day off

stormy fresh powder
no kids no whining no fuss
solo days are nice

single mothers

some men don't grow up
'till they've got sons of their own
so much mothering!

gossamer

straight from vapor phase
freezing fog grows ice feathers
on every grass stem

shmura

BellCampo does meat
vertically integrated
from ranch to table

affinity

van der Waal forces
dominate the enthalpy
H-bonds are a wash

sardonic

Feyd-Rautha beckoned
with the tip of his dagger
"shall we dance, cousin?"

rude

Peter Jackson's dwarves
have the manners of fratboys
and Scotsmen's vowels

artless

Azog's prosthesis
just made Thorin angrier
shoddy wrought iron

vayera II

for shalom bayit
entrust your firstborn to me
listen to her voice

vayera I

God told Avraham
suppress your sense of justice
listen to her voice

social theory

Robert Paul Wolff taught
voting can't make what's wrong right
values pre-exist

bored

housecat on duty
hallucinating mouse sounds
attacks the curtains

small world after all

snow keeps sifting down
cloudbase hangs on the treetops
one's whole world contracts

surveillance II

spies in our own homes
dogs report our neuroses
to random strangers

catty

Cardinal Wolsey
headed Ann Boleyn's shit-list
high stakes and low blows

surveillance

spies in our own homes
our dogs report to strangers
all our neuroses

disappointment

news search for
still no hits again today
stubbornly undead

snide

arch punctuation
winks at the text's plain meaning
they're "quotation snarks"

Keynes

mired in recession

no economy rebounds

'til someone's spending

privileged platform

bald eagles fishing
on a lake by Coeur d'Alene
circle at cloudbase

Idaho

nest stop: Idaho!
 please reset your timepieces
thirty years backwards

Wolf Hall

a tide of pronouns
sweeps Mantel's novel along
ambiguously

suave

Thomas More's letters
scourged Martin Luther rudely
in polished Latin

parsing

pre-literate tot
visualizing whirled peas
finds Christmas puzzling

trustworthy

dogs' senility
sight and hearing fade to black
olfaction stays true

exogamy

Eol the Dark Elf
took to wife Turgon's sister
moved to GreenAcres

mote in one's eye

something about Love
and embracing the outcast
lost on these Christians

awkward timing

servicing school loans
at the old interest rate
"generation screwed"

turnings

canonical tale
of teshuvah in practice
"A Christmas Carol"

senseless II

Slaughtered innocents
King Herod's paranoia
revists Newtown

perfidious

Springman alleges
CIA runs consulates
to our detriment

senseless

angel-shaped cookies
since the Newtown massacre
slaughtered innocents

narrow window

extrapolating
from the core I'm climbing in
it's straight down "B" launch

bristle II

wiry ear bristle
stridulates my tympanum
internal cricket

bristle I

14-gauge bristle
sprouts inwards from my tragus
grates my tympanum

enforcers

U.S. sacred myth
the "Bastion of Liberty"
on the ground, we're thugs

oh, grow up!

pursuit of meaning
rather than mere sensation
sets adults apart

aspirational

done with the Owens?
not 'til you've flown the "Big One"
Walt's-Janie's-Darwin

wisdom

the death of Jesus
overshadows His teachings
for many Christians

know thyself

cinematic d'rash
commenting on vayishlakh
must see "Life of Pi"

malaprop

"For Family Planning"

the sign on the clinic read

"Please Use Rear Entrance"

exceptionalism

narrow Zionists'
national aspirations
speak only to Jews

lacuna II

to lead the Umma
Mohammed left no male heir
Oh the irony!

paranoid

twisted intellect
Saruman felt he was mocked
by Gandalf's smoke-rings

just deserts II

a kicked cur will bite
Grima slashed Saruman's throat
albeit, too late

diversions

puissant Istari
emissaries of Valar
played at parlor tricks

lacuna

the Q'uran's author
answered all Muslims' questions
except succession

just desert

under WormTongue's knife
Saruman gave up the ghost
havoc turned inwards

palantir

Beren the Steward
gave the keys to Saruman
and threw in a stone

old! improved!

release 2.0
alone of the Istari
Gandalf was sent twice

Tolkien's faith

some thought that Manwe
in the guise of Mithrandir
delivered the world

pre-filled

gorging on acorns
wild turkeys spend December
prepping for Christmas

clean power

flying the trapeze
way over the windward rail
high-powered bidet

diverted blood flow

perched on Santa's lap
babbling about what she wants
he's not listening

sex sells

commoditized flesh
advertising underwear
less than what it hides

Ezekiel's innovation

Merkavah vision
made religion portable
when the Temple's gone

I got mine

unJewish story
Lot's neighbors could go to Hell
while he got redeemed

family ties

Judah and Tamar
rather than leave her bereft
conceived a mamzer

portable vision

even in exile
Ezekiel's God was near
for those who could see

crocodile

Holder's DoJ
calls for Judicial Restraint
while murdering us

honest politician II

Boehner means "maybe"
when he says "never" or "no"
make him an offer

everything and nothing

no conspiracy
outdoes creationism
for scale and chutzpah

animator

Stoppard's dialogue
brought "...Karenina" to stage
and--at times--to life

Jack's dream

now sprout the favas
shouldering aside leaf mulch
mighty among beans!

some things endure

Felagund's sister
married beneath her station
for enduring love

Orcrist

Thorin's not convinced
the best tool for slaying orcs
is an elvish sword

irrational

War of 1812
against our prime trade partner
what were we thinking?

conflicting visions

War of 1812
U.S. expansionism
trod on the King's toes

festive feasting

short ribs and pumpkin
gut-warming panang nueh
lights up the long night

again II

Michael Bay's franchise
no artful acting required
everything blows up

again?

big spoiler alert
if Michael Bay directed
everything blows up

honest politician

House Speaker Boehner
knows who pays for his campaigns
they're not MiddleClass

unmediated

cows carve their salt-licks
into abstract objets d'arts
pure soul, freed of mind

out of touch

rich white grandfather
preaching to an empty chair
GOP's totem

OD

storm shrouds Diablo
each time it starts heating up
atmosphere's too wet

Leah and Rachel

just started "Wolf Hall"
laboring to understand
the "other Boleyn"

what else mustn't I mention at dinner?

like Henry VIII
Mohammed left no male heirs
hard to blame the wives

too cool to evoke anything

modernist haiku
eschewing all metaphor
inert on the page

Tartarus II

Assad's last backers
seek a relative Eden
flock to Tartarus

Tartarus

Hell by the Seaside
last refuge for Alawites
as Assad goes down

so foul and fair a day I have not seen

Winter solstice storm
wrack scuds under twin rainbows
fit day for MacBeth

damned fool way to choose a government

Henry's poxy loins
couldn't sire a live male heir
Bess would have to do

memories

sleeping on the floor
under crumbling asbestos
college dorm living

End times

biosphere state-shift
Nature 486,52
they say we are toast

focus

texting while driving
is known to erode your health
rather abruptly

poisoned politics

a cure for DeMint's
Mad Hatter TeaParty
Arsenic and Lace?

new season, new toys

Winter is coming
snowsports begin to beckon
 to learn to split-board

visualize this

to Einstein's chagrin
Bell's inequality proved
the world IS spooky

getting ahead

it's the early bird
that gets the worm--or at least--
further in worm-line

timeless

returned warmth and sun
teasing blooms back into life
Indian Summer

host

digital virus
language is a parasite
and I am its host

renaissance

Shiva Nataraj
lord of the dance and rebirth
each new moon rising

wanderlust

long year vacant skies
forty four day now four months
windward southern cross

new moon, new me

vacant skies, long year
tired hands releasing the shards
new me/moon rising

bumming

there's little to do
once Pandora's box is cracked
but let fate unfold

ablution

city squalls, lightning
rank skies over steamy streets
waiting for cleansing

Labor weekend II

Paiute rocked big air
strong blue thermals challenged skills
and more tomorrow

Labor weekend

Hot tub looking East
now it's time to head for home
beautiful weekend

paralysis

Big gelato
little gelato
which pig will choose right?

attribution

Fermi's other law:
fermions discovered here
Bosons in Europe

nyaa nyaa

flat-bottomed cumies
crowning ridges all around
mock my ground-bound state

nationalist ambitions

Lincoln's legacy

 Southern obstructionism 

 should have let 'em go?

optimist

Rhododendron buds 

 swelling in December's rains 

dream of April's sun

egoist

Focused on the Man 

the world Nietzche would order 

 isn't civilized

I got mine!

Screw society! 

Nietzchean myopia 

 drives the TeaParty

monitoring

Tracking EKGs 

 by remote telemetry 

is nothing private?

pent in

The brim of my hat 

 supports a curtain of rain 

 shortened horizons

QED

Seas must have been low 

 when the Fjords were carved by ice 

 glaciers are buoyant

epistemic closure

Closed echo-chambers 

self-satisfied rhetoric 

 pseudo-dialogue

the wavelength of the world

DeBrogli's thesis 

quantized the classical world 

 imperceptibly

when you can fake that...

Consummate actors 

fake even sincerity 

 no one notices

pulp

Nasty recompense 

for braving the rain at dawn 

 sodden newspaper

who trade Liberties for Security will get neither

Drones prowl the home skies 

 "terrorism Prevention" 

 threatens civil rights

the Market looks strong!

Timothy Geithner's 

 Potempkim Economy 

 left the People broke

making sense

Spinning a story 

 to make sense of mere events

 history takes work

Darwinian selection

Keith Richards' habits 

 would have killed a lesser man 

 many Moons ago

entropy wins

Corporate welfare 

 pits states against their neighbors 

 Race to the Bottom

who saves a single life...

To his mother's eyes 

 a cosmos in its glory 

 churned in Krishna's mouth

makes one's head spin

Talon in talon 

 two golden eagles gyrate 

 love is on the wing

order from chaos

Tighter than stone walls 

 phospholipid bilayers 

 imprison peptides

the uses of Fear

Like Saruman's voice 

 the Spell of Netanyahu 

 keeps voters enthralled

ambitious

Romney's fantasy 

 a world in his own image 

 where serfs know their place

works in progress

Perfect pathogens 

 never cost a day of work 

 they'd make you fitter

equality II

Barefoot in the mosque 

one leaves class markers outside 

except your gut's girth

equality I

Barefoot in the mosque 

one leaves class markers outside 

 we're all special here

all is vanity

people will find ways 

 to advertise high status 

 Darwin requires it

dialogue

Personal copy 

 decades of marginalia 

 enliven the text

know thyself

Jacob at Jabbok 

or Pi with Richard Parker 

 personal Jihad

Jacked up

Fractional freezing 

 boosts the alcohol content 

nondestructively

month's end

The moon's last crescent 

 up barely before the sun 

flirting with Venus

incarnation

For those who have eyes 

Tolkien's Catholicism 

 inspires Mithrandir

legacy of violence

When he falls, at last 

al-Assad's Mukhabarat 

 will face mob justice

relentless

Glacier of tail-lights 

 creeping imperceptibly 

 erodes my patience

Fascist

Joseph Kennedy 

 got out ahead of the Crash 

 then sold Britain short

new Prometheus

Shankar's apostles 

brought World Music to the West 

 twelve notes at a time

ideologue

Hoover's apostle 

still pushing Austerity 

 Boehner hasn't learned

haMavdil

A world of nuance 

all difficult, all the time 

 suck it up, big guy!

Newtown

Groping for meaning 

 in a madman's violence 

 grim theodicy

Fifth

She can't testify 

 to inculpate her husband 

 are they not one flesh?

aphasia

Joseph Kennedy 

 howled his last decade away 

bereft of language

uninformed electorate

To many voters 

 Keynesian economics 

just sounds like voodoo

solomonic

Two unnamed harlots 

 appealed to king Solomon 

each claimed the live boy

oops

The wrong al-Masri 

tortured by our CIA 

 grievous injustice

dwarf-king

Kim Jong-Il has died 

 leaving some small shoes to fill 

 even with the lifts

edit fail

Gratuitously 

rock 'em sock 'em robot scene 

 pads the Hobbit film

hard-currency kooks

Erebor's riches 

 obsessed Thorin Oakenshield 

 as they had drawn Smaug

Tolkien's coding

Dwarves yearn for the home 

 from which they've been long exiled 

 crypto-Zionists?

new day

Home is behind you 

 each time you walk out that door 

 adventure awaits

personne n'est un ile

Gerard Depardieu 

 begrudges France his taxes 

 the bell tolls for him

dualist

Piscine Molitor 

 struggles with his carnal side 

let's call that "Richard"

myopic

Extrapolating 

from recent dwindling day-lengths. . . 

 the End of the World!

ayn chadash

existential angst 

 shines through Ecclesiastes 

 even that's not new

displacement

Elections are close! 

 Since he can't attack Iran 

Bibi bombs Gaza

irrepressible

Let the critics blush! 

 Steinbeck didn't hesitate 

 to be outrageous

statisticians and liars

"Republican math" 

 gave Mitt Romney the White House 

 by inventing "facts"

gotta be free!

Let Texas secede 

 and bring Puerto Rico in 

 we'll keep the same flag

over-reach

Mohammed Morsi
squandered the stature he's gained
on a power-grab

interface

Voice-recognition 

 software spares you the typing

where there's no keyboard

proxy

Ethan Bronner sees 

 a Cuban Missile Crisis 

 play out in Gaza 

routine maintenance/

Telchar's masterpiece 

 shattered in Isuldir's hand 

 to be forged anew

appearances

Mohammed Morsi 

 comes out looking statesman-like 

 to Bibi's bully

old school

The helm of Turin 

 and the sword of Aragorn 

Telchar's legacy

well-preserved

Faustian bargain? 

 Keith Richards' longevity 

 mocks actuaries

immortality

Achilles' story

 Jimi Hendrix died early 

 and lives forever

branding

An age of cellphones 

 no one has "Intel inside" 

 tempus mutantur

labelled baggage

Keith Richards explained 

 his problem isn't with drugs 

 it's with enforcement

chaos in motion

Karman vortex streets

shedding unpredictably 

 make knuckleballs dance

once you can fake sincerity...

Nothing is sacred 

 even friendships are for sale 

 "Timon of Athens"

counting coup

Morsi gains stature 

 while Abbas seems diminished 

Gaza calculus

grasping

David Petraeus 

 grasping for a new brass ring 

 let the first one drop

cyclic truth

paradoxically 

 all streams flow into the sea 

 but the sea's not full

national project

ongoing challenge: 

 "form a more perfect union" 

 for imperfect Men

attitude

Anthony Bourdain 

 sneers at humorless foodies 

and everyone else

perfection

Critical moment 

 between freshness and decay 

 sushi's apogee

big secret

"Staff Biographer" 

 to General Petraeus 

code-name for mistress

disproportionate

Afghan civilians 

 bear the brunt of violence 

 the Yanks are armored

can't fool them

Teachers get nowhere 

 teaching students Pi(r)squared 

 they know pie are round

cartoonish

The shapes of rockets 

 designed to pierce atmospheres 

 make less sense in space

of policy and politics

Wave the bloody shirt! 

 Keynesian economics 

 won't fire the crowd up

temper, temper

Gandalf was sent back 

 anealed in Moria's fires 

hardened for battle

manipulative

Scientologists

 study provoking anger

 to assert control

blessed are the Peacemakers

Al-Daya's Fatwa 

 gave the Truce the force of law 

 on Gaza's Muslims

ezer k'negdo

Lincoln's shrewish wife 

 dwelling always on her grief 

 made his life a hell

moody

Spielberg's Lincoln film 

 painterly compositions 

 convey gravitas

feet of clay

Disgraced Spy-master 

 might have run for president

 until the scandal

fragmentation grenade

what's Livni thinking?

 Israel needs leadership 

not one more party

whistling past the graveyard

Propagating fields 

 not spooky remote action 

 comforted Einstein's 

pride

Where the concept's new 

languages borrow the word 

except Icelandic

plus ca change II

Iran reels backwards 

 torturing and murdering 

 like the Shah's Savak

plus ca change...

Persians bite their tongues 

 rather than cross the new Shah's

 old-fashioned Savak

you think that's intelligence?

The problem with Searle

 isn't that we don't get it

 it's just that he's wrong

logical allies

Strange paranoia 

 communists in his union 

 scared Cesar Chavez

is it all in your mind?

If they're after you 

 it isn't paranoia 

context is meaning

aspiring puppeteer

Bibi's agenda 

 Iraq, Syria, Iran. . . 

rests on U.S. Troops

unthought's thinker

Soren Kierkegaard 

subordinates intellect 

to abject blind faith

all is vanity

Finrod felagund 

 hewed the caves where Glaurung dwelt 

 all is transience

aniconic

Islam's last Prophet 

 forbade iconography 

 focused on the Word

judging justly

Bibi's heavy hand 

 kills the Just with the Wicked 

let God sort 'em out?

self-determination

Lincoln's legacy 

 Southern obstructionism 

should have let 'em go?

down-time

Rhododendron buds 

 swelling in December's rains 

dream of April's sun

does not play nicely with others II

Focused on the Man 

the world Nietzche would order 

 isn't civilized

does not play nicely with others

Screw society! 

 Nietzchean myopia 

drives the TeaParty

invasive

Tracking EKGs

 by remote telemetry 

 privacy is dead