FOR DASHA ON THE OCCASION OF HER GRADUATION FROM HIGH SCHOOL

To Dasha on her graduation:
CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve done well.
Now study for an occupation
Whose art will help you to Raise Hell!
Become an independent thinker;
Avoid becoming some lipsyncer
To philososphes whom you’ll abhor
For getting you to mind their store.
Remember that your satisfaction
Is only ever guaranteed
When all of humankind is freed;
And this must come through its own action:
For anyone whom you must save
Will always only be a slave.

PALINOSCOPY (1): ABORTION CONTORTION

When Palin does examinations
On candidates she thinks steadfast,
Conservative abominations
Will always make her all-star cast:
Evangelizing politicians,
Or who opposed slaves’ manumissions,
Or birthers or the NRA,
Or any who hate Tina Fey.
But foremost… those would fight abortion -
Who’d love to see Roe vs. Wade
Forever after be unmade.
But how construe this last contortion:
“Unmaking” the Supremes on Roe,
Promotes abortion’s status quo?

OBAMA'S BATTLE PLAN

When will the general in Obama,
Step up and finally take command
Of this, a major U.S. trauma:
Transmuting ocean to wasteland?
A president should be commanding
Unless he wants a reprimanding
From voters who will turn him out
Beyond all shadow of a doubt
For doing nothing much but talking
While corporations like BP
Turn the Atlantic the Dead Sea.
I watched his speech and thought it shocking:
He doesn’t have a “battle plan”
At home…or in Afghanistan.

PALIN’S ENDORSEMENTS

When Sarah Palin picks a winner
You know the candidate’s absurd:
Because s/he is a born againer
Or else some other way’s preferred.
Take, for example, Fiorina
Who threw her hat in CAL’s arena
Then threw some money Palin’s way
Since she’s the upscale pol’s bidet.
She didn’t quite need her endorsement
But wishing she might maximize
Her chance at California’s prize,
She asked for Palin’s reinforcement;
And got it from the Bagger who
In future’d need the well to do.

POLITICAL CREATIONISM

The workings of our Constitution
Beyond a doubt are more complex
Than any other institution
Designed by our first architects.
Design like this is such a miracle
It’s doubtlessly beyond empirical.
Its origin is then unknown
So reason says it’s not homegrown.
Its genesis is beatific
Because, fine-tuned, so like a clock,
This prodigy can’t be ad hoc.
So reasoning that’s scientific
Will never help explain why it
Was ever caused by human wit.

A PROPOSAL FOR A CALIFORNIA INITIATIVE ON EDUCATION:

(THE CALIFORNIA PARENT RESPONSIBILITY IN EDUCATION ACT)

I’m sick of liberal education!
The teachers must play mom and dad
To kids whose parents’ valuation
Of schools is that they’re really bad;
Who think a classroom’s for interning
Their kids (like jails) and not for learning;
Where teachers must call down air strikes
To manage these obnoxious tykes.
Why isn’t there accountability
For parents of a student who
Gets grades cry beat me black and blue?
If they won’t take responsibility
For their own kids to help them learn,
Then strike them off their tax return.

PRIMARY 2010

The voters speak in our elections
But really don’t have much to say.
It’s not their fault. They’ve no conceptions
How easily they’re led astray:
By money from the corporations,
By preachers to their congregations,
By Sarah Palin’s billet-doux
To those with almost no IQ,
By parties with but one distinction-
Their names… But under lock and key,
Well hidden, are the powers that be
Who’ll drive this country to extinction.
Then voters will be qualified…
Since it won’t matter they’re tongue-tied.

“LEFT” TO OBAMA…

The liberal “left” has grown unhappy
Because Obama had a plan
That now appears all shot to crap. He
Is openly the middleman
Between the neocon conservatives -
Who think the rich need their preservatives:
Like “bailouts” when financials tank
(While claiming we’ve ourselves to thank),
With less tort law for corporations; -
Against the “lefts” who’d like him to
Pretend it’s not our Waterloo
To help avoid the complications
That comes from being Democrats
Who hide their John Wayne cowboy hats.

FUTURE SHOCK

I shot up with computer virus;
Felt its mutation in my head.
Now when I date I have to wire us
So I can think straight: I’m co-ed!
Both yin and yang now in me hover,
Which gets confusing as a lover-
Besides my head, my body parts
Transform themselves (with some false starts).
It oftentimes is mortifying-
Recalling if I’m Geraldine
Or Gerald or… some in between.
Though it can be self-satisfying
Because when I am on the shelf…
You’ve heard it said, “Go fuck yourself…”

STUNTED

The goal of U.S. politicians-
The thing they want most to avoid-
So hire “media technicians”-
Is keeping us from being deployed
As modern, civilized free thinkers.
They’d rather train us their lipsyncers
As preachers do, to keep us clods,
By praying to the Fraud of Frauds.
Eliminate the Constitution.
Become like Texas, no Op-Eds:
It’s better having empty heads
That will allow the execution
Of thoughtful men and women who
Are not sub normal in IQ.

EDUCRAP: CHICAGO STYLE

Obama’s funding education
So Arne Duncan holds the place
Of pander to the corporation
Of states so willing to abase
The tireless work of union teachers,
Egged-on by boosters in the bleachers-
His corporate friends, Chicago hacks,
All Monday morning quarterbacks.
They think good teaching’s manifestable
And so would cut back teachers’ pay
So we’ll compete in their cliché
That argues we should all be testable
And then rewarded for our scores
With chump change like their Chi Town whores.