Category: Uncategorized

Michael J Cohen, my grandson, is my guest poet for today’s poelitic.
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Dear Reader
I know that we need action more than we need words right now, but I felt myself moved to write something on the latest executive order banning refugee entry into the US. It is the moral callousness and human cost of this that disturb me most. The Torah commands the Jewish people, “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 22:20). Our world today is different in many ways, but refugees abound with dimming hopes of redemption. I understand the politics of this situation are not without subtlety nor are there easy answers. This poem is not a legal treatise, but I believe we can fulfill the moral imperative to help the stranger without seriously compromising our security – it is not a ruthless, zero-sum equation. Please feel free to share this poem:

Seated with the phosphorescent glow, I read the news
Absorbing every day another blow, and I must choose:
To linger idly hoping that “this won’t be all that bad”
While desperately groping for some news to make me glad

It’s true the new administration set off with a lurch
And with a swift defenestration, Welcome lost it’s perch
What happened to our decency? The openhearted way…
A hardened heart, a fist held clenched, have seemed to rule the day

The old ideals we cherish so demand we take a stand
In apathy they perish, so let’s rise with open hands
And dedicate ourselves unto that sacred, noblest cause:
The orphan’s plight, the widow’s grief
The stranger dwelling in our midst
The human gleanings tossed aside
Those whom Wealth and Power dismissed

The dross of this, our gilded age, whose currency is minted fear
Where someone’s loss, another’s gain, but through it all, one thing is clear:

The golden door, though shut right now, can never, ever rust
So lift the lamp and let her glow to those who tread in dust
Re-forge the ancient fortitude that struggled for the Just
And give your hand to those in need – in this we place our trust.

Michael J Cohen
1/28/17

 

The holocaust was not so many years ago
Our sentencing those refugees to death
By turning back those ships back to their fate
A memory of national disgrace

Let’s not forget

Now Trump has issued orders odious
He’s banning refugees from war-torn states
And cities where the living is untenable
This is another national disgrace

For shame, for shame

Is this the greatness to which Trump aspires
Disguising it as keeping terror out?
Of all the Middle Eastern states he banned
No citizen has terrorized us yet

Our greatness dimmed

Trump’s paranoia threatens us in many ways
The self-deluded world in which he lives
Where he decides what’s real and what is not
Has sealed the fate of desperate refugees

And damaged us

1/27/17

Typ0s

This ditty’s deadicated to my typ0s
My texts dyslexic sprinlked through my postos
Her name i blaim its spelling on my pado
It changed appellate Maddow into Meadow

1/27/17

 

The dots have been connected, Rachel did it
The Rachel Maddow, MSNBC
It’s pay-back time for Prexy Trump who won it
With all the help from Putin, we can see

Don Trump has stripped the State Department bare
Of all its seasoned world-wide expertise
There’s no one left with status who would dare
To criticize decisions he decrees

Now Trump intends that sanctions be withdrawn
On Russia based on annexing Crimea
The half-a-trillion oil deal’s back on
With Tillerson at State, that’s Trump’s idea

And Rachel cited Russia’s new arrest
The cyber chief of FSB (the KGB)
Mikhailov, with coercion, will confess
To treason: kompromat to Steele he leaked

No proof! The evidence is circumstantial
Now add in Trump’s behavior so bizarre
Preferring Russia over allies more substantial
This worries me like little else – so far

1/26/17

 

Each day important issues come up new
So many that it’s hard to keep abreast
They’re all results of Trump’s ineptitude
It makes it hard, the subject to select

‘Twas yesterday Trump ordered EPA
To cease revealing data in the news
A sweeping order gagging what they say
Until it’s passed political review

Indicative this is of Trump’s outlook
Where truth is what he wants us to believe
Three million votes illegal falsely booked
Now he can act on nonsense he conceives

And therein lies the danger for us all
As President, with power’s instruments
Can warp good science to his beck and call
And launch our nukes toward foreign continents

1/25/17

Mark Lilla, back in November, wrote an article in the NYT Sunday Review titled, “The End of Identity Liberalism”. The Women’s March brought this to mind.

Identity Politics

Identity, the politics thereof
Is what propelled progressives in their fights
To win minorities their equal rights
Our fight was righteousness, our fight was love

The Women’s March that spanned the planet Earth
Had banners bright proclaiming the right stuff
Like women’s right to choose control of birth
Identity itself is not enough

The Democratic loss was brought about
By not addressing problems fundamental
To workers on subsistence elemental
Whose family’s future fill their lives with doubt

Our party must reach out at every level
We are our brother’s keeper we must heed
Our vision must include all at the table
Our soaring rhetoric must lead to deeds

1/24/17

 

Pres. Trump screwed up addressing CIA
And disrespected those who gave their all
By frivolous Trump chatter at their Wall
But one remark put thousands in harms way

Where US troops are fighting on the soil
Of Libya and of Iraq as well
Where oil reserves resource that nation’s wealth
Trump said we might go back and take their oil

Of soldiers there in Libya or Iraq
As GIs tasked for local troop support
Full trust is undercut by Trump’s retort
They’ll think our goal’s to take their oil back

Trump’s careless spontaneity of speech
His lack of discipline in what he tweets
His lies and falsehoods that he oft repeats
Pose danger to the world within his reach

1/23/17

 

Alt-facts are what Trump wants us to believe
Alt-lies are facts reported by the Press
Alt-news is what Trump tweets, what’s up his sleeve
Alt-fair is raising Trump above the rest

Alt-strong is imitating Putin’s ways
Alt-dumb are non-supporters of himself
Alt-wrong are those who don’t buy what he says
Alt-smart are Trump and gainers of much wealth

Alt-wise are those denying climate change
Alt-smart are those who obfuscate the rules
Alt-right, home of conspiracies so strange
Alt-world, the world of Trump and all his fools

1/22/17

My wife, Phyllis, whom I accompanied on the March wrote her own poem and published it on the Poelitics blog as a comment on this poelitic.

Women by the millions marched the world
Supported by their fathers, brothers, sons
Ensuring that their voices would be heard
The women of the world today were one

Their message, we are you and you and you
No matter color, sex, faith, whom you love
Today marked the beginning, something new
Awareness we’re responsible for us

My wife and I joined in the Tucson march
Our children joined in cities where they dwell
We, with our friends we’re simply doing our part
Ten thousand others marched with us as well

Heed, Mr. President, our message clear
We’re millions strong; together we will act
We’ll act, we’ll act for things that we hold dear
Among your lies know this to be a fact!

1/21/17

 

Yes, yes I watched and listened even as I said I would
I couldn’t help but contrast it with eight short years ago
Obama’s soaring rhetoric, his vision: yes we could
He talked the talk and walked the walk; his humble greatness glows

The post-war era’s ended where the US led the World
Promoting and defending new democracies abroad
Our outlook international, as peace throughout unfurled
Except for local conflicts slow to reach a peace accord

Historically each era spawns a counter-era trend
The Western nations are retrenching, inward looking more
Societies are closing. “We come first; let others fend”
The President’s inaugural speech reflected this in store

But more in tone than substance; absent any concepts new
He labeled problems regional as though they were throughout
And promised he would fix them, never saying what he’d do
The speech, itself was very dark; so’ll be his term, no doubt.

1/20/17