MANIFESTO

When Karl Marx looked down from heaven
At crisis in the world below,
He thought he might provide a leaven
So sat to think of some bon mot.
But as he watched the world’s devotion
To capital, ocean to ocean,
He wondered at the workers’ fear
About the day when they’d premiere.
His MANIFESTO had attested
That they were capital’s boot hill,
A destiny they could fulfill,
If only they’d done as suggested:
With “Workers of the world, unite,”
He didn’t add “…but be polite.”

THE JINN

“If, gentlemen, you’ll please consider
That what I’m holding in my clutch
Might not seem like a heavy hitter,
You would be wrong by oh so much.
For herein lies a thing obscene. He
Awaits your hest, a mighty genie
Who, when the stopper’s put aside,
Will grant three wishes.” Edified,
The men began their cutthroat bidding
Until the winner, with a smile,
Went bowing down the clapping aisle.
What happened after manumitting
The jinn would cast your peace of mind
Into the dark to be confined.

THE INFLUENTIALS

I’ll never be an “influential”
Say… like the ones who blog HuffPost.
Though what I write is consequential,
The liberals won’t let me roast
The likes of President Obama
Who subtly replies, “Yo mama”
To questions would embarrass him
And fixing if he’ll sink or swim.
For instance, I’ve called him on torture
And HuffPost censors out my blog
So hindering the “dialogue”
Their editors might think a scorcher,
As Bush and Cheney used to do.
As Caesar said, “Brutus, et tu?”

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE !

Who claims Obama is a liar
When everything he said’s so bland
He wouldn’t need an alibier
To lead him through the no-man’s-land
That haunts so many politicians
When they campaign for their ambitions-
In his case as a man of peace?
He no doubt meant catch and release.
He said that his administration
Would never live to be maligned
By lobbyists who countersigned
His bills signed into legislation.
Yet lobbyists and carnivores
Still stalk the White House corridors.

UNCLE SAM

1. “I’ll tell you anything,” she pleaded,
2. As she lay gasping on the floor.
3. It’s then I knew I had succeeded.
4. She couldn’t take it anymore.
5. I heard it in her voice. I let it
6. Wash over me and do me credit.
7. I run a torture team boutique
8. Where I’ve perfected my technique.
9. So what they changed administrations?
10. Obama, Bush. They’re all the same.
11. The difference is the party’s name.
12. So they avoid the defamations,
13. No president will give a damn.
14. Ya gotta love 'em… Uncle Sam.

MID-LIFE CRISIS ?

I used to think that rabble-rousing,
As Jefferson once said, was good;
But now I’m old and feel like drowsing.
I’ve done as much as any could.
So sit here like a fuddy-duddy
At home in this my tiny study
And hope that I won’t be eschewed
Because I’ve lost my aptitude
For making trouble, disinterring-
And making such an awful fuss
That I had always thought a plus-
The wickedness life was conferring
On everybody else you see
To find at last it’s only me.

THE SOLUTION TO THE TORTURE PROBLEM

Let me propose my own solution
To torture by the CIA
Will clearly lead to diminution
Of actions people think outré.
Don’t question them. That’s what they’re dreading.
Instead grant them instant beheading,
Dispatching them to virgins that
Will get them laid in nothing flat.
In this way we avoid brutality
And useless information got
Applying pokers are red hot.
They’ll welcome us with cordiality.
And’s more humane than suffering welts
By whipping them with garter belts.

A REPLY TO MICHAEL ROWE

Who says that human understanding
Was ever big in our U.S.?
From when the Pilgrims made their landing,
What’s really triumphed is b.s.
The slaughter of the native nations,
The slaves that once lived worse than Haitians,
And others in our history
Who have been treated as debris
Have suffered for their elocution
Especially those on the left
Who argued capital was theft
Have always suffered persecution.
But liberals would minimize
These troubles to “free enterprise.”

THE OATHS OF THE TENNIS COURTS

For liberals the trauma’s over
For now another Man from Hope
Will roll them over in the clover
(Then sucker them with rope-a-dope).
They live in worlds where oratoricals
Are mixed up as my metaphoricals-
They want to have a decent world
Where only our flag is unfurled.
And so we get their sermonizing
As brought to you by HuffPost blogs
Or any of their analogs.
And I’ll admit it’s tranquilizing.
But liberals are decent sorts
Not rebels on their tennis courts.

HEALTH CARE REFORM?

I want in on this health care racket.
I’ll call myself AMERICARE.
We’ll be America’s lifejacket
And I’ll become a billionaire.
But first I’ll have to hire a lobby
That would confuse a Hammurabi
On who should pay and who should not
Till everybody pays. So what?
A business can’t be altruistic.
Go out and ask the AMA
If doctors make sick people pay.
Of course. You think they’re communistic?
If you can’t pay, there’s waiting lists
For business knows no altruists.

THE STRESS TEST

I think the banks need more stress testing
So that we’ll know they’re five-by-five.
We wouldn’t want them out molesting
Homeowners whom they’d skin alive.
For stress can make the banks psychotics
Or, at the very least, neurotics
For all know bankers’ egos trip
With claims that they have lost their grip.
They need someone they can rely on
Who won’t allege they’re racketeers
Who’ve made their money and careers
By charging interest they get high on
So when they visit Harvard Yard
They’re welcomed with an honor guard.

DICK CHENEY'S DEFENCE

“They say a thousand words a picture.
But who knows what they’re really worth?
The Dems will not allow the stricture
Of President Obama. What on earth
Can be the meaning of deterring
Our showing off? Who claims we’re erring
By torturing our enemies?
Aren’t they watched over by M.D.’s
To guarantee they’ll live to tell us
What they were planning to do next?
OK, perhaps we over flexed
Our muscle, getting overzealous.
Why not release them; show the world
What happens when our flag’s unfurled?”

A CONSERVATIVE'S COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION

“I’m worried that our Constitution
Does not contain a clause that says
That justices can’t be Confucian
Or else descendants of Cortez.
And that it seems to be conducive
Of everything that is delusive.
Take, for example, civil rights
For blacks and gays but not white knights;
That courts can rule Creation Science
Cannot be taught in public schools.
These justices are all damn fools.
So I propose a new alliance
Of all who think “In God We Trust”
Be raised the standard for the just.”

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

When President Obama’s talking
About his giving banks relief-
And this is just a Christmas stocking-
I’m overwhelmed with disbelief.
When I have made an interest payment,
I can’t afford my children’s raiment-
So they’re in school in tattered clothes
And wearing shoes that show their toes.
And, too, my house could use new plumbing.
My job was transferred round the globe.
I’ve lost it all. But I'm not Job.
So, when you hear “fe fi fo fuming,”
You’ll know it’s me and millions more
Not Santa striking down their door.

ADAM BAUM

1
The military once concluded
(This happened after Vietnam)
That they were terribly diluted
Without the help of Adam Baum.
He never got enough of killing
Providing only God was willing
And now Dick Cheney needed him
To tear Iraqis limb from limb.
As often happens, limitations
Like leaving anyone alive,
He packed a punch none could survive,
Led Cheney, who loved imitations,
To limit him in what he did
So Adam wouldn’t flip his lid.
2
When Cheney called him with instructions,
He told him that Saddam was mad
And asked him if he’d wreak destruction’s
Death and massacre in Baghdad;
But that he shouldn’t raise the devil
But, short of that, twas free to revel;
Then Cheney sent him off to play
But Adam turned up DOA.
Now Cheney in sackcloth and ashes
Despaired as Job’s friends did of Job
Until an interstellar probe
Descended giving him hot flashes
Provided by a cattle prod
And warned him not to play at god.

RESSURECTIONS

Of course, I speak with cynicism,
When politics is being discussed.
I’d almost say antagonism
Whenever hearing “public trust”-
A phrase that’s right up there in ranking
With “Jesus” and “investment banking”
Though Jesus had a falling out
With bankers whom he put to rout.
Why can’t our president, Obama,
Attend, like Jesus, to the banks
And run them off, the greedy swanks?
He’d certainly provoke some drama.
But presidents must come to terms
With banks…they finance second terms.

DEATH SQUAD (FOR RANDAL TERRY)

I think your message of deep-sixing
Abortion doctors truly bad.
It sets you up as intermixing
A God of love who’s raving mad.
When moral law can trump the civil,
Then all we’ll get is so much drivel.
You’ll never settle whose franchise
A life belongs to in demise?
Imagining you know God’s willing
To bless a bullet in the head
Confirms he sanctions your bloodshed.
But when did God need help with killing?
You’d take His place and be supreme
Invoking God while you blaspheme?

PASSOVER

“I do not have the slightest feeling,”
Said Randal Terry, “for men who
Instead of practicing their healing
Kill babes. Operation Rescue
Demands an end to this atrocity.
We do not kill with animosity
But do it with profoundest love
Commanded by our God above.”
When this was brought to God’s attention,
He asked when He’d made manifest
That Randal Terry was so blessed
“That he can make known My intention?
I’ve killed some babies in My time.
Who claims Passover was a crime?”

A STATEMENT BY DICK CHENEY ON NATIONAL SECURITY

“I worry that our national security
Is still imperiled by ragheads
Who’ve slithered over in complete obscurity
As once was done by Cold War Reds.
If we should ever stop critiquing
No matter it may seem self-seeking,
We’ll all end up in hell-and-gone
With nothing we can fall back on.
And so I’ll make my last proposal
Before they build a war machine
The likes of which we’ve never seen:
I would suggest that their disposal
Is best secured by atom bombs
Will finally end all Vietnams.”

FROM: MOVEON.ORG

"O mighty warrior chief Obama,
We will not say another word
About this silly melodrama
Of all the folks you’ve massacred.
In fact, we find it rather calming
They died so quickly from your bombing-
Reduced at once to bags of bones
And all of this was done by drones.
We won’t oppose your asking millions
To help you prosecute a war
If it will keep an open door-
No matter you may kill civilians-
For U.S. soldiers to invade
And set-up stands for lemonade."

THE PEACE OF NATIONS

Why worry on the peace of nations?
You know the pols are waiting for
Alliances of congregations
That they can mobilize for war.
While claiming that they are religious
They cover over sacrilegious
Violations of all the needs
Of others who have different creeds.
Hence, generals and politicians
Are all sub species lunatics
Who think the rest of us are hicks.
The problem is- all their munitions
Rely upon our sleeping state
To give them room to monger hate.

PRIMETIME FOR BUSH

I’d gladly let Bush say farewell
Before he got primetime in hell.

JOR THE PLUMBER

When Joe signs off on his reporting,
You hope Hamas will be supporting
By blasting him to Hell and gone;
Or, better yet, into Tehran.

AN EPIGRAM FOR DICK CHENEY

Who cares if we will ever trod on
The cave in which Mr. Bin-Laden
Is hiding in if we have lost
The Cheney/Bush team holocaust?

THE BANKERS' ECONOMY

While corporations crash and burn,
The bankers chant, “Earn, baby, earn.”

WHAT? ME WORRY

On Fox News, Bush said, “What? Me worry.
I’m going nowhere in a hurry.”

IN ANSWER TO SARAH PALIN

In answer to Ms. Sarah Palin
Why she, not Kennedy, is flailin’-
It’s that her handlers have the smarts
To keep her from (your) verbal farts.

AN EPIGRAM IN HONER OF DANA PERINO

"I’ve always been a faithful flack
To W in his attack
On civil rights and other things
That's left our country like Beijing's."

EPIGRAMS IN HONER OF LINDSAY LOHAN

1
She came to Hollywood to act
But never did and that’s a fact.
2
She says she made her life a mess
Because it’s fun to convalesce.
3
Celebrity’s not her intention.
It’s better though than not a mention.

EPIGRAMS IN IMITATION OF MARTIAL

1
I cannot help it. I keep saying
I’m not in debt because I know
Without the means of ever paying
I just cannot be said to owe.
2
Who claims that I’ll pay off my debt
Should never play Russian roulette.
3
When politicians seek their level,
They always only raise the devil.
4
I wish I had a rock hard penis.
Alas, I don’t. But you’re no Venus.
5
I’m held in thrall by prison guards
Of plastic called my Master Cards.
6
I’ve lost my job, house, kids, and wife.
But for the last, I’ve lost my life.