Stormy Daniels may be big news, but bigger news happened at the Philadelphia zoo recently. A gorilla was caught on tape walking upright on two legs, hurrying along, arms swinging, as if running to catch the 8:14 to town. This, once upon a time, was us, and in another hundred thousand years or so, with continuing favorable mutations, the descendants of this gorilla will be a new species, h. gorillus possibly, the inheritor of Earth, with h. sapiens being listed in the textbooks in alphabetical order with Neanderthal and the rest of our lengthy list of hominin cousins. But what will life be like for h. gorillus when he, as new man, is finally elevated to ruler of the world?

Once upon a lengthy time
New man first took an erect stance
Tottered like a drunken mime
And then he learned to dance
Sooner than you well might think
New man was kissing sweet young things
And then in just a blurry blink
Exchanging wedding rings
Next it was his awful fate
To be well dressed in pinstriped suits
And recognized but much too late
That wife had put down roots
Nights out with the raucous boys
Were memories of times gone by
Stifled by life’s stapled joys
And not ashamed to cry
Rash gorillas in a mist
Should never walk upright in view
You may watch if you insist
And find that you’ll cry too

Many people see a problem with Russian president Vladimir Putin, but I don’t see a problem here. All Putin wants is a better place for his country and its people, just like everyone else. Doesn’t he? A place

Where beautiful the cool  green grass
And sassy is the pretty lass
Where summer is the time for dreams
And KGB is ripe with schemes
Where life is good and true is love
And push does not beget a shove
Where he is strong and still the man
And his bare chest has year-round tan
Where oil prices still reach the sky
And buyers are more prone to buy
Where he’s unerring in his aim
And comes on top in this world game
A better place is all he wants
He weeps for what his Russia once
Was in the world, a power strong
And weeps again because for long
His Russia has been a sick man
And yet he’ll do the best he can
The past of Stalin he’ll embrace
To find that lovely better place

If the Steele dossier is accurate, and we know it must be truthful because we know the FBI would never deceive a FISA court in order to advance a political agenda, then the Russian government has promised 20% of Russia’s natural gas giant Gazprom to a former Trump campaign hanger-on for unspecified activity. It is clear this is a one for one swap for the 20% of our uranium Hillary sold to the Russians for 145 million dollars, and since 20% of Gazprom is worth many billions of dollars, then Bill and Hill have perhaps inadvertently  contributed to making America great again. In other news, Gazprom is having problems competing with American liquefied natural gas, and the Brits are hopping mad that Putin had attempted to assassinate a former Russian spy and his daughter with nerve gas while living in England.

If Britain fears the Russian bear
Will scowl if they should say a word
About a murder, should we care
Or should our flaccid loins we gird
Preparing for the sudden shock
Of Putin stamping both his feet
In rage that we would dare to mock
When we should whimper and to bleat
With US now the carbon king
And fracking makes gas almost free
The Brits pick up the phone and ring
A Texan for some LNG

Reflections of an empty room
A curtain moving in the breeze
A passing figure briefly seen
It cares not all for what it sees
The heirloom hanging in the hall
Reflects the living, not the dead
Who are still there, beneath the new
Who will in time have in their stead
The newer still, the living shades
Mere visitors, a constant frieze
The mirror hangs there, silent, still
Not caring all for what it sees

Vladimir Putin has announced he now has a missile with a top speed of 3,600 miles per hour, making it impossible for anyone to shoot down, another stealthy missile that runs on nuclear power and therefore has unlimited range, as well as a submersible vehicle so stealthy it can creep up to any coastal city and detonate a hydrogen bomb, wiping out New York or London. Well, perhaps we shall see if he really has these wonders. And perhaps not.

So Putin has a missile
That runs on fuel that’s fissile
With sensors that he hopes will help it find
Fat targets just by glances
And not just by pure chances
As happened with some others of its kind
He’ll send it by Australia
Then surely without failya
Heads north with our destruction in its mind
It’s stealthy he reminds us
And stealthily it finds us
By heading north and creeping up behind
Plus objects that  are coastal
Sit quiet then go postal
And taking out New York or Port au Prince
With bare chest and flexed muscles
He sneers he’ll win all tussles
It’s sad enough to make you want to wince

In 1812 Napoleon’s La Grande Armee entered Moscow, believing they had won the war, and shortly thereafter, starving and cold, the Grande Armee set out for home in the dead of winter. Very few made it back to France.

The snow so deep, the wind so cold
The city far away
There’s wealth and food there we were told
Press on another day!
We struggle on, the horses die
And still the city sits
Fair against the winter sky
So far from Austerlitz
We gained the prize, another dawn
But neither wealth nor food
The city burned, the people gone
The men in murderous mood
A tinsel prize, a barren dream
We starved and headed home
Through snow and sleet and cold that seem
To mock each onion dome
We died by roadside, died by wood
We watched the death toll grow
We ate our horses when we could
Then lay down in the snow

Quantum physics implies that every particle has a twin, a doppelganger. Reminds me of Professor Schrodinger’s now famous thought experiment of the cat in the box, who was either alive or dead, but how could you know without opening the box?

Mr. Schrodinger! Where’s my cat?
I want to know just where he’s at
I saw him just a while ago
And you have got him, this I know
I hear him sir, he’s in that box
Be kind enough to loose those locks
How can this be, it’s empty now
And yet I clearly hear him meow
Ah there he is, he’s in your yard
I can just see him, looking hard
I’m not quite sure that I should mention
My cat has only one dimension
And there he goes, again he’s gone
He’s now on Mrs. Cratchit’s lawn
I’m leaving, sir, where is my hat
Good lord above, sir, what is that?
Oh no, I’m going in the box!
Please sir, I beg you, not the locks
A doppelgang, that’s what you said?
Good lord what’s wrong now with my head?
I’ve paws and tail, dear lord, but how?
Please let me out, dear God……meow

It has been suggested that the insanity going on in Washington is the result of the entire Democrat Party being infected by an especially virulent virus. I spoke to a virus the other day and she said she was outraged that her kind was being blamed for everything from disease to politics, when in fact most viruses only wanted to live a normal life with a suitable host. None of us want to kill anyone, she said, but there are always some bad apples in every barrel.

Bad apples, rotten to the core
Reflect quite badly on the more
Benign examples of our kind
Who only seem to be resigned
To live their lives with a good host
Until they both give up the ghost
It’s politics that’s killing us
As nutrients we are a plus
But too much can be worse than none
And that is why each mother’s son
And daughter of a virus seeks
A host who knows of what he speaks
Now I myself, progressive pure
Am fairly certain, nearly sure
That right wing viruses all scheme
To sabotage our leftist dream
As a result we must fight back
And that is why we must attack
Conservatives wherever met
And see that they instantly get
The palsy or a runny nose
Or Asian flu or one of those
Queer maladies identified
As viruses that cannot hide
But most of us just bide our time
We have no reason, have no rhyme
In man’s affairs we seldom mix
And not at all in politics
But right now though we’re having fun
Infecting Dems to think they won

When I was but a child my dreams were never
Without a playful laugh, and without care
I knew it all would last somehow forever
I knew my parents always would be there
My youth was filled with plans of life tomorrow
It mattered not if dreams were small or great
Like most of us our dreams lead but to sorrow
For dreams are overtaken oft by fate
I dreamed my children filled my life with pleasure
I dreamed not that their lives be filled with gold
But only they be happy beyond measure
And bless me with a grandchild when I’m old
My dreams have all come true and that’s a blessing
I have a wife I’ve loved since first we met
My children gave me grandkids and I’m guessing
My life’s about as good as it can get
My childhood dreams are still as bright as ever
My parents are still young and always near
The dreams we dream through life we cannot sever
They stay with us as long as we are here

Proud I am of my Celtic blood
As thin as it might be
For when the embattled farmers stood
They stood for you and me
The tapestry the people weave
Of deeds of great renown
Show Washington one Christmas Eve
Cross o’er to Trenton town
Yes Irishmen were in those boats
And bitter cold that night
With many without shoes or coats
No matter, they would fight
The Irish Brigade at Burnside’s bridge
The 69^th New York
The lads who fought Elsenborn ridge
With roots in County Cork
No passive’s not the word I’d use
When speaking of the Celts
They’re quick to smile but light the fuse
And you’ll wind up with welts