RICK PERRY, GOD, AND THE AMERICAN VOTER

When God looked down and saw Rick Perry

Was preaching in His name He said,

“That man is totally gooseberry

For no one knows what’s in my head.

Not even Me.”  And calling Jesus

Said, “Tell that man he will displease us

If he presumes to speak for God.”

So Jesus vanished in a nod.

And when returning, he reported.

He said all Perry did was laugh.

This pissed off God.  He said, “This gaffe

Will cost him dearly.  Make him sordid.”

No sooner said than it was done.

But even so Rick Perry won.

AN MFA IN SCREEN WRITING, A RECOMMENDATION

1

A college started its Extension

In writing, granting MFAs;

But wasn’t getting much attention

Since other schools were, nowadays,

So busy granting their diplomas.

“You’d think we’re selling carcinomas,

For all the business that we get,”

A writing teacher said.  “It’s debt

And interest that the banks are charging,”

Another said.  The Dean, fed up,

While drinking from his coffee cup,

Said, “We’ll begin then by enlarging

Our writing program.  What’s forsworn?” 

All looked confused.  “Why . . . writing porn.”

2

“But, Dean, we are a Christian college!”

“Exactly.  People of the Book.

The Bible’s full of carnal knowledge.”

And so the panel took a look.

And when they finished, they detected

The Bible stories they’d inspected,

Although it’s true they were complex,

Were all conspicuous for sex.

At this they settled in to thinking,

When one, the writing teacher, said,

“But porn’s just fucking, giving head.”

“Then what we need is interlinking

What happened with what’s apropos:

That most were scourged with a stone’s throw.”

3

Their writing program proved successful,           

Once it got passed the school’s trustees;

Who thought at first it might be stressful

To those believing porn was sleaze.

But when convinced that Bible stories

Displayed their God in all His glories,

They offered prizes for the script

That showed their God as all unzipped.

In truth was plot and conversation,

And characters that were hard-core

That stopped a porno from a bore.

From then, screen writer’s education

Began by subbing porn’s brute force

With what excited intercourse.

THE CULT OF THE AMERICAN ASSHOLE, A LIST

1

The CEOs of corporations;

The bankers who’ve sucked people dry;

The politicians of all nations

Who promise peace then shout “banzai;”

The mega-church broadcasting preachers

Who rail at numb nuts in their bleachers

And claim the Bible is a book

Shows Darwin needs another look;

The president whose one ambition

Is rendering health care for all

And sends us home with Tylenol,

And says it’s just an intermission;

Reporters from the mainstream pressed

To write what publishers want stressed;

2

The companies who pump pollution

Into our water and our air,

Then just before their prosecution

Endow a “scientific” chair

That proves these claims impossibilities,

Just theories not infallibilities;

And so a court finds it’s their right

To drill and pump to their delight.

More deaths, they say, are caused by swilling

The spirits that make people drink;

Or suicides from Facebook’s ink

Than have been caused by oil drilling.

Therefore, drill on we won’t abide

What’s far from proven cut and dried;

3

The patriots who hang Old Glory

Outside their trailers make me gag . . .

These good ole boys don’t know the story

Why other people burn their rag:

So why not start with Indian killing

That movies made so awfully thrilling;

What slavers did so long ago;

And, recently, the South’s Jim Crow;

And worse, illegal immigration:

In which they think they’ll lose their jobs

(It’s foisted on them by nabobs)

And stop this country’s jubilation

At being white.  Well that’s not bad

Since race has driven us quite mad.

(TOO LONG TO BE CONTINUED)

WHAT DOES POETRY DO?

I wish that I could write like Horace;

But is America like Rome?

Both sets of leaders’ heads are porous.

It may be leadership syndrome

That sets in when a politician

Has risen to a high position:

They all forget what they were taught

In civics so they’re easy bought.

So politicians are generic.

But what of poets?  Are they too?

Indeed.  The difference is milieu.

The Romans, closer to barbaric

Ways of life, put them to death.  Here?

You could be talking to your mirror.

ADVICE TO COMMUNISTS *

It follows from our exploitation,

No matter gender, race, or creed,

That working people have no nation

So are best placed at routing GREED.

Like capital we’re international;

Unlike it though we can be rational.

If we can put class in first place

We will arise a human race.

But only after revolutions

Have turned the world all upside down

And capital has lost its crown,

Will workers’ co-ops’ contributions

Make any sense; but then you’ll see

What turns an “I” into a “We.”

* This “poem” argues that, as Marx argued, despite all differences working people, the world over, have ONE BIG THING in common: their exploitation.  It does not mean that we are not divided by a host of differences.  But unless communists bring this ONE BIG THING to the forefront we will never have a basis for overcoming these differences. This is the special task assigned to communists.

THE AMERICAN WAY

A cleaning crew began its sweeping

When others in the office left;

A cleaner heard a cell phone beeping,

Had slipped into a couch’s cleft.

She groped it out and thought to answer;

But didn’t since she thought she’d chance her

Job and then what would she do so

She walked away and let it go.

When, later on, it still was ringing,

She answered it and someone said,

“Your stock will rise tomorrow, Ed.”
And then hung up.  She started singing.

Had thought to phone the SEC’s

Hot line.  Thought, “No. Kids' college fees.”

ECONOMIC JUSTICE (FOR A NEW LABOR MOVEMENT)

I stand for economic justice

But not the Democratic way;

For, like Obama, they will bust us,

Then laugh and say it’s A-OK.

So let’s get down to class tectonics

Of justice in our economics:

Where workers can appropriate

The profits bosses cumulate.

This follows from our exploitation.                   

(Which means that bosses really steal

What is produced by commonweal.)

And so there’s no equivocation

We’ll have to take it with a fight

So: WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!