facts

March 14, 2023

NEWOLOGY

I have decided it is now time
and I am establishing a new
field of study that blends
mathematics and political science,
which I have named idiometry.

Simply put, idiometry allows one
to measure just how close one can
take the statements or promises
if any politician and square
them with the actual facts.

Then you repeat this for all
of the statements of that politician
and you inevitably find the square
unattainable, there simply are
no perfect squares yet achieved
in idiometry, for no politician
ever seen on a public stage
hews perfectly to facts, always
veering off into self interest
or blatant ideology, so perhaps
idiometry isn’t worth it, telling us
what we already knew full well.

December 2, 2020

DEFINE-ITELY

It takes only moments for someone
to ask for a definition of poetry.

That task is at once terribly
simple and equally impossible,

a poem is many things
but not now or ever:

a paean to a self-aggrandizing
leader without soul
or sense of direction,
moral and literal;

a rant on how
all are conspiring
against you despite
your stable genius;

a Jeremiad decrying
facts contrary
to what you wish
them to be;

any attempt you
make or condone
to rewrite
“The New Colossus.”

September 4, 2020

SOMETHING NEW

When I was a child, my mother
repeatedly told me that I must
learn something new each day.

I knew better than to point out
that it was absurd to call
for novel behavior by repetition.

So I took the path of least resistance
and each day grabbed a random
volume of the World Book Encyclopedia,

opened to any page and read
the first entry on that page, committing
it, or its salient facts, to memory.

There is so much in life with which
I still struggle, seemingly basic tasks
I never took the time to master,

too busy with my head in books,
but I do know that the acts of Punisa
Racic that June, 1928 day killing two

led King Alexander, six months later,
to ban all political parties, assume power
and rename the country Yugoslavia.