FREE TRADE'S CATCH-22

Is it too late to heed the warning
The UNION'S sounded long ago?
The one that left their members mourning
About FREE TRADE as their death row
Because their bosses were divorcing
Them from employment by outsourcing
Their fairly measly paying jobs
To other countries where poor slobs,
With much less fat around their bellies,
Will finally have a chance to get
Their families into blinding debt.
With beer in hand around their tellies
And satisfied they can't be beat,
Like us they'll be made obsolete.

FOR BRAD

It's not enough to be a TEACHER
In college with a Ph.D.;
A college wants a double feature :
Both publications and degree;
For all this seeming erudition
Helps colleges to raise tuition.
Because of this a school's trustees
Would never hire a SOCRATES -
Whose seminars were pure brainstorming;
Debating all the pros and cons
Of issues in his talkathons
Till thinking was made habit-forming;
Who never had a book reviewed
But raised a Plato and his brood.

It's not that I enjoy indicting
Professors who, to please a dean
Of undergrads, must do some writing.
But colleges are far between
That might employ as their professors
Who haven't written books benchpressers,
Who have been trained to lift a ton,
Could lift without a 911.
But who, you'll ask, is better suited
To write about the world's affairs,
To show it off in all its cares?
I ask about the ones excluded;
Who haven't written books but fire
Their students with the word INQUIRE ?

If Socrates were in the bleachers
And had to pass a judgment on
Who'd better serve as students' teachers,
Who'd help them with the pro and con,
Of how to live out their existence-
By giving up or with persistence;
To show when it comes too high priced;
Or when it should be sacrificed -
Who would he choose, if he chose freely?
A specialist who drives you mad
With details that no undergrad
Can well absorb? Or else, ideally,
A teacher who would not permit
You to be someone's catcher's mitt?

Is there a seeming contradiction
Between pure teaching and research ?
If so, whose is the jurisdiction
If one's to be left in the lurch ?
Or need that be ? We must have scholars.
The question is why give them dollars
For teaching when they really write ?
Why not a permanent Fulbright ?
But one that covers all expences.
For others with a Ph.D.,
Let teaching be their custody.
If after college life commences,
Would you have students disembark
Without the zeal of Lewis and Clark ?

A MODEST PROPOSAL REDUX

God's given us man's ruination-
His wretchedness, his pain, and grief
In Africans- because starvation,
Up to a point, makes sweeter beef.
But while we vacillaate and dither
These Africans will dry and wither;
And when they are mere skin and bones
There only use is as flagstones.
Now while this might add some excitement
To driveways or a garden path,
Think of its awful aftermath:
The courts might bring in an indictment,
At least for moral turpitude,
And you'd be stuck with prison food.

No. Better, better, so much better
To eat a starving baby young.
Some single mother who's a debtor
And will be sold or might be hung;
And knows her baby is redundant
Would welcome cash that is abundantt
Enough, at least, to get her fixed.
And when her baby's been deep-sixed,
You'll take another contract on her.
For with no jobs she'll go in debt
Which you pay off. She's beef brochette.
For courts in Africa will honor
Your contract ( with some petty cash );
And then she's yours to her last eyelash.

A THEOCON ELECTED

A THEOCON when s/he's elected
To any office in the land
Believes that s/he has been selected
By GOD to finally take a stand
Against the gays who want to marry;
And so display that they're contrary
To manmade laws and laws of God;
And so promote what was outlawed.
Or was it? Did the Constitution
Mean you can marry whom you chose
No matter what's said on talk shows?
S/he finally comes to a solution
But gives it up (though not as such)
For gassing them seems, now, too much.

2

For now , at least, s/he waits and wonders
How s/he might cripple gay advance.
(Mean)while s/he prays that her God thunders
From out of Heaven that " Romance
Between two lesbos or two faggots
Is naught but filth would gag My maggots."
Though hearing God would be a coup
That honor is for W,
For Bush hears God as did the prophets.
Too, Cheney hears what God has voiced
So long as it can be invoiced;
And is conducive to his PROFITS.
Perhaps her betters might suggest
How best to make gays disinvest.

A POLITICS WITOUT RELIGION

A politics without religion!
"Impossible," say THEOCONS;
"For even if it's just a smidgen
Without it we'd be woebegones.
For how can life have any meaning
Without the GODHEAD intervening?
We'd always be afraid and cringe
(Governed by the secular fringe)
Of always and forever losing
Our prowess in conducting WAR
On someone else's sacred shore.
So putting TRUST IN GOD is choosing
(No matter our troops lose their heads)
To kill the OTHERS in their beds."

WHEN TIME TO DIE

A THEOCONIC baby boomer
When time grew near for him to die
Believed he'd heard an ugly rumor
Which he thought was a bald-faced lie :
There is no God nor evil devil;
But only time on earth to revel.
Your DEATH is not your opening night
Up the red carpet to the light.
Though, truly, it's the end of sorrow
(Which gave him hope) until he heard
Your sorrow's gone and not deferred
Because there's simply NO TOMORROW.
So, having turned this over, he
Thought he'd find out a.s.a.p.

A THEOCON IN HELL

A THEOCON , so goes the story,
Was having lunch and up and died.
Because the CHURCH closed Purgatory,
As it did Limbo, by his side
There stood the devil. In confusion,
He asked, "What of my contribution
In putting God and solemn prayer
Back in the U.S. public square?"
The devil said, "Though it's not sinning'
Or technically it's not at least,
God can't help feeling He's been fleeced.
For you removed the underpinning
Of man's awareness of the thrill
Of exercising his FREE WILL."

THEOCON 3

No THEOCON thinks EVOLUTION
Should be ignored in his kid's school.
So why propose a public douchin'
That makes old Darwin seem a fool?
Is it because they think they'll spook us-
If we think we've evolved from mucus-
Into believing in their god
As something more than a facade?
They claim we're products of invention;
That we're designed like little clocks;
And aren't mutations from ad hocs.
Whatever purpose, their intention
Will fail for humans deify,
In the end, who keep asking "Why?"

THEOCONS 2

A Catholic THEOCON can't handle-
Without believing he's a beast-
His own or other's Roman candle
And not believe that he's increased
His chance that when his life's adjournable
That he will be forever burnable;
Or, likewise, putting on the glove
Whenever he wants to make love.
He has this on good CHURCH AUTHORITY-
But not the Sermon on the Mount
Where Jesus claimed LOVE'S paramount-
For making SEX SIN'S first priority.
The CHURCH got this straight from ST. PAUL
Who thought SEX Nature's obscene call.

MEL GIBSON'S PASSION

Although I've not seen Gibson"s "PASSION,"
I am familiar with his views
(Which should be but aren't out of fashion)
About his feelings for the Jews;
For Mel received, with his BAPTISM,
A Catholic ANTI-SEMITISM
Which he displayed while driving drunk.
But being anti-Jew is bunk :
When Jesus died by crucifixion,
He opened up a new address,
Besdes God's Hell, where air express
God sent us after The Eviction.
Imagine going straight to HELL
And finding out the devil's MEL!

THEOCONS 1

The THEOCONS as politicians
Are nowadays quite resolute
When they're defending PROHIBITIONS
On eating the FORBIDDEN FRUIT
Of wanting EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
As members of a WORLD COMMUNITY
In which together ALL may rise
To have whatever they most prize.
But THEOCONIC CHRISTIANITY
Opposes this and in its place
Would gladly put the human race
In thrall to militant inanity
In which what leaves the world most stirred
Is opposition to the F WORD.

PARDON ME

He got the BUSH ADMINISTRATION,
Especially CHENEY, off the hook.
So who thinks LIBBY'S destination
Is jail, although he's proved a crook?
Will W grant him a pardon?
You bet your ass; or he'll need guardin'
Until his dying day draws near.
Unless they make him disappear
Because they think he might consider,
If he were left to rot in jail,
The driving of another nail
In CHENEY'S ass, an orn'ry critter
Who shot a friend in his patoot.
So, I think Libby's bound to SCOOT.

FOR ANN COULTER 2

And as for "...Edwards is a faggot;"
That is , of course , as it may be,
Though saying it should GAG A MAGGOT;
But COULTER has a malady
Impossible and uncontrollable
For which the woman's inconsolable-
The White House to the Democrats
Is driving her completely bats.
"Her comment," says her own clinician,
"Should be forgot lest one forgets
ANN COULTER SUFFERS FROM TOURETTES.
And so her speech lacks inhibition.
There is no cure, " her doctor owns,
"Except, perhaps by sticks and stones."

FOR ANN COULTER 1

Ann Coulter you're a right-wing GODDESS
Much hated by the liberal press.
You're not afraid to stomp a glottis
When some reporter doesn't BLESS
The likes of W and CHENEY
In books and books of miscellany
On how these substitute for GOD
By punishing what He's outlawed:
The lying, cheating, and complaining;
The putting in the helpful fix
That turned the Mississip to Styx;
And don't forget their entertaining
Of INFIDELS and ARAB REBS
In prisons like their ABU GHRAIBS.

FOR JACK HUBERMAN

Some evidence (?) has surfaced lately
That Jesus still lies in his tomb.
This hasn't hurt BELIEVERS greatly
Because, they claim, there is no room
For doubting he's of god's divinity,
A member of his holy trinity
So can't be dead, a daub of dust;
But's gone to heaven. Their disgust
With those who might be entertaining
A slightly different point of view
And want religion bid adieu,
Deserve, they say, a Christian braining;
But ATHEISTS just rise again
In living women, living men.

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.

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!"