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.