Unrest, Come Here!

Revolts against despotic reign
Turn topsy-turvy, Islam’s World.
No more can oligarchs disdain
Their countries’ rabbles who have swirled
In streets and squares to try and pry
A larger portion of the pie.

By Land if Not by Sea

It’s doubtful arming merchant ships
When pirates— barely radar blips—
Could fire bazookas half a mile
And sink these freighters. All the while,
Confederates, whose sole reward
In life is ransom, climb aboard.

A Return to Scotland

If Moammar Gaddafi wants
To die a martyr, in his words,
While Libyans propel their taunts
And he for revolution girds,
I’ve got a way for him to go
That’s devilishly apropos.

Fight, Fellows, Fight, Fight, Fight

On Wisconsin! Our own Egypt!
Plunge through those who battle labor.
Teachers stand a chance to get gypped
If beneath a State House saber
Union reps can’t bargain for them,
Triggering collective mayhem.

Nimby at its Worst

Iran’s regime has praised the young
In Egypt and Tunisia.
For home-grown rebs, it bites its tongue
As if it courts amnesia
Of its own toppling of the Shah.
It rules such strife's against the law.

Yield, Sirs!

In world affairs, among events
In my half-life as an adult
That brought me to a moment whence
I saw a truly huge result?
The youth-led coup in Tahrir Square,
Thus liberation anywhere.

The Stuff of Legend

Ronald Reagan’s hundredth birthday
Resonates with panegyrics:
Fiscal wonder, cold-war mainstay,
Challenger of liberal skeptics.
Angels might, next century, herald
Canonized Saint Blessed Ronald.

Time for a Change of Tune

Christina Aguilera’s bomb
At halftime in the Super Bowl
Once more’s a storm before the calm.
We’ll waive her lack of self-control
While yodeling the national song
And getting stilted lyrics wrong.

Snow Job

Gas and oil giants finance
Studies that would have us thinking
Winter storms at most are mischance,
(What on Earth have they been drinking?)
Hinting, too, it’s growing colder.
Grand kids, scholars say, might smolder.

Yes-Brainer

Green Bay’s favored by a little
In the Super Bowl tomorrow.
Who will win? I’m noncommittal.
Neither team I often follow.
Still, the Packers are my favorites
Off-field more than for their blitz hits.

Oy Vey Jerusalem!

In Tel Aviv, alarm and awe
Result from memory of Iran
When revolution downed the Shah
And true believers from then on
Have threatened to a fare-thee-well
The massacre of Israel.

Heads Up, Osama

The Muslim demonstrators pose
No greater threat to any man
Than those horrific so-and-sos,
Al Qaeda and the Taliban.