.

The Chinese Spy Balloon

From that balloon botch I’m most wondering,
Why Biden stalled to shoot it from the sky.
Was it more fecklessness and blundering,
Or might some hidden issue underlie?

Did hearing it arrived illegally,
Make Joe think the balloon was just a boat,
With cargo hoped-for Democrats-to-be,
Till Jill told him unmanned balloons can’t vote?

Or maybe it was Hunter’s China deal,
With all the access fees the Chinese spent,
And thus “The Big Guy” feared that hasty zeal,
Might cause a problem with his ten percent.

.

.

The Experts

Some experts say that day is best,
__While others claim it’s night.
Since all of them have expertise
__I do not know who’s right.

Top experts state the safe amount
__Ideally is four.
Yet others hold there is no risk
__In making it far more.

Wise experts say you need it done;
__Still others swear you don’t.
And based upon their sage advice
__Can’t say I will or won’t.

While certainty’s in short supply,
__There’s expertise in gluts.
But one thing that I know for sure—
__The experts drive me nuts.

.

.
Abortion

The issue is are unborns human beings?
And of two answers, which one is the truth?
If yes, abortion could be viewed as murder,
If no, it’s just like pulling out a tooth.

.

.

Russel Winick recently started writing poetry at nearly age 65, after ending a long legal career. He resides in Naperville, Illinois.

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14 Responses

  2. Joshua C. Frank

    Great ones, Russel! It’s nice to see stuff like these from people who can actually write in good rhyme and meter. (I’ve been disappointed with collections of right-wing “poetry” by people who can’t do either.)

    I love the first two, but it’s “Abortion” that’s the most arresting, because these are precisely the stakes in the question of when life begins. My only issue is that if the unborn are human (and they are), then killing one IS murder, just as much as killing a baby after birth, not “could be viewed as” murder. In any case, even if the question could not be answered with certainty, then we would certainly not want to kill anyone who may or may not be human; after all, if we’re out hunting, and something moves in the bushes but we don’t know what it is, we don’t shoot, precisely because it may be human.

    Now, I expect the liberals to come out of the woodwork and pick that poem apart, so I’m attempting to head them off here. Of course they’re human beings; they’re individuals with their own genetic codes, body parts, and sleep cycles. Anyone who is still undecided on this question is invited to read my poems “Elegy for Miran Sutherland” and “What Is Pro-Choice?” And since they’re people, the Abortion Holocaust (with over 1.6 billion dead worldwide since 1980) dwarfs all the mass murders of the twentieth century combined.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      I find it interesting that back in the 1940s and 50s, opposition to abortion was almost universal among members of all religious denominations, and also among most atheists and agnostics. It was considered a disgusting and degrading procedure that was morally reprehensible.

      I guess what you could call a “Cloud of Unknowing” has settled on the world since then.

      Reply
  3. Roy Eugene Peterson

    As other have said, there are intrinsic truths in each of your poems ranging from the deceptively lighthearted “The Chinese Spy Balloon to the seriously considered diametrically opposed conclusions that should challenge both sensitivities and logic.

    Reply
  4. Brian A Yapko

    All three of these are terrific, Russel. Enormously satisfying social and political commentary. Your balloon poem is hilarious and your abortion poem deeply meaningful. But it’s your “Experts” that triggered the shock of recognition for me. I know you’re a lawyer as am I, and I have seen in literally hundreds of cases how issues boil down to a battle of expert witnesses. And more often than not (far far more often) it was simply a question of litigants finding an expert who they could pay enough for the opinion that they wanted. And then whoever put on the best show won. “Truth” has nothing to do with it. There’s huge potential for corruption in the “expert witness” system which has given me sufficient personal knowledge to now actively distrust most “experts” in government and media contexts. Actually, in almost all contexts.

    Reply
  6. Jeff Eardley

    Three great bits of observation Russell. You are so right about all the experts these days who can drive you crazy with indecision, particularly in matters medical. Nice to see Sleepy Joe getting a mention.
    Great stuff and highly amusing.

    Reply

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