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.