Could Be Verse
The Sorry Tale: John Spits Her Out
Poor John, I take your hand. When one is put to rout
'Tis not for me to smirk or put the boot with hate.
Now, this is hard to ask (but one just spits her out):
Why did you strive, possessed, to bring so low the great?
Astride a city sliced like pie by mobs as old as sin,
Where many-tongued cartels grow fat on life that drips
From drugs and smuggled slaves, and good guys barely win,
You came with martial music and “justice” on your lips.
Straightway, you sought to savage Greenberg, war hero
Who built a firm as fine as any of our day.
Your cases slowly faded, but--you were on the go,
Destroying with a whisper, sweeping lives away.
Slow justice cleared so many; it could not repair
The lives and billions blasted when you would but command.
We thought: What burden of ideals good John must bear!
Ideals that we, who buy and sell, scarce can understand.
And was it those that shone upon your face, today?
Was that the glow your good wife saw, standing at your side?
But you, who pressed a thousand questions: You ran away,
A blushing mouse who'd said: Wrongdoers cannot hide!
The press that hangs upon your words is asking: “Sir,
You're hard to swallow; yet, 4K's a tidy sum.
Does pretty Kristin gulp it down, who usually spits her
Mouthful out? And sir, why do you keep so mum?
“And sir, so many savored such delight when men
You stalked with arcane laws were driven off to jail.
Of course, you know that Johns but rarely get the pen,
But you will plead, we're sure, that justice must not fail.”
Poor John, it roused you so to see a great man fall;
You'd feel: I'm not so bad, I'll celebrate tonight;
Alas, you can't enjoy your own bright blaze at all;
You know too well, poor John, you never reached a height.
Ah well, at least your family's not in danger--
A nasty trick that you used, John. What's that you say?
Oh dear, your patient wife, in private, spits her
Contempt at you? That makes for such a trying day!
But life, for some, becomes a vale of tears, you see
(And you have worked so hard, good John, to make it so),
But heaven ever waits... Oh my, how tactless of me!
Adultery's a cardinal sin. You didn't know???
And yet, poor John, the basest, beady, black-eyed rat
Deserves his peace; I did not mean to rattle on.
About your name, I wonder: Will history call you that?
Or will the books make mention only of a “John”?
Hosanna To His Name
Oh sir, what hope is ours this Easter morn
That you--so famed for treating evidence
For WMDs with proper scorn
(Despite reports that fooled mere presidents,
Premiers, mere analyst, mere pundit)--
That you conclude with lifelong certainty
That there exists in realms of spirit
A Being who, for all eternity,
Has ruled all-wise (unlike the CIA),
Supreme, creating earth and paradise;
And our invading force, on Judgment Day,
Will flash the great Good News: It was not lies!
O captain, my captain,
O when will you be done?
I wish to weigh your words,
But lord, these weigh a ton!
O captain, my captain,
You've said it's time I faced
My service in Iraq
Was worse than just a waste.
O captain, my captain,
You've made it clear to see
That since I've gotten rich
You have no use for me.
O captain, my captain
Your words are like a gale;
Do not you have a few
To puff my little sail?
O Captain, my captain,
You've truly won my vote;
You gave the gift of hope
To keep my ship afloat.
O captain, my captain,
You give with open hand;
My thanks! My heartfelt thanks,
I'll serve at your command.
O captain, my captain,
Please stop! You'll sink my tub!
O captain, hold the hope!
O stop! O gargle! Glub!
“U.S. Missile Targets Terrorist Refuge”
A high official in a bar,
Informed our on-the-scene reporters,
That three blind kittens had been killed,
But no al Qaeda supporters.
''Stoned”
A Boy Scout with a .45
Shot 30 in his Scout patrol,
Till someone brained him with a rock;
The Times seeks stricter rock control.
“Just Kidding”
The mortgage holders marched on banks;
A sign said: “Don't foreclose my loan.”
“My application was a joke,”
Said one. “A cockroach should have known.”
"Why, Without the Fed..."
A buck for every time the Fed
Increased the money supply
And you would have a million, now.
But what could you afford to buy?
"Goes Marching On"
Ms. Beryl “Bitsy” Feinwein, whose parties
In Hampton gardens thirty years ago
Regaled demise of nuclear power plants,
This weekend threw a bash to “Just say no”
To global warming, fossil carbon fuels,
And hundred-dollar oil; she declares
Herself aghast at fighting terrorists,
Who get support from Saudi billionaires.
Wrong Genre
Among my less heroic deeds
Is trapping mice, from whose flat heads
Their eyes pop out like wet black seeds,
And brains come squirting out of their nose.
It's wickedly unpoetic!
I should have written this in prose.
.
De Generation
When I was small I went pee-pee.
In better times, my son did tinkle.
It's rumored some kids take a wee.
But what will be the end of this?
I ask you, sir, would you think ill
If my grandson just took a piss?
