Antipatico

It's easy to see how Trump steals the campaign show.
When it comes to TV genius, he's a seasoned pro.
He brags in sound-bytes,
preens before Klieg lights,
but as prez the Donald would be far from simpatico.

End of Summer Blues

The call of a jay rings plaintive in late August.

Has the fight gone out of that blue scrapper?

And where are its brethren of a feather?

Why don’t they echo the attack?

How to put back the prickly fight

into those brash wardens of the garden,

and chase cool tranquility from the yard?

Cicadas and crickets pick up the slack

in the soundtrack of shorter days.
A dog does its part with distant barks.

Yes, the creatures of summer’s idyll recede.

There sounds a chirp still, and a tweet,

but the birds are no longer at hand.

Come back, my mad blue angels.

Stay a while, summer.

Ad hominem

Donald Trump is known for his unrelenting sass
as well as for that amorphous, orange mass
that bestrides his scheming dome,
poised to fend off any comb,
ever above the bray of a rich jackass.

We win! (Yawn)

Trump promises, "We will win, win, win."
He claims, "Your heads will spin, spin, spin."
The Donald makes many guarantees that,
if honored, are nothing to sneeze at,
but if hollow, are akin to a deadly sin.

Bible Belt backlash

She's paid 80 grand a year, that Kentucky clerk
who cites god's authority and got an unearned perk
when bible thumpers
rushed to lump her
in with the likes of true hero Rosa Parks.

Game Day

Enjoy football updates, never done in a lame way.

Let Herbie, Des, Pollack and Ponder have their famed say,

Saturdays prior to kickoff.
You may agree with Coach or scoff,
but you are sure to have fun watching College Game Day.

Namaste it ain't

There is a wrongheaded Revlon commercial running these days. Wrongheaded because the voiceover advises listeners, "Don't be envious, be envied."
No, no, no.
Poor makeup company, why do you have to do the wrong thing in the name of selling your products?
Sure, advise consumers against envy, that is a sentiment we can get behind. But the ad, by creative agency AR New York, goes on to urge consumers to "be envied," thus rejecting humility and embracing arrogance.
Poor Revlon, were you so enamored of the facile word play that you green-lighted this ad? If so, dull wit compounds your mistake. Even cloaked in childish wordplay, it remains a mean message.

Hot licks and rhetoric don't count much for nothin' *

You watching that comical New York tycoon,
the GOP blowhard who acts the buffoon?
With each insult he lobs,
he attracts bigger mobs;
you see, they believe him when he promises the moon.

*Steely Dan lyric from "Throw Back the Little Ones"

Bland ambition

"Bland" Paul can run for re-election in Kaintuck,
while also seeking the White House -- how's that for luck.
You see the state GOP created a special caucus
to enable his bases-covering ambition and maybe also to mock us.
Of course, Rand could lose both races, now wouldn't that suck.