Korocodile Tears

Who possibly believes  the tears

That North Koreans demonstrate

Because Kim Jong-il  disappears

And son Kim Jong-un’s head of state?

Why fret about a man’s last breath

If he’s why kinfolk starved to death?

Krispy Christie

New Jersey’s crusty governor,
May entertain a Christie dream
Of saying no-no-no no more
And--not forsaking Krispy Kreme--
Becoming pres, with widest aft,
Since rotund William Howard Taft.

Live and Let Others Live

Where the hell’s the moral compass
In those car ads flaunting menace?
Speeding drivers, much too risky,
Showing off their best 360.
Passing where there’s little room to.
Hypocritical in my view.
Automakers lecture buyers:
Safety’s paramount. What liars!
Ads’ key pitch? Testosterone, so
Figure all else counts for zero.

I Still Have a Dream

If Martin Luther King today
Were here to bless his monument,
He might be first to note delay
Because of what we can’t prevent:
A hurricane, as obstinate
As human nature under threat.

Goodbye, iGuy

Omniscience never was his claim,
Which should be sooner Google’s call.
His rightful tag of lasting fame
Is Omnipresent Know-It-All.
iMac, iPod, iPad, iPhone
Mean seekers never are alone.

The Country Comes First

I hope at last the President

Has gotten on the proper trail

And found a voice and argument

To let uncommon sense prevail:

The nation must spend more not less

To rid us of indebtedness.

What Would the Prophet Think?

If Arab States are serious

About the welfare of their own,

They’ll wince at kids delirious

In throes before their final moan:

Somali infants starved near death

By famine of appalling  breadth.

The World is Watching

I cannot fathom why the fuss

If S&P screwed up its math

In dropping us to A-A+,

Incurring mostly White House wrath.

Republicans enjoyed the botch:

It didn’t happen on our watch.

Wanna Buy a Grocery?

Deleveraging’s a clumsy word
Although in deed it saved Detroit
It means to draw down debt deferred
Like borrowed money to exploit
Investment opportunities
Or housing funds from mortgagees.

But It's Not Elementary, Watson

The world might think we’ve lost our mind
Permitting no new revenue
While cutting trillions undefined
Regarding programs we’ll undo.
The trouble is: the world’s correct.
Self-government we’ve all but wrecked.

The Savior from Hell

Norwegian Breivik’s killing spree,
Horrific on historic scale,
Defies all laws of decency
To such extent all notions fail
To grasp what casually he did:
Sight, aim, squeeze, shoot and kill each kid.

Murdoch's Schlock

Interrogated if he knew
About his tabloids’ hacking, “Nope!”
Was what he told an M.P. who
Might wonder, “Are you Catholic, Pope?”
If Murdoch by some chance knew not,
The more his British rags are rot.

Ready the Shovels

Obama’s got to emulate
A grand idea of FDR:
To circumvent a welfare state,
Appoint a public projects czar
Like Harry Hopkins, Franklin’s guy
To make sure ready shovels fly.

Plenty to Do at Home

NASA SHUTTLE PROGRAM FINISHED!
Headlines made us sound diminished.
Russians, though, are glad to fly us,
Round-trip space fare being sumptuous.
Soviets no more, they’re colleagues,
Scientists, not full of intrigues.

What Have We Become?

The nation-building years since our
Initial Independence Day
Saw broad-based immigration flower.
Those fit to hold their own could stay.
If law-abiding, strangers tasked
Could hold a job, no questions asked.

Thou Shalt Maim and Kill

Thank heavens that the High Court thinks
Our kids can virtually lay claim
To what at first you might think stinks,
Their right to cyber-rape and maim
A mother-daughter team in throes
Of yet more violent videos.

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?

Apocalypse 2012?

Already wearisome, it grows,
The speculation that has swirled
About her running. Clear she knows
The end is coming of the world.

And all too soon, I’d think. She’s said
It’s but six thousand years ago
That God created Earth instead
Of billions as the outcrops show.

Quel Monstre!

As one of sixteen Francophiles
Throughout the whole United States,
I cringe at what brings ready smiles
To those I-told-you-so ingrates
Who owe the French for what most long:
A grasp of (wo)men, wine and song.

Nearer My God are Thee

It’s no coincidence the Pope
Called up to astronauts in space
The day evangelists had hope
They’d disappear without a trace
As raptured souls to meet their Lord,
Perhaps those soonest, up onboard.

Hear Ye Not

If our High Court won’t look into
Tales that prisoners suffered torture,
Who will know when jailers pooh-pooh
Penal statutes in the future?

Bend, Don't Break Off

Obama’s right on (more or less)—
Israeli borders as they were
Before the Arabs’ unsuccess
With meting out a massacre
In ‘67, spurred by hate,
To blow away the Jewish state.

Bran' New River

There’s a result that the Mississippi,
Rained upon, snowed upon, mightily,
All but made sure, a Midwest of troubles
Farther downstream, worse the flooding be.

Unworthy of the Name

Bin Laden as Geronimo
Enraged some U.S. Indians,
Who thought the Pentagon brought low
An idol spurred by white mens’ sins,
Whose agents nibbled at his lands
And found big trouble on their hands

Who Would Have Known?

Let’s pull our troops from both the Stans

No later than tomorrow noon.

My trust’s as swift as any man’s,

But now I’m quicker to impugn

Islamabad. That huge abode—

Bin Laden’s—loomed just down the road.

A Taste of Tastelessness

Michele Bachman, White House would-be,
Likens Auschwitz to our tax codes.
What, she asked her mother, did she
Do to stop the one-way trainloads?

The Westminster Show

Who anywhere around the world
Could find the backbone to resist,
Amid those Union Jacks unfurled,
Except an anti-monarchist
Who’d favor humdrum, God forbid.
(More when such fanfare’s on his quid.)

Time to Gas Down

Whenever are we going to learn
The price of gas will just increase?
Why should we be Big Oil’s concern?
The driving public’s its to fleece.
Five bucks a gallon’s drawing near;
Yet tax breaks worth billions every year.

A True Choice

If a certain Galilean preacher,
Held by some as God, by some a prophet,
Walked the Earth again, once more a teacher,
This, I hope, is what he’d want to posit:

A Few Good Bullies

Recall the Rutgers freshman who,
While cozy with another guy
Was caught on tape and bid adieu
Not just to school. He chose to die.
But not before A Facebook post,
For—“sorry”—giving up the ghost.

Don't Take If . . .

Just thank your stars you don’t push pills.
Attorneys are the ad execs.
Commercials for what cures our ills
Are nine-tenths would-be bad effects.
When through, I’m left in such a sweat
To empty out the cabinet.

The State of Columbia

The District of Columbia
Is leftist like no other place,
A liberal cornucopia
Established more or less on race:
A slim majority of blacks,
A third (count me!) broad-minded whites,
A tenth, Latinos, to the max
Too busy working days and nights.

Shalom!

Chag Sameach! (Joyous Pasoch!)
Passover begins at sundown.
Jews, passed over since no door knock
Thanks to lamb’s blood, promptly left town,
Fleeing Pharaoh’s servility,
Moses deftly cleaving the sea.

Romneycare

In Massachusetts, first to try
A universal health-care plan,
The governor, who’s cast his eye
On soaring prices, thinks he can
Reduce them with a scheme we know—
Though state-controlled, an HMO.

Time for Beany

A San Francisco Giants fan
Who watched his guys play opening day
Might wish he didn’t walk but ran
From Dodger Stadium in L.A.
As though it weren’t enough they’d lost,
His brains came close to getting tossed

Going, Going, Goner

We still talk euphemistically:
Enhanced performance due to drugs,
Although there’s no more mystery
How out of nowhere someone slugs
A ton more homers than before.
A steroid makes the number soar.

Catching ZZZ's

Imagine we’re a corporate firm
That needs to sell its stock or bond,
Though for the current fiscal term
We’ve got no budget, and beyond,
Directors don’t agree at all,
As eavesdropped on a conference call.

Some Card, That Trump!

Mitt Romney holds a slender lead
Among Republicans who seek
Their party’s choice to supersede
Obama next year. Note this week
In second place Mike Huckabee,
Tied with The Donald, prez would-be.

Damn That Faust!

Police in Portland, Oregon,
To move along suspicious types,
Successfully have hit upon
A ruse that has thugs yelling yipes
When ears attuned to rap or rock
Hear amplifiers blaring Bach.

An Extravagant Proposal

The government might close this week
If congressmen can’t pass a bill
With cuts House GOPers seek
In funding for the old and ill—
Their Medicare and Medicaid
And SS, into which they’ve paid.

What in the Name of God

A monster such as Terry Jones,
The Koran-burning psychopath,
A conscientious world bemoans
For bringing on a blood-filled bath
When vengeful Afghan Muslims struck
A U.N. site and ran amok.

Click All About It!

We owe Herr Gutenberg the grounds
Why newspapers are called The Press,
Though more and more the term confounds
The young for whom newsworthiness
Is sometimes zilch unless it’s seen
In vids upon some sort of screen.

Inconsistency as a Virtue

Obama’s televised address
On aiding Libya’s revolt
Was apt to disappoint unless
One’s not an all-or-nothing dolt
And understands a need to act
Although a forecast‘s not exact.

No Smoking

The FDA’s considering
An end to menthol-flavored smokes.
Already, fruity flavoring
The Congress banned in hope to coax
The kids from thinking there’s less threat
If nicotine’s not all they get.

Wake Up, It's Dangerous Outside

Reagan National Airport’s tower,
Serving Washington, D.C.,
First reported, lost its power
After midnight. Could that be?
Not so fast. Read more and weep.
The lone controller fell sleep.

Sundown

National Velvet, my first movie,
Lit my pre-pubescent fire.
Velvet Brown was oh so groovy;
Taylor was my first desire.
Liz, I fantasized, requited
Love routinely reignited.

All the World's Not a Stage

The world’s most famous ditherer
Was Hamlet, who, to trap the king
(His father’s likely murderer)
Declared within the play’s the thing.
He’d show what Claudius had done
Upon a stage, though not for fun.

Do It for the Kids

It seems that every station break
She wants to drill more deep for oil.
And now Japan’s god-awful quake
Has made Americans recoil
From softening their adverse stance
About more nuclear power plants.

High-Flying Birds of a Feather

The TSA, which pats us down
While we try hard to make our plane
Thinks maybe we’re less apt to frown
If more security’s made sane
And thus suggests for those we trust
A special line, which might be just.

Rising Above It

How could the world look otherwise
Upon a pending massacre
Except through thoughtless monsters’ eyes
And risk Rawanda, as it were.
Not quite a million Tutus died
While we and others looked aside.

My Wilted Irish Rose

An Irish knee-jerk safeguard from distress
For centuries is a fatalistic guess
That only emigration can relieve
A desperate need at home to beg one’s leave.

A Gaijin's Love Affair

I started life by hating Japs,
Those leering bastards in cartoons.
When A-bombs forced the war’s collapse,
I felt it served them right, the goons.
At seven years of age, I thought,
The peeling skin is what they bought.

Accept Yahweh, Infidel!

My hopes have soared to such a height
That setbacks in North Africa
(For instance, rebels in their fight
To disencumber Libya
Of tyranny but now give ground)
Compel my urging schemes more sound.

The Next Witness, His Holiness . . .

House panel chairman Peter King
Suspects the nation’s Muslims breed
Fanatics who are threatening
Our safety. We’re not all agreed.
But yes or no, who’s he to say,
Once patron of the IRA?

Losing Our Sheen

What’s galling about Charlie Sheen
Is not the twit he likes to be.
It’s what his mockeries demean:
Recurrent meds and therapy,
As if his psychiatric health
Were passable because of wealth.

God Loves Fags

A Kansas congregation deems
That God Hates Fags, and so therefore,
A land that harbors them blasphemes
And thus deserves to field in war
Gay troops who didn’t ask or tell,
And who if killed went straight to hell.

Let's Carry On for Frank

Heaven hail you, Corporal Buckles,
World War I’s last U.S. soldier,
Bio of whom yields white knuckles,
Near-death times so tough to conjure:
Scarlet fever, German biplanes,
POW (World War II) strains.

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.

They the People

North Africans are in the street
To overthrow despotic rule.
To do so, some of them entreat
Support like first we heard in school:
They want the backing of our Pres,
As we got from King Louis Seize.

Unsocial Insecurity

From time to time a YouTube shot
Will show a geezer getting mugged.
Relieved of anything that’s hot,
You’re grateful that he wasn’t plugged,
Then catch yourself: Why offer thanks
For f- - -ing s- - - . (Fill in the blanks).

Island Inferno

A year has passed since Haiti’s quake.
And yet a million refugees
Still live a life that makes hearts ache
With cholera, a fell disease,
And rubble all around their tents.
They crave a turn of these events.

Matter over Mind

His shaven skull and leering smile
Are graven in the national mind.
It’s Jared Loughner’s way to rile
Those mourning whom he left behind
On Tucson’s wretched Saturday.
His joy is other folks’ dismay.

What Could be Worse

His congresswoman fights to live
Despite his efforts otherwise.
Deranged, he’s one you can’t forgive
Unless you’re looking through his eyes
At some insane grotesquery
That few if any want to see.

Not so Black and White

To clean up “Huckleberry Finn”
By scrubbing nigger from the book
Would put an idiotic spin
On Mark Twain’s open-minded look
At racist 1840s views
Of Huck’s and slave Jim’s river cruise.

O Captain Our Captain, Your Trip is Done

Some like to guide by force of will
While others by example lead.
Both work successfully until
A boss no longer sees the need,
Like Captain Honors out at sea,
Who banked on popularity.

Hard-Luck Stories

Pack up all their care and woe,
There they go,
Plunging low,
Beebe blackbirds.
That is where in Arkansas,
Newton’s law, means last caw,
Bye, bye, blackbirds.

Gods Below

My New Year’s wish 2011,
For U.N. delegates and heaven,
Is, by this time 2012,
Belief in one God we’ll all shelve.

A polytheist pact would note
That, much more than Jehovah smote,
Extremist deadly plots have swirled
In Allah’s name around the world.