provocateur

David Petraeus
armed sectarian forces
balkanized Iraq

"Intelligence"?

senator Feinstein
doesn't even want to know
our CIA's crimes

grim innovation

suicide bombers
manned the rebel ship Hunley
1864

what survives

bloodlines just trace genes
if one marks posterity
it's through our students

ineffable

water-color sky
recalls the day just gone by
impressionistic

of art, and craft

not bronze, not marble
teachers work in sculpting minds
few are great artists

all things in their time

Homer acknowledged
"difficultly wrought iron"
but relied on bronze

the invention of leisure

1851
sewing machine patented
millions out of work

moderation

FDR's New Deal
rescued Capitalism
from its own excess

vain pursuit

Sirius gives chase
never catching Orion
dogged, relentless

the measure of all things

Humanism's roots'
can be traced to Aeschylus
retrospectively

our son-of-a-bitch

sociopath? prince?
Kennedy bestrode Wall Street
like a colossus

torn

as much as lapse rate
buoyancy/shear ratio
divides fun from gnar

progress?

until HIV
syphilis was the grim scourge
that made sex scary

rough magic

ten hours of woodsmoke
makes tongue a delicacy
rustic alchemy

subtraction

flamboyant sunset
particles scatter the blue
unveiling the bling

new dawn

one night with Venus
earned a life with Mercury
until Salvarsan

"faithfully executed"

no prosecution
for outing Valerie Plame
enforced in bad faith

tabula rasa

each approaching dawn
pressure-washes last night's sky
erasing the stars

cock-eyed

on Bobby Burns' night
it's traditional to drink
'til haggis sounds good

fade to grey

gerrymandering
hides Republican shrinkage
their base is flaccid

ho hum

like father, like son
Kennedy's womanizing
wasn't newsworthy

oooh

flamboyant sunset
orange bleeds into fuschia
dream-like, transient

legislating from the bench

recess appointments
nixed by an activist court
lawmakers manqués

fresh eyes

cross-referencing
"cannibal" to "eucharist"
Diderot tweaked priests

ste. Rose

Joe Kennedy kept
a girlfriend in every port
and nine kids at home

cabal

senator Feinstein
thinks John Brennan's the right man
to trample our Rights

Gored to death

not that he's not right...
the world according to Gore
could make sex boring

entrenched

platinum healthcare
only for Moscow's judges
"some are more equal"

injustice

unlike torturers
CIA whistleblowers
get prosecuted

attention span

who reads newspapers?
what can't be said in haiku
just needs editing

hyponatremic

cardiologists
demonizing sodium
forgot it's vital

wild

solemn green heron
prowling Chintown's alleys
knows where the food is

brunost

meanwhile, in Norway
the news is of toasted cheese
and clogged arteries

official story

"Defense Department"
Orwellian doublespeak
what the world calls "War"

до свидания

departing Russians
evoke Saigon Embassy
forebode Assad's end

Logos

the Gospel of John
claims Torah predates the World
but disowns the text

spineless

Neville Chamberlain
claimed he'd bought "Peace in our Time"
wrong man for the job

old-school

balsa, linen, teak...
composite materials
start with cellulose

Free Will

the Q'uran is clear
there can be no compulsion
in matters of faith

memory

can't find his car keys
wonders if it's Alzheimer's
...where was this going?

curtains

evacuating
Saigon's U.S. embassy
Slow Death's abrupt end

dithering

burying carbon
as anthropogenic peat
could fix the climate

harem

mid-January
Jupiter flirts with our Moon
like four's not enough!

Occupy this

Netanyahu's friends

wax fat on a nation's wealth

revolution's near

making sausage

it took LBJ
and Kennedy's martyrdom
to pass Medicare

insurgent

Jeremy Gimpel
advocated terrorism
then lies about it

Justice delayed

until we embrace
the "fierce urgency of now"
oppression won't cease

new start

Thomas Jefferson
neologized avidly
New World, new language

new start

Thomas Jefferson
neologized avidly
New World, new language

new start

Thomas Jefferson
neologized avidly
New World, new language

blooey II

it took a dead whale
to teach the Highway Patrol
that mass is conserved

blooey I

Oregon's beached whale
covered the Highway Patrol
in fame...and offal

would you trust such a record?

Chief Justice Roberts
got the Oath of Office right
now, he's two for three

hevel hevelim

crumbling with each breath
built for the dead, not living
Tutankhamun's tomb

hevel hevelim

transient as death
built for the dead, not living
Tutankhamun's tomb

oiutside the law

WaterGate burglars
once J. Edgar Hoover died
lost impunity

puppeteer

to stoke housewive's fears
J. Edgar Hoover's henchmen
armed the Black Panthers

computer vision III

cars can't trust vision
trees' shadows loom like chasms
boot up the sonar!

computer vison II

computer vision
"thinks" chasms look like shadows
of trees in my path

computer vision I

a yawning chasm
and the shadow of a tree
look oddly alike

cynic

Sophia "victim"
playing for sympathy votes
hired his own gunman

self-serving

unlike torturers
CIA whistleblowers
get prosecuted

Judge justly

were there no Free Will

punishment must be unjust

was Pharaoh abused?

decoupled

Geithner's stimulus 
 vanished into the Banks' vaults 
 storefronts stay vacant

primitivists

tricked out Forties style
lace-up boots and strap binding
unless you snowboard

man would eat his neighbor alive

vigilantism
grows in where government's weak
towards Hobbes' nightmare

martinet

J. Edgar Hoover
wanted all his agents lean
slathered in mayo

historical pattern

a nation of sheep
gets a government by wolves
like clockwork (so far)

warthog

banana-sized slugs
depleted uranium
tanks explode like gourds

marketing

beans with leftovers
commands a heftier price
labeled "cassoulet"

grande luxe

a marrow bone's prize
splats against my uvula
abrupt luxury

forever

modern packaging
defies mold and Time itself...
...and the consumer

new paradigm

brick-and-mortar stores
matching internet prices
eat the overhead

amuse gueule

petits vols au vent
filled with gobs of beef marrow
hard drinkers' delight

synaesthesia

when haiku succeed
images spring unbidden
to the reader's mind

selection function

forget class and brains
chicks prefer sociopaths
for casual sex

defiance

Muslims in Quetta
refused to bury their dead
new Antigones

Pride incarnate

soaring bridge towers
give form to rampant hubris
in earthquake country

only so much

Robin Williams' Law
explains courtship behavior
bloodflow's limiting

hubris in architecture

Felagund's proud bridge
gave Glaurung easy passage
when the tide had turned

lamentations

in all the known scrolls
no tale tells of Maglor's end
somewhere, he still sings

Aeschylus' anachronism

Humanism's roots
starts with "the Eumenides"
no one was ready

liberal

J.R.R.Tolkien
exalted intermarriage
for the noble-born

Cheney's whore V

Dick Cheney's harlot
quashed the wiretapping scandal
at the New York Times

Cheney's whore IV

Bill Keller postures
as a sage old journalist
but he's Cheney's whore

Cheney's whore III

Bill Keller kow-towed
when Cheney called him to heel
cowardly boot-lick

Cheney's whore

Bill Keller's virtue
as an upright journalist...
Dick Cheney bought that

tell-tale

as they discolor
conodonts betray heating
and oil deposits

with the flow

unweight your hind foot
let your snowboard weathervane
it knows the way down

Red scared

as film roles dried up
Reagan became paranoid
blamed it on "commies"

illuminated

golden light of dawn
picks out exquisite details
that vanish ere noon

Putin's PR coup II

Gerard Deparieu
plays the role Putin's writing
useful idiot

where there is no man

Turin, like Moses
nurtured in the king's palace
killed a jerk, then fled

couth

unlike the U.S.
no culture of violence
infect Canada

where there's a will

Russian murderers
without access to firearms
get by with hand-tools

fear-monger II

politics of fear
keeping Bibi in power
would appall Orwell

pretty smoggy

high-pressure sunset
particles scatter blue light
all that's left is red

Science

soul-less physicists
stripping away mystery
unweave the rainbow

fear-monger

Orwell's disciple
playing Politics-of-Fear
Bibi, by the book

Cheney's whore

Dick Cheney's harlot
quashed news of Dubya's wiretaps
'til the polls had closed

triangle

Turin loved Beleg
provoking Mim's jealousy
dwarves have feelings too

universals?

Turin's sin of Pride
in pre-Christian MiddleEarth
troubled J.R.R.

sociopath

Ahab chased his dream
around the Norway Maelstrom
monomaniac

Putin's PR coup

self-exiled from France
Depardieu fled to Russia
"useful idiot"

love and death

Beleg sought Turin
down the leagues of Dor Lomin
love ill-requited

Cheney's whore

Keller's cowardice
damaged our democracy
and journalism

long march

Mark Sanford's reboot
this time on the campaign trail
not Appalachian

not grass

stray steers in my yard
watch me hanging out laundry
uncomprehending

easy in

thin edge of the wedge
"military advisors"
went in under Ike

tyrant

to clear People's Park
Reagan imposed martial law
boots trampled flowers

our son-of-a-bitch III

Joseph Kennedy
first head of the SEC
shut the banksters down

our son-of-a-bitch II

shorting the market
Kennedy's father waxed fat
while a nation starved

zecher yetziat mizrayim

each sabbath recalls
liberation from bondage
closing the week's book

our son-of-a-bitch

FDR's gambit
Kennedy at SEC
gave the NewDeal teeth

Jefferson knew

each generation
needs a new revolution
to throw off Pharaoh

tidal forces

the Potato Blight
depopulated Ireland
to build Boston up

defeatist

Joseph Kennedy
over-conscious of war's cost
gave Peace a bad name

Ho Ho Ho

after WWII
France wanted Indochine back
Ho thought that's funny

talmid chacham

"1984"
shaped Sotomayor's thinking
on democracy

immoderate

amiodarone's
ludicrously long half-life
exacerbates tox.

antipodal

waiting to reach
new shifting constellations
relearning the sky

chacq'un a son gout

Pynchon and Wallace
eschewed haiku's siren song
too few syllables

all-weather

Hull mountain this week?
really? at this time of year?
good to have new sports!

turn it and turn it

finding new meanings
in a static sacred text
Midrash multiverse

vixen

Ann Boleyn's sister
balanced her arch iciness
nymphomaniac

words mean what I want them to mean

Humpty Dumpty won!
what candidate is "candid"?
what do vultures "want"?

tyrant II

Cheney's agenda
circumvent the Rule of Law
centralize power

goes around

Death and Creation
everything is fluxional
Shiva keeps dancing

SnowCrash

POOR IMPULSE CONTROL
tattooed above his eyebrows
buys more elbow room

tylenol

paracetamol
may cure Guam of brown tree snakes
otherwise, useless

theodicy

justifying God
in a world that maims children
recruits atheists

shortened horizons

Spokane's Winter fogs
blot out sun and lesser stars
life in a snowglobe

consider it a divorce

when Pope Clement died
Roman mobs outraged his corpse
Henry didn't mourn

spa

"exfoliation"
turning over a new leaf
puns lost in English

unAmerican

J. Edgar Hoover
found an ally in Reagan
to curtail free speech

stodgy

never recycled
crust from when the Earth was young
Greenland doesn't dance

cronies

cronies seize assets
externalize all debits
pocket the profits

transliteration

spelling dhanukah
Tarantino clarified
the "D" is silent

ahoy

mariners's jargon
"Albion", like "Lebanon"
just means white sea cliffs

Les Miserables VI

to save a stranger
Jean Valjean blew his cover
lifting a horse cart

bias

Christianity
reads Torah through Paul's letter
no one's impartial

egoist

House Speaker Boehner
figures storm victims can wait
'til he's done preening

no there there

L.A. environs
twenty-seven bland suburbs
orbiting nothing

Les Miserables V

"Look what I've brought you!"
Valjean cooed to his young ward
"time you had a beau"

Les Miserables IV

Javert's suicide
atoned for a life of Law
untempered by Love

salesmanship

silver-tongued devil
he could sell bathtubs to cats
the fish are implied

smile!

baring incisors
a predator's threat gesture
repurposed to woo

Les Miserables III

Din pursued Chesed
through the sewers of Paris
never reconciled

Les Miserables II

Javert pursued Din
Valhean embodied Chesed
two sides of one God

galut

b'reshit's over
from the Zohar's perspective
galut's normative

fad

gastronomic stunts
manipulating colloids
don't amount to "food"

Les Miserables

Javert pursued Din
Valjean embodied Chesed
eternal tension

timeless

at the burning bush
Moses stepped outside of time
lost in the moment

coriolis

past the equator
gut feelings could get you killed
storms spin the wrong way

Bob

all it takes to prove
that you are a sub-genius
thirty-five dollars

let me turn aside

achar hamidbar
Moshe's tete a tete with God
nowhere. anywhere.

thoughcrime

Mehanna's verdict
criminalizing intent
Orwell runs the court

terpenes

pre-seasoned chickens
hopped up on oregano
thrive on fewer drugs

bluffer

Ovadia Yosef
threatens to leave Israel
I'll buy his ticket

advice and consent

John Brennan? Really??
swear him to tell the whole truth
we'd like some answers

form

metrical constraints
keep my mind from wandering
like John Lennon's did

the whole truth

Nominate Brennan!
we'd like to get some answers
while he's under oath

damned liars

Florida's Rick Scott
uses numbers to make points
even if they're wrong

tyrant

House Speaker Boehner
tramples on democracy
if it's not his way

sick!

unstable airmass
booming thermals, chance of hail
pilots call in "sick!"

patience

never interrupt
least of all your opponent
when he's fucking up

the way of the world

hard currency's dead
fractional reserve lending
fuels modernity

deja vu

Alabama hills
loom just out of field-of-view
movie sets, worldwide

sham fight

don't mourn for Twinkies
once they've broken the union
they'll bring that crap back