FOR JOHN TIRMAN

Who claims our executions tarnish
Our leading role in human rights?
I claim they add a bit of garnish
That might upset the appetites
For using laws as camouflaging
In their attempts at sabotaging
The healthy body politic.
They sap our strength. It makes me sick.
I'd argue for the execution
Of murderers who so adore
Their killing fields that nevermore
Can we uphold the Constitution:
Kill one and you may get the chair;
Kill thousands and it's c'est la guerre.

INVISIBLE

It's such a pain to be invisible
On top of which I can't be heard;
Which might, in fact, be downright risible
If I were much less self-assured
That what I've seen some people doing
Deserves,at least, a good debuting-
The inside story, so to speak.
(That last was meant as tongue in cheek.)
I'd make an A-1 cataloguer
Of all that people say and do
When I'm out playing peek-a-boo.
I know I'd make a big time blogger.
But anyway things could be worse...
I could be doomed to blog in verse.

GALAHADS

I wouldn't say that youth is wasted
Especially not on the young,
For who else gets so downright pasted
They'd go and fight in some far-flung
Islamic country just to plunder
The riches in the sand down under;
Thus making sure that we sustain
The moral rectitude of Cain.
And if they suffer from a braining
While trying to play at Galahad
Against the Muslims of Baghdad,
That's just what happens when campaigning.
Their coffin's then draped with the flag
Unless it drapes a saddlebag.

DUNCES PART 1

1

Why is it that in EDUCATION,
At least as practiced in L.A.,
The teachers suffer degration
From those could hardly teach a day
With students-whom they thought were stupid;
And so, like that, began to cupid
With principals and their APs
Becoming their fast devotees.
Eventually, these "educators"
(Who failed the elementary kids
And more the adolescent ids)
Become teachers' administrators-
Which means good teachers bear affronts
From one they knew as kiss ass DUNCE.

2
So they begin administration
Before their burn-out time's begun;
Before they've suffered dislocation
And think their home phone's 911;
Who've never even taught a standard
So haven't lasted to be slandered
As second rate to be replaced
And dumped as academic waste.
And if you think this too simplistic,
Do you remember anecdotes,
From your old job, on how shit floats?
For these define opportunistic-
Not risen high by skill in class;
But rather skill in kissing ass.

3

And then, of course, there's L.A.'s savior-
His Honor, Mayor Antonio-
Who'll right the students' school behavior
By miracles ex nihilo.
He doesn't want to play doomsayer
But owes it to a school's taxpayer
To be in charge of all the schools
As Bloomberg is. He sits and drools
About the power goes with awarding
The billions for necessities;
And how supplier devotees
Will afterwards help by supporting
His chance at grabbing the brass ring.
Methinks he's watched too much "West Wing."

4
But Tony could have used a mentor-
Shot down as he was by the Courts
Which argued that his civic center
Was to the right in moral supports.
The Courts claimed Tonio's immersion
In education was subversion
Of voters' rights and ruled instead
For the elected Board of Ed.
They argued that the mayor's position
Would carry things a bit too far
(Were too polite to say bizarre),
For Tony thought he had permission
To grant the running of the schools
To nonelected half-wit fools.

5

And so Mayor Tony came a cropper.
He lost support from Eli Broad
Who is L.A.'s compulsive shopper
Whenever there's a mother lode
Of money to be made. Asserting
That L.A.'s schools are disconcerting
And blaming teachers for the mess,
He would apply a full-court press
If only he had opportunity.
He'd drop our union in the soup
As just another interest group
Opposed to L.A.'s poor commumity.
Now at a loss for what to do,
He wants it done and PDQ.

6

So he invests in GREEN DOT charters
Who'll get results if malcontents
Don't force them to the wall as martyrs
By racking them for evidence
That even though a corporation
They are providing education;
And we should pay to wait and see.
No money back's their guarantee.
Now what they promise their "consumer"
Is education so hard-core
It's been unheard of heretofore.
But,"sadly," they're put out of humor
When kids from public- public schools,
At testing time, make theirs look fools.

7

The CHARTERS try to siphon students
Away from "failing" public schools.
But "failure" means a lack of prudence
On parents' parts. These are damn fools
Allowing overgrown thumb suckers
To get to high school jiveass shuckers-
Who bait a teacher in her class;
And, coming home, spew naught but sass.
"To parent" means responsibility
For taming the outrageous id
That blossoms out in any kid
Until it's gentled to civility.
But parents claim they have to work;
Expecting schools to train their jerk.

8

So teaching these small time barbarians
Means others suffer those retained,
As teachers play disciplinarians
To those whose minds aren't potty-trained.
But students who aren't pre-histoical
And use the teacher as an oracle;
Do homework, bring their books to class;
Don't play the fool, or act the ass
Have found their SAT scores rising-
A fact well hidden by the press
Which thrives on failure not success;
And by right-wingers theorizing
That education's apogee
Will come when paid for COD.

9

And so the RIGHT demanded vouchers
For parents who'd seen others' kids
Return from school as slack-jawed slouchers
Whose grades were always on the skids.
They couldn't see that these kids parents
Were fucking up their heir apparents-
At home, these kids found parents most
Enraptured by a talk-show host;
And, consequently, no discussion
Of anything that would up front
Be more demanding than a grunt
Was ever broached. They'd risk concussion.
No wonder these kids can't forbear
From acting out. Who'd even care?

10

And what about these numbskull parents
Who go to work, come home, TV;
And offer children their forebearance
As long as they'll just let them be;
Who sit and gape at Jerry Springer;
Or dream they'd make an "Idol" singer;
Who imitate the woebegones
Who play the Simpsons on "sitcons?"
Since parents can't be held accountable-
Whenever their kid's misbehaved
Or even if s/he acts depraved-
This obstacle's not insurmountable.
And so I offer schools some cues
On how to teach the "born to lose."

11

Here let me make then two proposals.
I think no teacher'd be averse
(Except the devotees of Kozol's)
To having aides to help coerce
The student rowdy who starts shouting,
Or even just a student flouting
A teacher trying to teach her class
Who'd disappear his shameless ass;
And ship him off to some location-
Perhaps a city in Iraq,
Or California prison block-
Where s/he will suffer true damnation
For just a year (I'd not be cruel)
And then let them return to school.

12

Or what about just guillotineing
An innocent in middle school
On her first day when bright with preening
You demonstrate that awful tool?
When she's invited up all trembly
Before the students in assembly;
And when her little head's cut off
And lifted out the bloody trough,
The principal shouts from the scaffold:
"This student died a painless death
With hardly time to catch her breath.
So listen up, if you're still baffled
Imagine how we'll make it last
If just one teacher says s/he's sassed."

13

I daresay these might prove a warning
To buckle down and study hard;
And might eliminate the scorning
That kids are prone to on the yard.
But most of all a teacher's classes
Might just be freed of little asses
Too terrified to make a fuss
For fear they might be turned to pus.
But what about administrators;
Or Green Dot Charters' Mr. Barr;
Or Mayor Tony as school tsar;
Or Eli Broad - emancipators
Who claim to speak vox populi
By giving teachers a black eye?

14

And then, of course, there's Margaret Spellings
Who pushes NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
In hopes to see her vouchers' swellings
Make public schools shit or go blind.
She didn't manufacture crisis;
But uses it to sacrifice us,
The teachers, who are self-possessed
In unions she'd see laid to rest.
She claims she's speaking for the nation
Demanding that its test scores rise
Up to the artificial highs
That Bush and Cheney's calculation
Hope guarantee some good returns
By privatizing Ed concerns.

15

For money lies behind "THE CRISIS'"
About a hundred eighty mil.
It's all for this they slice and dice us;
And have created such ill will.
Once public schools are thought abortions,
The Right believes that their distortions
Will draw the Christian born agains
Into the public lions' dens
To run for school boards in elections;
Thus really wrecking public schools
By adding fires to the fuels
That have already caused defections-
Until you've schools for VIPs
And ones can't teach the ABCs.

16

The latter will be the majority,
For who needs workers who can read?
Why readers might defy authority;
Might figure out escape from greed.
Might figure capital's COLOSSUS
Has been set up to double-cross us
By stealing from us our surplus;
And all of this without much fuss.
And, too, without outright coercin'-
Unless you count not being paid
A force, perhaps, leaves you dismayed.
Nonreaders make a fine nonperson
Who'll disappear to be set free
A born again commodity.

17

But back to Margaret Spellings' vouchers.
They guarantee us two-tierd schools;
As well as giving slack-jawed slouchers
The right to go on acting fools-
In fact, encouraging the hellions
To really act out their rebellions,
Because when states' per pupil cost
Goes into vouchers what gets lost?
It's sad to say but it's the quality
Of education for the poor
Which justifies the saboteur
Against this savage inequality.
NO CHILD, designed by masterminds,
Assures poor kids ARE LEFT BEHINDS.

End Part 1

BUSH'S FIRST ADVISOR

With Jesus as his first advisor,
George W has slaughtered more
Than any other moralizer
In thirty years of U.S. war.
Why Christ inspires annihilators
And not, as hoped, emancipators
To carry on His ministry
Has always been a mystery.
We know that Jesus was ambitious
That men and women be reborn
To help the hopelessly forlorn;
But now, that hope has turned seditious-
For if you help the meek turn reb,
You'll end up in an Abu Ghraib.

THE BRAIN DEADS

When W went on vacation
He stepped into his house and found
A chicken dead as vegetation
Pulled from its bed. He turned around
And called to Rove and his advisors
To help him out. The moralizers
Among them said, "It's still alive.
Down on your knees and she'll revive."
So all of them began their praying
To raise the chicken from the dead.
"Please, Jesus, wake this sleepy head,"
They prayed. It goes without gainsaying
That Jesus wouldn't cut a deal;
And God refused them on appeal.

LIBERAL HAWKS

When liberals stop specializing
In proving they are just as tough
As neocons at brutalizing
Americans who've had enough
Of wars that most of us find shocking
( Not least because we're dead men walking )
And celebrate 4th of Julys
All free of patriotic lies ,
Then maybe I'll become a voter
Who doesn't sit elections out
Because I'll know beyond a doubt
I'll never smell a body odor
Of rotting flesh that did its bit
To help the U.S. pop a zit.

U.N. PANEL OKs MEASURE ON ISLAM

The U.N. passed a resolution,
In Council on our HUMAN RIGHTS,
That urges damning all locution
That might defame religious flights
Of fancy like Islam's devising
Harsh penalties for satirizing
Mohammed, who's their favorite son,
Or anything Mohammedan.
The resolution was defended
By Russia, China, Cuba, and
Some other countries whose command
Of human rights is less than splendid-
Which goes to show that their soul food
Is sauteed in the Saudi's crude.

NASCAR NATION

1

We have become a NASCAR NATION
Not only lacking fashion sense
But with almighty affirmation
That liberals aren't worth two cents.
It's true they don't play gladiator,
As do the Knights of Carburetor;
True, too, that most of them would gag
At seeing a Confederate flag;
But these are only minor quibbles;
For liberals, too, can play the lout
When GAYS and LESBIANS come-out
For marriage, taking little nibbles
From out the Democratic vote
And ruining their good cloth coat;

2

Or what about their blaming Nader
For stealing the election from
Al Gore who surely was the nadir
Of boredom. Too bad Clinton's cum
Spilled out Lewinsky's mouth and wandered
On to her dress where it was squandered.
For if Al Gore had Clinton's balls
He wouldn't have made obscene calls
Which surely cost him his his election:
By distancing a close campaign
From what he saw as Clinton's stain,
He missed his chance at fuel injection-
For good old boys in politics
Will always vote the biggest dicks;

3

And what of W's seduction
Of liberals to vote his war
Against weapons of mass destruction
To find it was Sadam's decor-
The way that he'd pimped out his palace-
That made George want to root canal us
But voted for it anyway,
As worth some thousands DOA.
Now liberals have moved dead center
And play confused hermaphrodite
Who can't decide for fight or flight,
To own it or to be a renter
Till they've elected the FIRST MATE
Who'll finally sink the SHIP OF STATE;

4

For Hillary seems twice as driven
To Captain on the SHIP OF STATE
As Bill was for it seems God-given
A woman shall remain FIRST MATE
In an American election
For President. A vivisection
By any blogger who would press
Should catch her though in her b.s.-
Like granting MAD GEORGE legislation
To take his armies to Iraq.
Although she now plays chicken hawk
In her attempt at nomination,
She must admit that she was played
At finding it no panty raid;

5

And what about their canon bashing,
As property of dead white males?
Who hasn't heard a prof tonguelashing
His students on the holy grails
Of literature he finds apalling,
As if the Bard of Avon's calling-
The drama of his dialogues-
Is outperformed by monologues
Of a vagina, when the writer
Knows Shakespeare every bit as well
As does the prof who's raising hell?
Eve shouldn't think I'm trying to slight her;
But stories, as showed Northrop Frye,
Have naught to do with "he's a guy;"

6

And what about their praising Jesus,
As Sundays they go off to church?
Is this meant somehow to appease us,
As they advance weapons research;
Or when they have their ordained clergy
Say "God bless" to their metallurgy
Thus making sure it's fit to kill
The Sermon on the Mount's goodwill?
For liberals are like Dick Cheney-
Though liberals will prove a prude
To Cheney who's just downright crude-
Or even like High priest Khomeini:
Down on their knees, they go hard-core
And pray their God's success in WAR;

7

And what about their claim as "racist"
Intolerance for those who'd show
That ISLAM is one of the basest
Religions when it goes gung ho
Against their womens' genitalia,
As so much useless paraphernalia;
Or'd gladly turn the gays and Jews
Into new leather for their shoes?
They claim we must be multicultural
And tolerant of all who would
Seek God. They are misunderstood:
For peoples who, once agricultural,
(Which means most voters in red states)
Must be allowed their culture's traits;

8

Or those who welcome immigration
From Mexico or anywhere
So long as it drains aspiration
From making their home countries fair;
Who'll cross a desert or die trying
In hopes that they'll soon be applying
For Wal Mart wages(or much less)
To be sent home relieving stress.
Meanwhike their countries are still bestial
Since no one's left to help combat
The capitalists or help format-
If not conditions flat celestial-
At least a country with a soul
Where laborers are in control

9

Of surpluses they can't help making,
As MARX showed us too long ago,
Although it is called profit takiing
And helps prop up the status quo.
Imagine workers, who'd die trying
To cross a desert, codifying
That after they'd paid all their dues
The rest was theirs. This won't amuse
The liberals or conservatives
Who'd use their media to profess
That workers make an awful mess
Of using "profits." Their curatives,
They'd say, are downright communist
(Which might make MARX think he'd been kissed).

10

And what about the missionaries
U.S. religion sends to scout
Other religions' sanctuaries
Certain their peoples will reroute
Their own beliefs into the Bible
So Jesus Christ won't hold them liable
For sins they didn't have the wit
To realize would make God shit;
Thus sending them to Hell's damnation?
And when they get run out of town
Or when their circus tents burn down,
They argue that Christianization
Must start all over from square one
And, so, call in a bombing run.

11

For Christians and the military
Have always gone like hand and glove.
The reason this is necessary
Is helping "natives" rise above
Their indigenous superstition,
Requires some heavy ammunition
Beyond the skills of any priest.
So to ensure they are released,
They'll sometimes use force that's excessive.
Voila! The military's roles
In fertilizing native souls.
For if your God is not aggressive,
Refusing killing now and then,
You'll never raise a born again.

12

And what about our " self-reliance "
Which underpins the " DREAM COME TRUE ? "
This states there is a nonalliance
Between a person's derring-do
And any social reciprosity
As if the rich by their precocity
Have overcome all handicaps
By pulling on their own bootstraps.
To this peculiar egoism
They link an entity called " God "
Who mystically gave them the nod ;
But to ensure His favoritism
( Which guards them all against mistakes )
They call for more and more tax breaks ;

( to be continued )