs to hold her gut intact.
Just to make certain her neck holds her head,
He scoops out her brain places pads instead.
10
Sealed with plastic tape from her breasts to clit,
Hangs her up again with an I.V. drip;
Booze filled veins start to harden like her tit;
Thinks: what a shame he can't take a last dip.
Suddenly though from his brain's snake pit
Crawls an idea from a snuff film clip:
Hard, he cuts her down, shoves his closest kin
Up her "dinky" ass till rigor sets in.
11
Sits down in a chair with the whore on top,
One hand grabs tit while its brother hooks twat;
Her asshole squeezes till his eyeballs pop;
It's time to pull out but his prick stays caught.
Pumps her up and down but she won't co-op;
His dick is stuck fast up her asshole's grot.
The bump and grind makes his semen explode
Which acts the enema on her last load.
12
His dick slicks free slimied sticky stink brown;
Grabs his ground-to-air glad it's safe and sound;
Cleans up her pile, wahes both of them down;
Now to get her dressed, get her posed hardbound.
Wrestles on her mini- the street deb's gown.
It's meant to hook the interest that banks compound.
Rich debs sell it at "till death do you part;"
While a street deb peddles it a la carte.
13
Lifts her from the chair then sticks up her ass
A long-handled broom helps her stand steadfast;
He smooths down her dress, makes her up first class,
But he can't hide the truth that her eyes broadcast.
Dark glasses cover up what he's brought to pass;
Now one last trick to make his icon last:
From her short black hair to her feet high-heeled,
He spray coats his sculpture with Scotchguard Shield.
14
Like Greek Galatea she thrills his pride;
But now the myth's been Americanized:
She's no sex object; she can't be a bride;
She's American woman idolized.
He's gone extreme that's pretty cut and dried;
But he's just a man Americanized:
He makes his money any way he can;
And now she's a star in the store's floor plan.
15
Hidden in the racks of the best champagne,
One hand holds a gun, the other a frame.
(No stick's needed now to help her feign
A threatening pose in the clerks con game.)
She's turned toward the wall, "pardon-me's" are vain
So you rub on past this deaf and dumd dame;
Your heart almost stops when you see her gun
Then you get the joke and you poke some fun.
16
His agent came and looked; said "I'd swear it bleeds.
What you've done only genius could conceive.
You've made from trash a figure that concedes
The desperate life of a modern Eve.
The gun in her hand shows where it all leads,
If you don't keep them locked in make believe.
You're back on the Movies' Most Wanted List;
But dump the body, boy, just in case it's missed."