Motivational meta-poem

If at verse you don’t succeed

try to rhyme again.

Or better still:

Skip structure, shake off stricture

and let the need

to read the meter

take you where it will.

No rules but the hard and fast;

nothing to live up to but centuries past;

no one to impress but

your self.

keyboard jungle

Enter the spacebar

and hit

return

There is no 

control escape

On the European Union's Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020, With Apologies to Ogden Nash

When the question is the European budget,

the only solution is to fudge it.

Dallimerick

A lobbyist down on his knees --

the Commissioner immune to his pleas --

said “Sir, everything’s fine,

you won’t have to resign.

Now please don’t be such a Maltease.”

rhymes with banker (2012 remix)

haircut in the dock,

white, hot under the collar
in sweat-stained chalk stripe

Europe bails

A compromise hammered out,

during months of debate --

now the real work begins,

and not a moment too late.

We roll up our sleeves and start

right away --

in September, that is,

after the holiday.

g&t asap

botanical bubbles rise

through the proof of your

mouth to your eyes

as the tang on tip of your

tongue complies.

‘tis the season

to be lime* squeezin --

you can’t get

too pissed with every

sip so sun-kissed.

(*or lemon if you insist)

gasoline dream

The price of gas cannot be

counted in dollars and cents

or even parts per million;

but it is high

none the less.

No, the real test

is whether after filling

up you have enough

change

left to buy 
back the sky.

blueprint for a roadmap

stakeholders!

join our consultation,

turn your white paper green

or, even, non-

.

civil society’s best practices

are being exchanged

and your contribution

is

essential

to

our

reflection.

Heartland haiku

climate denier:
chill bumps from the brain-freeze drain
the sound of science

Limerick Santorum

There once was a man named Santorum
who stormed the electoral forum.
His primary appeal
was political zeal,
with which for Romney a new one he tore him.

Twitter Conjugation

M. Sarkozy, ecoutez et repetez:
Je twis,
Tu twis,
Il/elle twit
Nous twittons
Vous twittez
Ils/elles twittent

of all the greatest, love

Media
will feed you
a ready steady diet
of pop martyrs –
they’re better than burned out;
forget about the fadeaway.
They shall suffer first
in the public eye
and make us share
the pain.
The artist may be gone
but the business
beats on.

lisbon haiku

A capital E
in desperate search for the
non-existent U

tiger wept

Drop everything.

A man who plays a game
and wears a logo
for a living is going to tell us
his troubles.
"He will be putting from the rough,"
some commentator will surely note,
"I don't think he'll get a gimme."
There will be tears of sincerity
and promises made. Or even kept.
Tiger wept.
Well then who knows where he slept?
I care as much about that
as I do
the swoosh
on
his
hat.

lose-win proposition

vict'ry in defeat--
a hole new direction in
the opposite of spin

roman holiday

It was at Kitzbuhel, not Gstaad
where I saw Polanski--up close--
in a skislope cafeteria line, red snowsuit size small,
sliding slowly along the rails
a tray of wiener schnitzel mit pommes und ketchup
Like Everybody Else.

He had his two young children with him.
Like Everybody Else.

I wanted to say, "Hey, nice work on 'Chinatown'"
but didn't. As usual, faced with a celebrity icon, I fell silent.

Now I remember and think:
Do we forgive a man a heinous crime
because of his art, or because
his life has been filled with tragedy
or because he only did what everybody else
was doing in Jack and Anjelica's Casa California
or because an asshole judge lied to him
or because the French crypto-intelligentsia
says it must be so?

Maybe. But probably not.

gauche caviar

"Is Socialism dead?" my morning headline so screams.
Europe's Left can't get anything right, it seems.
Just when Capitalism is raw red meat for Michael Moore
the only dark specter haunting us is a bore.
Anyway what about "dangerous European Socialism" does America fear:
six weeks vacation, longer life, fitter health, better beer?

poet fuel

awake yet drowsy
an indispensable need:
morning espresso

east side glory

Feelgood proliferation?
Crave some adoration,
a standing ovation
for that rambling oration?
Attention all planets
of the solar federation:
For a general assembly of
Multinational Masturbation,
take your problem to the
Yoo-nighted Nay-aytion.