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.”