Fewer Boots

I think Obama’s got it right,

Or guessed as well as anyone,

About how long and much to fight

A war that’s—ten years old—outrun

The nation’s patience and reserves.  

Afghanistan is on our nerves.

Scaring People to Life

No more, on packs of cigarettes,
Just words about how they can kill.
To graphically display their threats
The FDA plans sheer ill will                        
Against tobacco’s industry—
Instead of messages, art work.
A smoking tracheotomy
Beneath the chin of some poor jerk,
For instance, ought to make one shrink
And not leave room for kids to think.

What's God Got To Do With It

When NBC omitted God
While airing our Allegiance Pledge
I petulantly found it odd
So many viewers felt on edge.
In Resurrection School, no less,
We pledged a sort of godlessness.

Charlie Wilson's Post War

I’m sorry Charlie Wilson died,
The wild Texas congressman
Who, anti-Soviet rebels plied,
(They then became the Taliban)
With Stinger missiles, ground-to-air,
That sowed Red chopper crews’ despair.

Let Morals Take a Back Seat

The Saudi mufti’s fatwa rules
That Saudi women cannot drive.
Such two-sex mobile closeness fuels
Lewd thoughts, he thinks, that might deprive
The lords and masters back at home
If unescorted wives so roam.

Do Not as Others Do

O Canada, Our gracious neighbor land,
Civility,
We thought your sons command.

No Debating the Facts

I cannot conjure anyone
Who loved the GOP debate
Much more than he who’ll likely run
Against a half-baked candidate.
At least from what he’s seen till now
Barack Obama must think Wow!

In Our Comfort Zone

I know, I know. It shouldn’t be:
Hispanics here illegally.
Eleven million at last count,
A stunning figure bound to mount.
Five states have ruled it’s not okay.
The rest, though, look the other way.

The World is Not Our Beat

Hats off to Secretary Gates
As he departs the Pentagon.
Undiplomatically he states
How much conclusion is foregone
That when it comes to join a fight
Most NATO allies opt for flight.

Longfellow Revisited

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the bus ride of one the Tea Party holds dear.
In the spring of the year two thousand eleven
When only a hermit knew not Sarah Palin,
The end of whose journey was not Concord, Mass.,
But New Hampshire with hope to Mitt Romney outclass.

While Liz Lay Dying

So righteously he pointed out,
He didn’t trample on the law.
It might be true, at least there’s doubt,
(Although it wedges in my craw)
Donated funds weren’t to campaign
But keep his wife from further pain.

The Ultimate Put-Down

We put down pets in final throes
With sadness but without remorse.
To hasten pain-racked kin’s repose,
We don’t let nature run its course.
We drug them under hospice care,
And of their end, they’re unaware.

Ach Lieber

Tony Weiner, New York’s crotch king,
Shouldn’t have to sound so bitter.
To be sure, the sort of ribbing,
Re: the bulging-undieTwitter,
Echoes taunts from boyhood playgrounds.
Why not change, then, how his name sounds?