banality

cogs in the machine
prefer not to  understand
that they're the problem

isolation

no community
adrift in suburbia
desperate housewife

bootlick

"freedom" for Hegel
meant subjects kept their mouths shut
'cause the king knows best

money for nothing

Google monetized
the web's aggregate wisdom
content's so passe

value

Google monetized
emergent web properties
Invisible Hand

school for scandal

Laban's the mentor
duplicitous, conniving
that Jacob deserved

do-nothing

"House Speaker Boehner"
squawks but doesn't legislate
he's not "House Doer"

noise machine

House Speaker Boehner
fulminates impotently
but won't legislate

in the moment

get 'em while they're hot!
brain-farts cast in haiku form
tweeted to your 'phone

allegory

Jacob and Esau
reconcile, but live apart
TwoState solution

blither

Boehner's sophistry
Obama "poisoned the well"
that's been dry for years

fitting the meter

sonnets for romance
but maybe haiku fit best
to hook-up culture

fading

old senses grow dim
to entice flagging passions
they slosh perfume on

what's this thing called, love?

Google search engine
annotating images
won't fool Turing...yet

layered motives

stealing women's hearts
Darwinian incentive
dressed as poet's muse

dirty money

under the table
petrodollars lubricate
Qatar's WorldCup bid

forms that fit

my attention span
suffices to write haiku
sonnets still scare me

regress

gone without a trace
Lucretius to Spinoza
half a world went dark

layered

below the surface
sexual innuendo
propels the drama

participatory

evocative verse
makes art out of dissonance
in the reader's mind

oppresive

invisible cords
National Security
Letters gag targets

tell tales

microbiota
swabbed from air passengers' shoes
recount their travels

dignity

each Jew's tahara
even in wizened old age
"babe, I knew you when!"

bend over

dr. Huxtable
squirms when he's the subject of
examination

close society

intimate strangers
mingling sweat, cologne and breath
Tokyo subway car

National Security Letter

under surveillance
not even free to say we're
under surveillance

acting out

new Baruch Goldstein
this time murdering rabbis
same old meshugas

limits

protest, Mong Kok style
lacks Central's civility
Xi may yet send tanks

dislocation

Pax Vaporizer
hookahs, bongs, pipes and papers
have been disrupted

modernist

general Sherman
devastated property
economic war

off-leash

Petraeus' gaffe
fucking his biographer
wasn't in the script

help! I'm being oppressed!

peaceful protesters
shot by Alameda cops
tradition of grief

dark ages

like Day One's Great Light
hidden for the Tzaddikim
Lucretius' lore

Hong Kong

Hong Kong policemen
neither beat nor shoot the crowds
Oakland would fire them

attitude

:

too much dignity

would preclude even trying

keep beginner's mind

heavy thumb

sword, scales and blindfold
of Justice's attributes
only the first works

win win

feuding spam dirtbags
each demolished the other
everybody wins

epidemiology

cancer in China
epidemic proportions
indicts pollution

Yama meets Agni, Shiva wins

privatizing coal
India would endorse death
for a whole planet

what's old is new

Brigham Young students
ask for new revelation
sanctioning whiskers

topped

Spartans burned with shame
Demosthenes at Olpae
took them from behind

humbled

Spartans gave it up
Demosthenes at Olpae
took them from behind

life's too short

time and time again
an hour in the library
saves weeks in the lab

revolting

the State's spy legions
violating our backdoors
thrust us towards revolt

we have met the enemy

NSA backdoors
compromise innovator
and--thus--our future

atomist

a chemist's poet
Lucretius perceived atoms
where others saw gods

lost decades

in the Reagan years
Japan was buying the world
now, that sun has set

Chayye Sarah

Rivka emanu
got fed up with Laban's crap
"I'm so outta here!"

unaccountable

Ferguson's problem 

officer GoFuckYourself 

still gets to go armed

power to the People

:

forty years ago 

"Defense of Anarchism"

falsified Hegel

Seventh Day

Above the Sabbath

rav Kook cited Joshua

to exult the Land

well chosen

Homer's epithets
more often filled the meter
than advanced the plot

the tension is killing

Green Revolution
five years unconsummated
Tabriz-sized blue balls

born for the role

"Edge of Tomorrow"
should have been a Sean Bean role
endlessly dying

revisionist

as Mycenae waned
Argos snatched Agamemnon
as their patriarch

choosing the theater

Athen's triremes
out-flanked Sparta's infantry
asymmetric war

historiography

in Thucydides
villain portray their baseness
as realism

association

inexplicably
new nose neurons remember
grandma's kitchen's smells

getting high

above 13k
supplemental oxygen
buoys the spirits

haftarah

Bathsheba comments:
Why'd his mom not find a wife
for Abram's heir?

Defense of Anarchism

as a Reform Jew
onus of commandedness
carries scant water

teens

this guy's got camels!
Rivka's done with Laban's crap
"I'm so outta here!"

stretch

casting director
finds he's in over his head
StarWars cantina

chaque un a son gout

cougars stalk Berkeley
Paris only gets aroused
by prowling tigers

business

the Mustang's for show
for Ford, it's F150s
that pay the wages

holiday padding

no easy fixes
turns out, it isn't water
I'm retaining food

chosen

Rivka illumines
Avram leaving hearth and home
to meet destiny

peasant food

lean years in Beijing
most of China's finest chefs
fled with Chiang Kai Shek

petro-states

Saudi oil exports
degrade Putin's leverage
power's fungible

utility function

smilodon's sabers
so good at dispatching prey
impeded eating

secrets

all secrets come out
when sister-wives compare notes
and count back nine months

doppler

fortieth birthday
looms like it should mean something
then fades, in one's dust

frame of reference

what's "dysfunctional"?
playwrights disdain to agree
each claims to own it

psychodrama

Oedipal playwrights
can't the leave old score alone
they love their mothers

all in the family

writing what they know
playwrights vivisect their moms
seven times a week

lenses

Thucydides saw
economics behind war
Lendon sees honor

hubris IV

Cleon's ambition
prolonged the war with Sparta
sunk-cost fallacy

syntax is meaning

channeling Yoda
turning haiku inside out
reveals new meanings

illiberal education

Sparta's infantry
peerless in obedience
failed to make "Plan B"

optimized dentition

ambush predators
can deploy heavy weapons
cheetahs can't afford

vector

microbiota
swabbed from air passengers' shoes
recount their travels

Chicken

"free-rider" problem
hampers progress on carbon
someone's gotta lead

tell-trail

back from traveling
exotic microbiomes
still cling to your shoes

trickled-on

corrupt leaders pay
tax breaks to copronations
out of our pockets

resilience

Thucydides failed
to defend Amphipolis
but found time to write

outreach

NASA could save weight
not sending spectrometers
on Mars, ask Chabad

Nixonesque

Bill Keller's BigLie
wants credit for wiretap scoop
that he had suppressed

resilience

"making lemonade"

Thucydides in exile

found time for writing

exterminating bandits

beheading Muslims

ISIS provokes new Fatwahs

on barbarism

ministry of truth

Bill Keller's BigLie
wants credit for wiretap scoop
that he had suppressed

pidyon shvuyim

when Lot was taken
Abraham reached for his sword
not for his checkbook

font

what's now Queen's English
the bards neologisms
used to be misspeech

limited liability

sponsoring "pundits"
planet-wide Copro-nations
tell us to buy shit

hubris IV

hubris incarnate
Cleon snubbed Sparta's peace-terms
baal makhloket

hybris III

Cleon's ambition
unslaked at Sphacteria
cost Athens dearly

complicit

inexplicably
Obama immunized those
who trampled his rights

validation

stars of the big screen
sweat blood for roles on Broadway
and validation

lonely world

for bitter old men
FauxNews is entertainment
and companionship

respectability

stars of the big screen
crave respectability
that Broadway conveys

hybris II

bellicose Cleon
wanting more than victory
bankrupted Athens

Hybris

had Pericles lived
Pylos would have won the Peace
but Cleon fought on

patriarch II

laconic motto:
"penis mightier than sword!"
worked for Genghis Khan

patriarch

surer than horse-troops
Genghis Khan's Y-chromosome
conquered Eurasia

misguided

who's the audience?
playing to the film critics
BirdMan lost the rest

tricky bugger

sly Demosthenes
took the Spartans from behind
those who got home, limped

extrapolation

discounting fission
Kelvin's YoungEarth precluded
DeepTime for Darwin

trending

burgeoning health-costs
Mississippi's our future
overweight nation

ambitious

Ernest Shackleton
skipped out on the First World War
that looked too easy

big themes

Joseph novella
teshuvah and forgiveness
take three parashot

conjuror

Shakespeare as wizard
conjured up new words at needs
and worlds on a whim

belly

the last rays of day
illumine the storm's bottom
landscape of bad dreams

immoderate

general Powell
made a vice of loyalty
hanging in too long

short leash

Secretary Chu
named coal "abomination"
until he was gagged

spontaneous mutation

Brown's the exception
political dynasties
sire mostly Dubyas

dominoes

Thucydides saw
the fall of Czars in Russia
would echo Corfu

acidification

oysters grow weak shells
buffering capacity
has been exceded

clarity

when she faces North
looking in Palin's right ear
"you can see Russia"

irreconcilable

"mutual contempt"
LBJ and RFK
found no common ground

what lurks below

on London's efflux
greaseburgs wax fat in sewers
City-wide M.I.

coup

besieged Plataea
remained loyal to Athens
Sparta took it hard

dark

Götterdämmerung
must look like Spokane, yuletide
freezing fog, starless

magisteria

sly Odysseus
superlative in metis
buried Achilles

untapped

BP's exploring
fatburgs lurking 'neath London
should be monetized

qui bono? II

six big Telecomms
oppose NetNeutrality
and the Public will

wait for it...

Green Revolution 

five years unconsummated 

Tabriz-sized blue balls

wheels of Justice grind slow

An Italian court
took five years to overturn
a six-year sentence

parochial

American Jews
too often assert "we're White!
but Muslims aren't"

commentary

the Turkish chorus
speaks non word in ForceMajeur
all comment's tacit

alone

new low in Date-films
ForceMajeur probes loneliness
in relationships

footnote

a hundred years hence
annotating my haikus
junk dissertation

careful excess

salty roast chicken
keeps drinkers eunatremic
at Oktoberfest

roles about roles

FightClub's dark mirror
probing masculinity
ForceMajeur blows cold

premium

flying through SaltLake
Americans fill the seats
and flesh slops over

Trust Busters

tell chairman Wheeler
invoke "Common Carrier!"
Obama says so

legacy

demographic bind
mitnag'der ashkenazim
don't breed fast enough

snapshot

days of freezing fog
feathery growths of hoar-frost
quickly lose their charm

tight fit

flushing a plane's loo
for the very obese risks
evisceration

self-valuation

Thebes and Mycenae
as others past them in rank
deceived assessors

retrograde

Thebes and Mycenae
dwelt on their glorious pasts
while Argos waxed great

not strings

Bibi's petulant
Obama won't fight his wars
like George W.

sleep with the devil

bowing to tyrants
Hegel would have pulled Locke's teeth
to preserve the "peace"

...to chase the dog out of the kitchen...

PD-1 blockers
unleash auto-immune storms
riding the dragon

Niemoeller

'til Zola's "j'accuse!"
l'affaire Dreyfus just scared Jews
I'll speak for Muslims

ongoing revelation

B-Raf binds C-Raf
pseudo-kinase signalling
needs no ATP

bomb

big, expensive cast
couldn't save Interstellar
from leaden writing

no strings attached

Bibi seems outraged
Obama's harder to dupe
than George W.

cartoonish

AIPAC's delusion
well-greased palm and outstretched arm
co-opts Uncle Sam

AIPAC

Likud's U.S. branch
claims to speak for all of us
is Congress that dumb?

lumpen

Americans' gaits
betray sedentary lives
no drug can fix that

myopia

far too many Jews
accept hatred of Muslims
like it's  not obscene

old news, new freedom

new revelation 

now we get to talk about 

Joe Smith's many wives

arbitrary coordinates

Yanks just look confused
'round these parts, floor numbering
starts "rez de Chausse"

bad shepherd

Rush Limbaugh's faithful
take revelation from him
know no other god

transdermal

hand sanitizer
takes BPA from receipts
into your bloodstream

free to shop

Amazon ECHO
liberates both hands and eyes
post-screen interface

buy now!

Amazon ECHO
accesses the post-screen world
vibrationally

yoke of heaven

Lord, grant me coffee
to change the things I can change
and wine for the rest

sheep

Limbaugh's followers
monotheists with a twist
know no other god

heretics

impious doctors
meddle with the will of God
each time Cheney dies

foiled

cardiologists
contrammand the will of God
each time Cheney dies

owned

freakin' McConnell
speaks for the race-horse owners
fuck the stablehands

out of step

how's he viable?
Rick Santorum advocates
unprotected sex

efes zuloto

rebbe Scheur Zalman's
radical acosmia
smacks of Spinoza

our son of a bitch

our man el-Sisi
tramples civil liberties
with impunity

qui bono?

if Adelson wants 

he should march to war himself 

leave us out of it

pattern recognition

territorial
circuits mapped to cyberspace
evoke tribal wars

abomination

IBM's prefab
MVS Starter System
the beast with two packs

le formi

crosswords harvested
autumn's neat piles of paper
fires yet to be lit

I, island

a self-driving car
equipped with WiFi hotspot
a geek's fever-dream

Darwin's games

feeling important
another mechanism
of evolution

sentimental value

all evolution
is cruel and indifferent
like the universe

wild-eyed centrists

rational extremes
radical empiricists
throw explosive truths

alienated

hanging with the crowd
beautiful views all around
staring at our phones

unconstrained

god-damned fucking fool
everyone knows you can swear
just fine in haiku

revolution

Bezos' vision
automating everything
zero employment

mid-terms

demented voters
make a show of petulance
shitting on themselves

efes zuloto

Lubovitch asserts
radical acosmia
all is within God

clientelle

put WholeFoods in Watts!
surely they need groceries
more than Malibu

Theory of Everything

Stephen Hawking trusts
an ex-wife to tell his life
the physics gets lost

the fist

more than NSA
GCHQ empowers
abject tyranny

j'accuse!

who'll play Zola's role
rallying Jews to defend
our Muslim cousins?

acosmia I

what must end with death
if each soul's consubstantial
with its Creator?

convergence

India, rampant
heaps up the Himalaya
as she rams Asia

ad fees

more than the parties
corporate media win
every election

powder keg

primed for explosion
demagogues' biggest soap-box
Haram al-Sharif

succulent

lessons from sous-vide
controlling what's denatured
defines food's texture

clash

just two characters'
towering performances
best picture: "Whiplash"

greedy

prolonging our slump
disLoyal Opposition
make the pie smaller

cask-time

the best of exes
bonding over child-rearing
grow up together

monopoly on force

federal marshalls
long arm of Leviathan
pacified the West

never let 'em see you sweat

'though Astaire was great
Ginger Rogers did it all
backwards, in high heels

free press

the public domain
includes Noriega's face
free for parody

curriculum

interbellum dons
invented "literature"
to fill scripture's niche

Keats knew

Deutsch doesn't despair
Knowledge is provisional
but Beauty is Truth

outdated

tough balancing act
IP law works well for drugs
but fails for software

above the law VIII

real sociopath
sure that he's above the law
Keith Alexander

torah

we're left with letters
undifferentiated
Light has been withdrawn

above the law VII

Keith Alexander
falsified his patent app
who dares prosecute?

management

lashed to his own mast
while his crew rowed, unhearing
Odysseus wailed

slant

composing haiku
the use of "quotation snarks"
conserves syllables

above the law VI

Justice can't be blind
prosecutors need good will
from the police force

partings

"Princess Kaguya"
letting go of one's daughters
gets epic treatment

that's entertainment

vapid shoot-em-up
artfully executed
best picture: JohnWick

nothing to see here

parasitic worms
lull their hosts' immune systems
sing for your supper!

in on the groundfloor

megaFauna's dull
creative biology
paints with viruses

great game

in post-war HongKong
Beijing feared democracy
more than Brits' empire

aggrandizing

Erdogan's vision
of himself on the world stage
had not role for Kurds

gesher tzar meod

stumbling through Shema
mistaking Daled for Resh
makes "One" an "Other"

something's rotten

disinclined to trust
amateur mycologists
dubious morels

proven technology

coal (not CO2)
sequesters carbon stably
for millenia

screwed

UAW
colluding with Management
screw serfs from both ends

suckered

Ratings Agencies
played investors for suckers
no skin in the game

capitalism

if we're on the hook
for a bank going under
let's claim the profits

voodoo

Reaganomics failed
thirty years is long enough
we need something new

disserved

heads deep in "the sand"
ostriches in Michigan
try to ban Tesla

overhead

USAID
cuts checks to BeltWay Bandits
who grease warlords' palms

let's hear it!

"Death to Extremists!"
residents of Isfahan
embrace centrism

house nigger

"You're 'free'! Be happy"
Hegel preaches the Gita
to prop up Prussia

Wolff attack

without naming him
"Defense of Anarchism"
takes Hegel to task

legitimacy

Robert Wolff refutes
Hegel's twisted read of Kant
justifying kings

privatized risk

"First Degree Murder"!
of Iraqi civilians
BlackWater wages

repercussions

ArabSpring unfolds
radicalized Tunisians
swell ISIS's ranks

depopulated

as farms automate
Iowa keeps losing clout
nobody lives there

gasification

something in my gut
makes methane from apricots
too efficiently 

it gets messy II

Santorum's squeezed out
as Cruz and Paul go at it
slick politicians

it gets messy

Santorum's squeezed out
as Paul Ryan pounds Ted Cruz
all fluff, no traction

opiate

Hegel distorts Kant
appalled at the French Terror
justifies strongmen

sauve qui peut!

Russians are buying
New York real estate for cash
Putin has them scared

rump

Russian mafia
once both God and State are dead
figure they're in charge

Denzel

Denzel Washington
plays Boston's avenging knight
Batman in Carharts

miraculous!

all my ancestors
--improbable 'though that seems--
survived their childhoods

new life

the "Son of Hamas"
embraced Christianity
eager for rebirth

this is not the war we're looking for

Dubya was weak-willed
Netanyahu's Jedi tricks
fail on Obama

media hype

existential dread
focused on Ebola now
next week, something else

iron fist

purging Xi's rivals
corrupt War on Corruption
runs outside the Law

quagmire

sunk-cost fallacy
good money thrown after bad
no exit-planning

coercion

double bonus points
seducing missionaries
sets church bells ringing

desocialized

once demobilized
psychopaths who thrived in war
can't ever go home

transient

Braceros aver
"we didn't cross the border
the border crossed us"

alienating

Ayers' film "Fury"
distilling "the Hurt Locker"
all guts, scant glory

passions

Homer depicted
Ares and Aphrodite
one beast with two backs

outcast

after Ebola
survivors face prejudice
no jobs for undead

strong chemistry

K. Peter Vollhardt
couldn't resist alkaloids
avid receptor

good company

in the multiverse
the rays of "N" other suns
warm as many "me"s

Right to Die

among Gitmo's sins

John Locke rates the Right to Die

next to Right to Life