skip it

"Birth of a Nation"
on everyone's must-watch list
interminable

braised

"sweeter near the bone"
spares the cook having to spell
"periosteum"

forever young

generation one
barefoot in his cutoff jeans
Bamboo Butterfly

codger

swaths of silver fur
growing in along my flanks
mark my new status

Parry/Lord

Oral transmission
Homers catalogue of ships
all Mycenaean

the garb, and the substance

Stephenson's novels
masquerade as adventures
goyische aggadah

Zanesville

on Ohio's veldt
lions devour dogs and deer
don't give peas a chance

Iliad, book III

pointed reparte
Helen and Aphrodite
can't both be queen bitch

disenfranchised

David Axelrod
presumes my vote's in the bag
he can fuck himself

gag me

disjointed hodge-podge
can't amount to a lecture
just a data-dump

signposts for the seasons

slouching towards mid-span
sunset in the Golden Gate
Halloween at Scott's

vigilante

Misurata's mob
gleefully beat Kaddafi
'til the coward died

now you see the violence inherent in the system!

night raid in Oakland
peaceful protesters wounded
cossacks shun the light

hitched

harness libido
wed it to the big project
"civilization"

fulsome

Fuller's worshippers
risk burying his brilliance
under their manure

legacy

some leave progeny
others' immortality
rests on their ideas

dark vision

Frank Lloyd Wright's ego
overshadowed his buildings
perpetual gloom

error!

once deposited
our money just vanishes
like a SouthPark skit

moving art

Wright's "falling waters"
languidly sliding downstream
kinaesthetic art

Klytemnestra

she got her deserts
marrying Agamemnon
had to end badly

hard-eyed

Fell Klytemnestra
Helen's dowdier sister
put no faith in love

Scott Olsen II

Oakland's police force
shot another citizen
blues are gang colors

inside man

Timothy Geithner
despite the fancy title
still works for the Fed

pain is fungible

Look for bonds to rise
China's buying up Greek debt
rather than dollars

imitatio

 A poet's power
to conjure life out of ink
God? Or Frankenstein?

uneasy lies the head

Al-Assad's terror
Can he dodge Kaddafi's fate?
Riding the tiger

autoimmune

Intimate traitors
the unkindest cut of all
feral leukocytes

Yama

Durga looks dumbstruck
thinking herself pretty tough
she met Death himself

al-Awlaki

Summary judgement
an Executive amok
Dick Cheney's wet-dream

conjurer

A poet's power
to conjure life with just ink
out-does Frankenstein

Scott Olsen

Oakland's police force
terrorizes the city
starched blue gang colors

freak

pig-headed student
hell-bent on wresting control
of his own lesson

stand up

be the change we need
 occupy your own city
speak truth to power

freedom of assembly

Night-raid in Oakland 
Peaceful protesters detained 
 Cossacks shun the light

of the People, by the Corporations

Corrupt government 
 deafened by the big donors 
 can't hear little guys

negligence

Cheney's SEC 
 non-enforcement policy 
 let the rot fester

unkindest cut

Dearest betrayals 
 autoimmune diseases 
 feral leukocytes

jolt II

Berkeley' stadium
rocks to the beat of a drum
two miles underground

jolt

just blowing off steam
rather than rocking our world
the Hayward Fault creeps

falling down IV

his "Falling Waters"
in spite of the architect
never did fall short

falling down III

Wright's "Falling Waters"
may fall down to the river
not from importance

falling down II

love or hate the man
He changed architecture's face
but the roof does leak

falling down

Wright's "Falling Waters"
an attempt at true greatness
a house that moves you

our martyr

At Harper's Ferry 
 John Brown sparked our Civil War 
 Blessed is the match

silenced

Crowds are energized 
 flocking to see Qadhafi 
 Now that he shut up

keen edge

Crescent moon dwindling 
like an old man's favorite knife 
 sharpened many times

who's in?

The revolving door 
 gives power to lobbyists
 this time, Herman Cain

fucked

while our troops pull out
military contractors
keep pounding away

Monet's ponds

layers of meaning
under the blandest haiku
most of them are sex

first, you have to get their attention

bid for attention
on the Tibetan Plateau
self-immolation

"not of this world"

Even in this world 
 'Generation Joshua' 
works for dominion 

Intellectual Property

Samsung's smart tablet 
 Ripped off Apple's look and feel 
 IP piracy 

obstruction

Egypt's generals 
 Reneging on promises 
 Stalled revolution 

for the good of the community

Bibi's brother died 
 rather than offer ransom 
 He had principles

thinking big

Freeman Dyson's mind 
 Encompasses galaxies 
 One world's not enough

baseline

Bruce Ames chastened us 
 our world never was benign 
 we evolved with threats

cycling

Fungi in the soil 
 Send last year's cellulose back 
 to the atmosphere

is it I, Lord?

Keep some perspective 
 You aren't stuck in traffic 
You are the traffic

Executive power-grab

Even Awlaki's 
 Extrajudicial slaying 
 Evil precedent

unpatriotic

to spite Obama
Republican strategists
 prolong recession

less

Haiku surround us 
 it takes an editor's eye 
 to flense off the flab

an idea whose time has come

wooden Indians
 bide in every dying tree
 'til sculptors free them

old and in the way

Bishop Robert Finn 
 found a use for his miter 
 Obstructing Justice 

before there was RAM

Unspooling HOX genes 
 tick off our development 
 like streaming mag. tape

ordered

Vivisecting verse 
 computational Lit. Crit.
 quantifies patterns

wordplay

Layers of meanings 
 interlace a haiku's words 
factorially

traditional values

British Madrassas 
 Inculcating bad values 
 Shelter pederasts 

At Buck's treasure hunt
Elsie's finds are rewarded
hiding in plain sight

undignified

men fought for Helen
anointing the Earth with blood
like a bitch in heat

a citizen's duty

Civil Liberties
require ceaseless vigilance
impeach Obama

October

redtails bump wingtips
circling over my garden
I guess it's courtship

10/10/10

way before Lenin
SunYatSen's revolution
launched the century

al-Awlaki

where's the "rule of law"?
summary execution
punctures the charade

ugly ambition

J. Edgar Hoover
built his personal empire
on a nation's fears

tip of the iceberg

among known mammals
four out of five genera
have become extinct

ugly ambition

J. Edgar Hoover
built his personal empire
on a nation's fears

tip of the iceberg

among known mammals
four out of five genera
have become extinct

the thing, and the name of the thing

Keith Richards explained
he has no problem with drugs
just with enforcement

for your eyes only

my iPhone reveals
my new texts on its lock-screen
Elsie has questions

Gilad

over the Arabs
Bibi values one Jew's son
a thousand to one

keep it simple

eat in the sukkah
reconnect with simple joys
under the full moon

uh oh

in his first debate
Dan Quayle met the better man
"deer in the headlights"

can't get no satisfaction

there's always something
challenging our happiness
the beast of Eden

bovine

slack-jawed mouth-breathers
gaze at the blackboard like cows
this quiz isn't grass

the great pox

Clovis Horizon
we were the catastrophe
that blitzed the New World

Clovis horizon

ten millenia
before Columbus got here
wilderness was gone

the rap

Richard M. Nixon
got us out of Vietnam
remembered for crimes

aspirational

Barack Obama
still wants to earn that Peace Prize
Bibi's not helping

"not of this world"

even in this world
"Generation Joshua"
works for dominion

there be monsters

soft-bodied molluscs
let imaginations soar
they leave no fossils

busted

Samsung's smart tablet
ripped off Apple's look and feel
IP piracy

priority

before Columbus
Clovis-era explorers
colonized a world

kraken III

vast cephalopod
arranging sea-lizards' bones
cryptic selfportrait

kraken II

vast cephalopod
ichthyosaur bone collage
cryptic selfportrait

kraken

vast cephalopod
arranging dinosaur bones
left a self-portrait

10/10/10

Way before Lenin 
 SunYatSen's revolution 
 Launched the century

in our own lifetimes II

New Gonnorheas 
 resistant to everything 
 smirk at miracles

in our own lifetime

New Gonnorheas 
 resistant to everything 
 Darwin never sleeps 

government by wolves

for nations of sheep
 extra-judicial killings
 scarcely raise a bleat

first, ya gotta get their attention

Waving a sextoy 
 Palikot aroused the crowd 
 Polish politics

agents of change

Clovis horizon 
 the New World's megafauna 
 gone like the dodo

free?

romance is a ploy  by which our genes replicate  where's "free will" in that?

somehow familiar

Each Summer's shorter 
In the face that I'm shaving 
my father's eyes gleam

tick, tock

a flood of neutrons   
embrittles the core's steel can 
planned obsolescence

national self-determination II

Free Pashtunistan! 
 Even they deserve the Right 
to rule their own Hell

pick-me-up

The nation seems glum 
let's hang some war-profiteers 
 it's good for morale

national self-determination

There are no Afghans 
Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Hazaras. . . 
each deserve freedom

extra-judicial slayings II

Evil precedent 
extra-judicial slayings
 Impeach Obama!

Founder effect

Remembering Steve 
as Apple's stock value slips 
what's in the pipeline?

twiggy

Gay couturiers 
require women to look like 
adolescent boys

unredeemable

Indelible blot 
on Obama's character 
al-Awlaki's death

trade-off

Magic back-up drive 
 Infinite capacity! 
 Write-only, alas

above the law

Prosecute torture? 
 Obama fears reprisals 
protection racket 

extra-judicial slayings

Civil liberties 
require ceaseless vigilance
 Impeach Obama!

like a rock!

Rick Perry's the man 
to press Wall Street's agenda 
it's a no-brainer

agents of chaos

fey Tyndareus
loosed his daughters on the Greeks,
his sons on the sky

provisionally

rabbenu Gershom
ruled against polygamy
for a thousand years

uninitiated

boyscouts in Utah
can't tell vodka from bourbon
straight as a bowstring

cops of the World

where's the battlefield?
our drones prowl the whole planet
pariah nation

not so tough

swarms of neutrinos
embrittle the core's steel can
planned obsolescence

dim prospects

unemployed Danes sigh
"the sun doesn't shine on us
but--here--that's normal"

unforseen

Cheney's agenda
an Executive amok
in Obama's hands

grim reaper

across the Southland
William Tecumseh Sherman
mowed down men like hay

glib

watch that silver tongue!
the Devil can cite scripture
to get elected

gambling

sooner or later
Somali seize Israelis
Xarardeere's razed

transparent

Kayani's lying
he does it predictably
each time his lips move

bereaved

Thetis consoled him:
"even sex with a woman
gets one through the night"

kid stuff

deluded yuppies!
your tequila/lime slushies
ain't margaritas

solipcism

Haiku on haiku 
 gazing inwards at one's source 
self-referential 

much nothing

Gridlock and shutdown 
 define Gingrich's record 
thin stuff to run on!

neater than truth

Time blurs the details 
 recalling the memorate 
 not the thing recalled

within you, without you

In Plato's account 
 Socrates was like a god: 
short, ugly, sunburnt

"diplomacy"

In Islamabad's 
culture of duplicity 
 lying's de rigeur

plastic

Movies were better 
 In an age before Botox 
Faces used to move

blank

Rick Perry's perfect! 
 Tall as Alcibiades 
 Dumb as W.

low expectations

Shackleton's biscuits 
 cached for his doomed adventure 
still as good as new

whose money?

Geithner's class bias 
 Recapitalizing banks 
 Precludes growing jobs

topper

Just past equinox 
 Sunrise clips Diablo's peak 
 Maraschino stunt

Kol Nidre

 Fallible humans 
born to this imperfect world 
swear no binding oaths

upstanding!

Admiral Mullen 
 Called Kayani on his lies 
We'll miss his candor 

violated-III

Due process of law 
 doesn't dispatch drones to kill 
our own citizens

conspiratorial

Dog-whistle hash-marks 
let tweeters communicate 
almost in private 

violated-II

Miranda be damned! 
 al-Awlaki got no rites 
when the drone whacked him

ch-ch-ch-changes

Doors keep opening 
 Until you turn twenty-one 
 Then the walls close in

violated

Due process of law 
 For Anwar al-Awlaki 
 Who's even asking? 

expiration dated

Shackleton's biscuits 
 Cached for his doomed adventure 
 No worse for the wear