Twenty Twenty Won

Biden won because he cheated.
That is what the loser bleated.
Hugo Chavez changed the vote.
(All while he was dead, we note.)
Insurrection in D.C.
hoped to steal a victory,
“Hang Mike Pence,” their battle cry.
He dodged the rope and didn’t die.
As the mob fought with the police,
forty-five would not call cease.
His evil brain began to store
plans for a steal in twenty-four.
His henchmen all fell into place,
and voting rights they will deface.
We may have seen our last election,
democracy’s last protection.
The orange team will grab the throne.
And all we’ll do is bitch and moan.

This Year’s Gift

On Christmas I heard a few footsteps downstairs.

I snuck to the steps, clutching one of my bears.
What I saw down there took my breath away.
There sat old Santa, no suit and no sleigh.
He looked very tired, in overalls clad.
When I saw no presents, I thought I’d been bad.
“Sit down here, my child, and let me explain.”
He pulled from his pocket a small candy cane.
He’d eaten the cookies and finished the milk.
His beard was magnificent, white and like silk.
“All presents this year, and I’m trying to be kind,
are not in the physical realm, but the mind.
This grasping at store-bought rewards has to cease.
I’m trying to instill here instead a world peace.”
And then, on his shoulder, there landed a dove.
I noticed a neck tattoo that just said “Love.”
“I don’t have a present for you or your bear.
But what I will give you’s the power to care.
It’s what I am leaving, from Pompeii to Perth,
in hopes that this sentiment could change the earth.”
Then, blowing a kiss, up the chimney he fled.
“If this doesn’t work, next year you’ll get a sled.”

Saying Goodbye

Saying goodbye is an art one learns
when hellos are running low.
If one times it perfectly,
the last goodbye means time to go.
The greetings all run out, there comes
a time the farewell’s down to one.
When that’s spent, it’s evident
one’s come to the end of the run.
In silence now, the darkness falls,
there is no further sound or sight.
Nothing beckons, nothing calls.
One’s on the road to endless night.

Musk Ask

Elon Musk, please fly the Don to another planet.

You’re the person of the year, so start this fire and fan it.
Yes, you’ve got electric cars and money everywhere.
So, it should be easy, get this creep out of our hair.
Tell him there’s a golden building somewhere in the sky.
Then pack him in, with all his bags, and, bingo, let him fly.
He can be emperor of space, a tiny orange star.
Let him pick the galaxy, as long as it’s real far.
And, if you do this, Elon, you’ll be worthy of Time’s praise.
And we will celebrate your moneyed goodness all our days.

Doling Out Facts

Bob Dole is gone and cast now as a patriot and hero.

Yet his post-senate career rates somewhere less than zero.
He whitewashed lobbyists from oligarchs to kleptocrats.
He spent his late years ushering a host of foreign rats.
The former nominee also endorsed the orange don.
His droll Dole sense of humor hid the fact he was a con.
So let’s not be so quick to elevate him to a saint.
He served well for the GOP, but hero he sure ain’t.

Song of Omicron

Singing songs to omicron,

trying to get my vaccine on.
All this Covid variation
makes me long for a vacation.
Either an edenic field
or hermetically sealed.
Just somewhere the germs won’t spread,
or ’til everybody’s dead.
Virus, virus, burning bright,
please move to some other site.
Bezos, take it out to space.
Lay it on some alien race.
Nobel science, find a cure.
This is too much to endure.
Omicron, now what is next?
All the usual suspects.
Bat flu grew into a plague,
origins extremely vague.
Where and when it might mutate
on our planet’s petri plate
will determine the next surge
in this downhill people purge.
And so the songs of omicron
just go on and on and on.

Crude Awakening

California is killing the Amazon rainforest,

exporting more crude oil than any other state.
Sixty six percent of all extracted hits our country,
and most of that is aimed for Cal, an overwhelming rate.
Four hundred gas flares dot the Ecuadorian landscape,
imperiling the health of indigenous tribes.
The country owes some twenty billion bucks to China,
and selling crude is one way to pay down these bribes.
California last year took in sixty million barrels,
half of all the crude that’s shipped out from the Amazon.
Sacrificing habitat brings with it many perils,
and the worst is it kills people when the trees are gone.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP)

Sea creatures are now colonizing

our great garbage island,
floating plastic twice the size of Texas.
Forty coastal species now inhabit the debris,
a waste ecology’s Pacific nexus.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch,
all eighty-thousand tons,
is fed by folks on both sides of the ocean.
Its fishing nets and plastic bottles,
all sorts of our waste,
are swirled together by the ocean’s motion.
It could evolve a whole new species,
garbage-dwelling plants,
feeding clinging species in the drift.
Thank you, science, once again.
Apocalyptic dance
seems to be your one eternal gift.

Omicron of Creation

Doctor F is now our one true leader,
has been since he dumped Emperor T.
All the news that fits, he is the feeder,
controls all you hear and what you see.
These are classic signs of viral coup,
civil war surrounding vaccination.
Differing opponents of what’s true
dominating every conversation.
Two long lines of sick and well
advance now toward a crossing,
where a wall of heaven/hell
keeps the mean waves tossing.

Pause That Claus

When it was found Christmas-treeing was causing deforestation;
when it was discovered reindeer were going extinct due to failed flying lessons;
when a field of frozen elves in shallow graves was shockingly happened upon,
holiday eco terrorists went to their awful work. Santa was found dead in a midwest chimney.
Mrs. Claus moved to Daytona to live with her spinster sister. Frosty was tossed into rum drinks.
Christmas shopping was toned down to Hanukkah levels. No more insane Black Fridays.
People began to use ritual, prayer, family counsel and love instead of toy guns and crying dolls.
Old men in white beards no longer had to dress in red and the world was at last rid of tinsel.
Stockings were only hung for treason and the fireplace could be used for fire once again.
It was understood the lord had no stake in fancy bikes, electric trains, candy canes or i-anythings.
Perhaps somewhere in a manger, a depressed cow lowed and missed its drop in status.
And the secret society of baby Jesus creche robbers discontinued all memberships.
Silent night, wholly night. All is calm. All has been made right. Now we gotta work on Easter.

The Black Car Fate

Who drives the black car fate?

And what if it comes late?
Might one miss the spotlight
and drive off in the night?
Fate has no GPS.
so missing is a mess.
There’s forks and some dead ends.
There’s enemies and friends.
And if the car gets lost,
your fate could be the cost.
Without a lifeline map,
one’s fate might well unwrap.
The driver knows the rules
for seekers, saints and fools.
Fate’s road may rise and wind
to get you there on time.
But time, they say, is moot.
And that is at the root.

Tommy and Helen

For a deaf, dumb and blind boy to master a pinball game
is nowhere near the effort it took for a young girl
in the same circumstances to learn language from scratch.
Not only did she become a prolific author, an activist
and a disability rights advocate (*the three A’s),
but also earned a degree from Radcliffe College as well.
But her mastery of her surroundings did not stop there.
She learned to hit a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball,
simply through a sense of air distribution, fast hands,
and the smell of horsehide. Not powerful, but consistent.
And her ability to drive a small car, slowly, based on the feel
of the wheels on the road, was considered legendary.
No one was hurt in the learning, but there were close calls.
She travelled to thirty-five countries in ten years’ time,
and swam the English Channel under cover of darkness.
As a socialist, she invented a robot she named Eugene Debs.
She is now depicted on the Alabama state quarter.
She invented bitcoin based solely on astral projection.
But in her vain attempts at pinball, she always tilted the machine.

Three Molecules

Three molecules were standing in a line,
in DNA court, asked to pay a fine.
They’d called some atoms hurtful names,
like ‘micro-dot’ and ‘mini-claims.’
Outside, atomic crowds insisted
molecules should be black listed,
while the molecule supporters
kept dividing into quarters.
Soon the crowd was overrunning
the whole place, the mass was stunning.
It turned into a solid ball
and rolled itself into the hall.
The DNA judge said, aghast,
“We must adjourn this court, and fast!”
So, molecules and atoms split,
another bad forensics skit.

Thanksgiving In Space

Musk and Bezos broke the bread.
Most everyone else was dead.
Shatner, now a-hundred-ten,
had to be revived again.
Turkey served in Pez dispensers
set off the food warning sensors.
Stuffing made of vegan dirt
spilled all over Bill Gates’ shirt.
Two guys ate more than all others.
Naturally, it was Koch brothers.
Rupert Murdoch’s life support
was the day’s one hint at sport.
Zuckerberg, perhaps the worst,
ate food from his metaverse.
Warren Buffett had a ball
locking Waltons in the hall.
Michael Bloomberg showed up late,
on the mini-rocket freight.
It’s a shame that billionaires
cast aside their worldly cares
for the luxury of space,
distant from the human race.

Pilgrim’s Prayer

Thank you, God, for making our predecessors
so easy to eliminate. We invited them to lunch,
and traded them our beads for their great land.
We relocated, restricted and tortured them.
We gave them smallpox-infected blankets.
We killed their buffalo and dishonored sacred
grounds. We bred in them fear and alcoholism.
Carved them out of wood for folks’ amusement.
Slaughtered three hundred Lakotas at Wounded Knee.
Later, we made fun of them on television as well as
in movies and sports; called them ‘Redskins,’
Indians, Wahoos and Chiefs. See also Tonto.
And now their primeval eden is a hotbox of decay.
We turned their vibrant culture into mere survival.
The western world has been tamed by desecration.
And, to tell the truth, the lunch was not all that good.

Vigilante Justice League

We’re going on a protester hunt,

inspired by that crying killer grunt.
His thoughts on Black Lives Matter
was to cause a bit of splatter,
bloodying Kenosha’s streets,
first kills one and then repeats.
Shot the first one in the back,
but you’ve got to cut him slack.
They were out to take his gun.
That would not have been much fun.
After two he shot a third.
We must take him at his word.
Thought he was in mortal danger,
chased by cursing unarmed stranger.
Yes, he really had to kill.
Helping police out was a thrill.
In his trial he beat each charge,
crying tears to float a barge.
White folks don’t care what he did.
Come and get your gun back, kid.
Militias everywhere, unite!
Join the weeping gunman’s fight.
Radicals best hold your breath.
Punishment for protest’s death.

Winter, Abridged

The arc of the sun has shortened its path,

come down for the season of winter and wrath.

The fall was a ball with its leaves many hues,

but they’re on the ground now, just last season’s news.

The few months ahead will be short, cold and dark,

like tinder awaiting the spring’s first warm spark.

And when stems again raise their heads in rebirth,

the sun’s arc will reign like a bridge over earth.

Uncivil War

Welcome to the new civil war.

It looks like chairman T has got the floor.
It’s not a filibuster, just overflowing bluster.
He’s counting on his side for a big score.
The bikers and militia are all armed,
and care no whit for those whom they have harmed.
Protestors in the street are naught to them but meat.
They see their lives as heaven-blessed and charmed.
The death toll is the new election tally.
An insurrection’s labeled as a rally.
The police won’t stop this war. They don’t care any more.
Our country might turn into one death valley.
We’ve now become the disunited states.
The rich have bad intentions on their plates.
There can be no true friends until this madness ends.
Meanwhile the bodies are piled up in crates.

Ode to Thunberg

Electricity. What a cool invention.
We used to have to heat by fire,
torchlight for attention.
Now we only flip a switch
and on and off goes power.
No more need of gaslit sconces
in the evening hour.
First came lights and then came stoves
and now, electric car. Uses multiply until
we’ve found we’ve come too far.
Destroying our ecology
was what we didn’t factor.
It turned out electricity’s not cool,
but a bad actor.
We must cut back. The sense we lack
has got us in a pickle.
The flood of watts has sealed our lots.
Must cut back to a trickle.
Pump up your solar and wind forces.
Nature can sustain.
There have to be some better courses.
Greta will explain.