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.