Exceptionalism’s fierce bane
Is self-esteem’s need to ordain
What’s best for all others,
Instead of their druthers,
And ends by inflicting fierce pain.
A tyrant named Saddam Hussein,
Immoral and finally slain—
Was better by far
Than Iraq’s evil stars
And should have continued to reign.
Von Clausewitz made it quite plain—
War’s function must not be arcane.
Attacks fueled by vanity
Are simple insanity,
The horror of leaders’ lame brains.
(6/15/14)
Face it! We’re doomed! The gas we need to breathe—
That damned atmosphere—is drowning in filth.
The filth lets heat in, prevents its leaving
Melts the ice, messes the weather, kills wealth,
Invades our lungs and livers, pales our health.
That damned filth-begotten heat will soon choke
All frail life, reach the tipping point by stealth,
Kill us all in a manner quite baroque.
And here’s the unbelievable strange part—
It’s not auto exhaust, the threat of coal,
Smokestack emissions that will smother souls—
It’s ceaseless cow methane belches and farts.
We’ve got to rid the earth of gassy beasts—
Become vegan before we’re all deceased!
(6/14/14}
Shmoozin’ with my friends down at Venice beach—
Lamenting the daily news, the shambles
Of Syria, the wealth-sucking leeches
Of Wall Street, the poisoned thorny brambles
Of global politics and one true god
Religion, of interminable gun
Massacres, the horror of Africa—
I proposed a business that might be fun.
“Let’s raise some capital, use connections
To create a new TV sensation
We’ll name it The Good News Channel, and shun
The daily horrors that afflict, that stun
Simple humanity.” Laughing a fit,
“Marv,” they said, “there ain’t no money in it!”
(6/5/14)
Despite his Nobel Prize, Faulkner explained
That writers always fail. They cannot move
The aura that illuminates the brain
Into alphabetic squiggles that prove
To be, always, dark, mere murky shadows
Of the bright prismatic thought, rainbow wit
That streaks about, trapped behind the window,
Locked. The translation? Bungled counterfeit.
(5/31/14)
Carving artists go way back, built the Sphinx.
Phidias, Myron, and Praxiteles,
Enraptured Greeks, shaped their gods, made us blink,
Awed by their skills and their creative ease.
Then Angel came, his perfect David hung
With testicles, then Rodin, the moderns—
Their strange impressioned visions highly strung—
Then mobiles came to mock tradition, spurn
The stasis weighing sculpture down. Movement
Worked a bit, diverted our attention,
Inserted guile, surely an improvement.
Hands could not include that fourth dimension—
The greatest sculptor, clearly most sublime?
Life’s vicious animator—Passing Time!
(5/24/14)
I used to try to make a better world
I paid attention to our politics
I dreamt of peace, serenity unfurled,
Equality, despite our lunatics.
I used to go to meetings, speak and write,
Obsessed with sense, with rationality—
Convinced we had the tools to mend, despite
The obscene rants of nationality.
Alas, how wrong could one man be, not see
How hatred—preached in mosques, and synagogues,
In Hindu temples, church—shaped history?
How faith and greed and demagoguery
Combine to overwhelm philosophy—
That love of wisdom doomed to atrophy.
(5/8/14)
