God: The Villanelle

Listen to Marvin read God: The Villanelle

The formal villanelle is really odd.
It forces climaxes before the end—
Reveals too soon the human horror: god.

Imagination pushes, gleams, and prods
While humans struggle, swirl, attempt to fend.
The formal villanelle is really odd—

But odder still, that we inflamed our sod
With gross divinity—foul mythos penned—
Created the dread horror of man’s gods.

Compassion tinted us and we outlawed
Fierce pain—except for infidels condemned.
The formal villanelle is really odd.

We burn, behead, ruin, rack, pursue jihad
Against the wretches who refuse to bend—
Reveal eternal horrors of our gods.

Of all ideas we humans shaped, hurrahed,
Not one can rival, subtly portend
The villanelle’s construction (beyond odd),
Nor match the horror of invented gods.
                      (6/27/10)

Posted in Religion

Ancient Headlines!

     Sharply Abridged Due to Limited Space

Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise
For Discovering Morality.

Cain Bludgeons Sibling
Reducing Human Population to Three:
Motive Unclear.

Noah’s Family and Pets Lone Survivors
As God Drowns Every Land Creature.

Noah Curses Grandson
For Sexual Assault

Giant Construction Project Halted
By Confused Communication

Abram Pimps Wife
To Kings of Egypt And The Philistines

To Protect Visitors,
Lot Offers Virgin Daughters To Rapists

God Rains Flame On Major Cities:
One Family Survives.

Nostalgic Yearning Turns Lot’s Wife
To Salt!

Virgin Daughters Intoxicate Father,
Seduce Him To Insure Family Line

Abraham Disinherits First-Born Son
At Wife’s Request.

God Orders Abraham
To Cut His Son’s Throat

Esau Trades Rich Inheritance
For Lentil Stew And Bread

Blind Father Duped,
Blesses Wrong Son

Bride Price: Seven Years’ Labor
Earns Jacob The Wrong Sister!

Jacob Dupes Employer
Through Genetic Manipulation

Rachel Conceals And Steals Household Gods
By Sitting On Them—
Defilement an Issue?

Prince Shechem’s Betrothal to Dinah Disrupted,
All Newly Circumcised Males
Slaughtered By Simeon And Levi

God Kills Onan
For Performing Coitus Interruptus

Scandal In The Desert: Judah Impregnates
His Twice Widowed Daughter-in-law With Twins

Joseph Thrown In Pit By Envious Brothers,
Left To Die

Joseph Jailed In Egypt
For Alleged Rape

Joseph Uses Famine To Place Egyptian Farm Land
Under Government Control
                           (6/13/10)

[Holy Moley! That’s just Genesis]

Posted in Religion

At the Venice Beach Paddle Tennis Courts

     For A.M.

The players on Court Four offend the most,
When their attention, diverted by bare
Female flesh strolling the Beachfront, provokes
Electromagnetic flashes—sparks stares.

A few just stop, transfixed, round-eyed, slack-jawed.
Another, famous for his verbal wit,
Shouts “Hola Muchacha!” Some, hopeless, awed,
Whisper “’morning ladies,” addressing tits.

But Abdul pursues a more aggressive
Strategy. His lofted ball skims the fence
To fall before pulchritude—warm missive
Of desire, lust. “A little help please?” Tense,

Testoster-stoned, they watch as, with some strain,
She flips back the ball, smiling her disdain.
                           (6/3/10)

Posted in Local Color, Lust

Memorial Day: 2010

Seventy teen-agers
Rumbled last night
On Windward Avenue
Just two blocks away.
Helicopters buzz—
Cops abound—
No one hurt—one arrest.

Near isolated Gaza,
A flotilla loaded with
“Humanitarian aid”
And belligerent attitude
Is intercepted by warships
Loaded with self-righteousness.
Nine dead,
Ambassadors recalled.

Buffed bodies
Vie for prizes
Down at Venice Beach
As a four engine
Warplane flies over at one hundred feet
To celebrate dead warriors
With huge noise.

Fetid oil and gas
Gush from a wound
One mile deep
While addled wise men
Propose solutions
On blackboards.

It’s Memorial Day
And the barbecues
Are hot and ready—
Beer barrels tapped,
And loud noise throughout the night
Assured.

Last week, Sunni gunmen
Entered two mosques
Where Muslims,
Whose dogma differed,
Lay prostrate in Friday prayer.
More than one hundred wounded,
Eighty killed,
To celebrate
Allah (the Merciful, the Beneficent).

So much to say—
Why am I choked?
            (6/1/10)

Posted in Local Color, Today's News, War

Libertarian Limericks

An economist, Ludwig Von Mises,
Taught us how to win all the prizes.
The market’s supreme—
Trumps rules (a bad dream)—
Dumps morals as foolish disguises.

But markets abound in this nation,
And nothing that’s sold is now rationed.
Advertisements lie,
Bewitch us to buy
Like numbskulls, through rich obfuscation.

Stop law-makers and their strict codes
Let markets construct business modes
End regulation,
Promote innovation—
Let Pintos, when crashed, just explode.

Supply and demand are solutions!
And rules will promote revolution!
Thailand and Brazil
(Perhaps somewhat ill)
Make fortunes from child prostitution.

Progressives (Von Mises explains)
Stunt freedom, and damage the game.
But it’s not regulation
That screws up the nation—
It’s people in charge we should blame.

Enhance economic morale
By chanting Von Mises’ chorale:
Let marketplace greed
Determine our needs
With shootouts at OK Corrals.
                  (5/29/10)

Posted in Greed, Politics, Several Short Poems

Cat Happiness: The Shakespearean Sonnet

     For J.G.

Face it! Life’s a mash—dark, bright, sweet and sour.
Next week, Jim’s daughter arrives at his flat—
One bedroom, a bit tight—he’ll have to scour
The place to make it right. She brings three cats,

And a grandchild (two years plus). Family,
Of course, delights, expels flat emptiness
That swells the dark, provides epiphanies
That feed his life with spirited largess.

Still, three indoor cats trapped in that small space
Create experience that leads to drink.
Jim’s searching now to find the means (with grace)
To minimize cat excremental stink.

Scoop Away’s what you need: deodorant,
And clumping sand: a not unpleasant scent!
                       (5/25/10)

Posted in Animals, Friends