♛   ♛   ♛

Martin Luther, righteous King,
made the Reformation sing.
Popes and peasants, out of key
turned it into misery.
German beer and Roman crimes
made for most uncivil times
much like our own. We must confess
rights and wrongs we yet possess...

Half a millennium later on
a Baptist pastor and his son
took this noble Saxon name
and furthered the Reformer's fame.
Some revisionists deny
St. Martin Luther's role, and try
to minimize theology
in civil rights chronology.
The second Luther of my song
inspired—but did not last as long.
Social Justice notwithstanding,
King's successors need re-branding.
Politicians steal his mantle,
cloak their lies in his example;
agitators claim his glory
pushing God out of the story;
educators sing his praises
but some people's conduct raises
doubts about that dream of King—
and hope... and change...  and everything.

BREAKING LIMERICKS BREAKING LIMERICKS BREAK

STOP the PRESSES while we pop the strésses !
EXtry, EXtry, read all about it:
Fake news pays dues to sing rural blues in red-state hues.
Nanny-state networks choose to accuse & civil fury ensues!
See special edition on CIA sedition :

          The rural red states stand accused
           By the quingdom whose queen they refused
            it's so hillbilly-larious
             all of them various
              voters now left unamused.

FAKE NEWS: it's the virus du jour
of the affluent liberals. The poor
are more prone to believe
it's a plot to deceive
and no government offers a cure.

(Tune: “Londonderry Air")

Here in the vista of three hundred years we stand,

Our torches kindled by thy guiding light.

A Pilgrim host, we come to thee from every land,

With joyful hopes, well girded by thy might.

Connecticut, beloved State, all hail to thee;

Tower of might against a flaming sky,

The heav’ns resound with praise, ring out with victory.

God speed you on and all your glories sanctify.

Through summer heat and winter cold thy honor stands,

A bulwark gainst the mighty hosts of sin,

Till love shall spread to earth’s most distant island strands,

And Heaven’s righteous ways o’er evil win.

Connecticut, advancing through the changing years,

May knowledge guide thy sons and daughters fair,

And honor, truth and wisdom banish all our fears,

Connecticut, while we thy many glories share!

The years shall pass across thy mighty mountain walls,

Against the gold of every setting sun,

A newer host, well-born within thy ancient halls,

Shall bear thy standards of new glories won.

Connecticut, our fathers kept thy honor fair,

Thy reach of love they widened to the sea.

We shall keep faith, where they fought; we, too, shall dare,

Connecticut, for aye we pledge our hearts to thee.

“Qui Transtulit Sustinet !” Motto of light!
‘Neath the folds of that banner we strike for the right;
Connecticut’s watchword oer hill and o’er plain,
“The Hand that transplanted, that Hand will sustain.”

“Qui Transtulit Sustinet !” On the broad fold
of Connecticut’s banner this motto’s enrolled,
and flashed to the sunlight on mornings bright wings,
A promise of glory and honor it brings,
The promise of One who ne’er promised in vain,
“The Hand that transplanted, that Hand will sustain.”

Ay and surely it well has sustained us thus far,
in peace and in plenty, in want and in war.
When the foe has attacked us in battle array,
Then Connecticut’s sons have stood first in the fray;
And faith in that watchword inspires us again,
For “He who transplanted will ever sustain!”

And now, in the darkness of treason’s black night
‘Neath the folds of that banner we strike for the right!
For the RIGHT !  ‘Tis OUR COUNTRY we’re marching to save,
The dear flag of The UNION in triumph shall wave!
Faith swells every heart! Hope fires every vein!
“And Thou who transplanted, Oh always sustain !”

retrieved from the wreckage / the box reveals the final seconds / descent into panic / end of the line of flight / true disco / the call of the empty air / an unknown diva singing out her heartache / pastoral idylls in smoking ruins / the once-green Sahara / the herdsmen’s piping to the vanished flocks / it’s all there in the black box / the pilot’s final glimpse / earth rising / the ultimate kiss of terra firma / semiotext(e) / disco-bolo / temporary autonomous zones / islands of intensity / siren song of the eternal queen / spades & clubs / vistas of urban sadness seen in passing from  a car window / something lost, found, and lost again forever in the early 1990’s / woe to those who hear too much in a cheap dance tune…