Haiku you

Editor's note: Oh, I know, no one's fooled. It's actually June, and I'm just getting around to a May blog posting--and a lame one at that. Please do suck it up.

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When the going gets tough, the tough start writing . . . haiku.

Yes, I have been abnormally quiet of late. Chalk it up to my usual strained relationship with endless Pittsburgh cloud cover (a very rainy spring so far) and my affair-gone-all-lemon-sour with the pothole obstacle course that is the Pennsylvania Turnpike this time of year. It pretty much all comes down to these things.

Plus one more--let's not forget the fact that I detest most politicians and news commentators and feel that, four months after the inauguration, we're back at a very hostile, churlish, square one in America, with non-stop sniping and inertia-a-no-go.

No, the bloom isn't off my Obama American Beauty rose. I love him (sometimes), I love him not (sometimes). But mostly I'm quite happy with him and his administration. It's just that everything else in the rosebush (or should I say, "roseBush"?) of American politics smells like horseshit.

So to salute those who have in the past and continue in the present to oppress us and to vent a little venom lest I poison myself from the backwash, a couple of weeks ago I started to write haiku, the 5-syllable/7-syllable/5-syllable form of Japanese verse, usually dedicated to nature, but in the case of the following public figures, it all comes down to our baser, animal instincts. And the aforementioned horseshit.

I've done this periodically, put my snarkiness to meter, usually writing my formulaic Asian doggerel about ridiculous professional issues, stuff to keep my colleagues chuckling. There is, in fact, a long tradition (long as in a decade's worth) of haiku-penning in my chosen profession; just go to Google and type in "library" and "haiku," and you will be amazed at how much there is and overwhelmed at how dorky most of it reads. Only librarians could get their groove back over haiku about cats and cataloging.

My friend Kangaroo was the most recent inspiration for my haiku-itribe: She challenged several of her former colleagues to write haiku about people we had worked with and still, years later, disliked. A fun idea, an especially good way to while away work hours on Facebook, but I could get only so far with this. Not that there aren't simply squillions of former colleagues I could trash through minimalist poetry, of course. There's just not much of an audience for it, outside of our immediate circle, and vainglorious pimp that I am, I want an audience for my audacity.

So, instead, I concentrated on coming up with horror movie titles to describe former colleagues. I Know Who You Screwed Over Last Summer, for instance, all the while secretly thinking up Scream or Saw scenarios.

But politics, especially American politics, seems like the perfect venue for haiku-ranting. Short, not so sweet, but definitely to the point.

You tell me if I've been successful.

Sarah Palin--

Sarah, Plain and Tall--
Romantic! Sarah Palin?--
Small and bombastic

Todd Palin (inspired by a friend of mine who considers Todd a *gag* "husbear")--

Todd Palin sexy?
Hmmm--but wasn't Eva Braun
considered cute, too?

Rick Perry (aka "Governor Goodhair," the Governor of Texas, who a colleague of a colleague recently decried as a "liberal" because he had spent too much state funds on, I dunno, mousse or mass transit or something. It's that same argument I've heard before--"George Bush is a secret Democrat" because a) he burned through money like he was clearing brush and b) the right wing has to discredit him in the worst way possible, "so let's call him a liberal!")--

A hypocrite? Yup!
But liberal? Rick Perry?
Only in Texas!

Antonin Scalia (inspired by his recent interview on 60 Minutes, where he excelled at being an obtuse, self-serving douchebag of the first order)--

"Activist judges"--
No more! Time to say goodbye,
"Justice" Scalia

Rush Limbaugh--

Like Wanda Sykes said,
"I wish his kidneys would fail"
Rush Limbaugh--piss off!

George "Dubya" Bush--

Dubya celebrates
Memorial Day like so--
Memorizing stuff

Glenn Beck (based on my belief that Glenn Beck was the Eric Cartman of his time. I'm sure he was picked on endlessly at school. And I'm equally sure he deserved every minute of it)--

Teachers worried so
Glenn Beck, friendless 6th grader
Ev'ryone loathed him

Dick Cheney (last and definitely least, the man who will not shut up)--

Council has spoken:
"Face-shooting is illegal--
Dick Cheney must die!"

Oh, if only.