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Michael R Burch Mar 2020
Feathered Fiends
by Michael R. Burch

Fascists of a feather
flock together.

Alternate:

Conformists of a feather
flock together.

I came up with the "Fascists of a Feather" epigram after Donald Trump repeatedly praised authoritarian "strong men" like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Rodrigo Duterte, Xi Jinping and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Heroic Americans fought a war against fascism and many of them paid the ultimate price, so why is Trump giving comfort to the enemy of democracy?

The alternate version of this couplet was written first and won a National Couplet Contest sponsored by the Society of Classical Poets. The couplet has now been published in one form or another on the websites of major newspapers and news services like TheHill.com, Haaretz.com (Israel), ******.com (Australia), Cleveland.com (as the headline of a letter to the editor), Reddit Political Humor, and Humane Conservatives Unite Blog. Sometimes the epigram is quoted in reader comments, sometimes by the writers of letters to the editor, and sometimes within articles.

Keywords/Tags: fascists, flock, together, fascism, conformists, nazis, blackshirts, brownshirts, dictator, tyrant, autocrat, despot, totalitarian, cultist, militarist
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2016
or that worth of gimp, the hotted sauced out
cradle of predatory amusement              banked on,
                        i have the notes,
mind you, you're clearly laden
with khaki material,
to mind the blackshirts of the SS,
a Vandal epiphany -
                 less khaki juice
and more blackcurrants -
                  or so the motto stands,
asserting brief and all that thought
of tomorrow.
                   all i'll add with this
vague blunt alcohol ridden self?
the vampirism of the abandoned trill
of the R...
                   that's the Vlad-blatant
abandonment of the trilling of the R -
and the competent disregard for
linguistic laws...
                 until tomorrow,
until i find my sobering-up manicure
and in rewrite the notes i've made
when inspired...
                      and i have made them...
it's all about me being nicknamed
a Viking for my tolerance to drink
you under the table, and dabble with nods,
or the blatant hiding of the tetragrammaton
with ghee (said gee) and otherwise,
                  (Indian butter) -
or dhal - or quiet simply daal / dāl:
against the aesthetics, ouch.
     again in French: je t'aime: ř - adding zero
hour to the said: sharpening the shrapnel -
                       jaded temp. / jay temp. /
                  j-j ****** or the rue flu.
oh it's there, in the notes,
as i benign the thought: unfit today,
payday tomorrow.
wait... i might have a sober moment tonight...
         encapsulate that with a question
about Iran, and a quasi-stop in conversation...
        or counting the strokes in a handwritten
variation:
              Yen ( ¥‎) = 4
                      pound (£) = 2
    matchsticks...
                             elsewhere also matchsticks:
º (red)
                = R E D (3, 4, 2) matchsticks,
                 º (
writing is termed another variant of arithmetic,
the total is 7, for one ideogram) -
             the sigma for red
   is 9, but divided by three means
        the European model falls 4 short
of optical indigestion.
     ř (caron) - caron of the missing z -
         not the variant of caron s and c with z:
czekam (i'm waiting), or szukam (i'm looking),
English has this pronoun priority
                   to be included in every phrase,
or what provides the British Empire fabric:
            how a-  (indefinite)
     and the-    (definite) articulation secures
pronouns with excess modifications
  as already apparent conjunction modifications
worthy of exegesis into the exotic / excess.
there are 7 pages worth of notes,
   but i have three quarters worth of whiskey to
drink... give me an Andy Warhol moment
suggesting: in the future, people
will have only 15 minutes worth of rechargeable
         infrastructure; hence the pending /
ongoing / will return to in a minute.
reintroducing the trilled R vogue:
    is a bit like incubating a vampiric
in English,
                    rzekomo (apparently so)
       řekomo -
                         variant of: as already stratified.
               still, the trilling of the R
is so out of fashion in English it's necessarily
a vampirism qualm -
                   never nearer the French hark
when the R summarises a rolling effect -
      by imperial standards charred.
howe then to resemble a trill?
           r̭ ?
                   or wave akin to wavering
                       (ñ) that's necessary above an r?
i need the trill represented!
    for thrill a better word -
                  or 0 and the minded gambit.
as said caron the missing H...
       twins in
                 Y or three-dimensional space,
and W
              of trigonometric absorption...
waves hunny, waves...
                          and three dimensional space
and rabbis... honey cluedo pooh bear...
i still need to find the trilled r!
**** me, the trilled r! virgulilla:
or thus said, a patent otherwise.
        yet again a ******* Yeti,
    counting matchsticks in Japan
   rather than in Iowa...
             cos it really ******* mattered
given the knots -
       and other reminders...
         yen, or Jenny,
      v. p o u n d
            (2 1 2 2 2);
          ś (acute) half-missing caron
      inc. grave v. š (caron)
             or the Sean Connery effect -
e.g. środa (wednesday) or škodaª
             (insert a H or a Z)
           for pronunciation
                        of the Czech car manufacturer,
already the Tetragrammaton descends:
   ªwhat a shame, it's such a shame.
       Mishter Bondè:
                                tequila sunrise?
ney - ney shaken nor shackled to a shtir (
šush it, and wise up, mš. moneypenny).
    just say Sharon and write Šaron:
dimples!
                         or how to paint a Kabbalistic
anatomy of the mouth to slow variation
between ś (acute) / no consonants will ever
acquire a gràve - necessary: the e isn't said
accenting / syllable scalpelling cutting up...
but still the coran s (š - to mention
ch in cheap, and šiš kebabs too).
variation of cutting up the caron into
acute and grave?
      ś: the tongue is primarily squeezed by the psyche /
breath and the mouth rekindles eating a lemon
tightening it's juiced up and juices the tongue
to sting with missing saliva -
š? primarily a serpent's hush -
  the mouth hollows out -
         the breath enters a so does a pufferfish:
antics of hollowed out mouth follow suite,
the diamond or double L

       bone                                    soul
               L muscle                            L teeth
  tendon                               tongue

synonyms and Γ apart -
                                 of the LL, or ΓL
                    or LΓ or ΓΓ.
                      the diamond diadem -
assertion of bone: whether caprais or
   cousin in the mandible family...
    is a tongue a muscle?
            still the Kabbalistic anatomy dynamic...
  the kinned appearance of H or the
variant of bone...
     or?
              a-
                     (+)
                              -theism,
it doesn't mean that God doesn't exist,
it just means that God has no logical attachment
to man's sprechen,
            the omni- can be rightfully disregarded
in that rubric consolidated within
categorisation of: lazy...
      a- (i.e. without)  
                            theology,
              ­       or our abhorrent freedoms of will,
nurtured by a universal lack:
       atheism contemplates talk of god
without a contradictory circumstance of the
human endeavour to find itself a *******
     lacklustre of comparative Raphaelite
                 illustration...
                           always the favourite,
aren't they, the crucified ones, rather than
those enthroned? aren't they? so why are the
Japanese asking about their ****** culture?
over-sexualised west?
let's ask Yokote,
   let's ask Takeshi,
let's ask Masahiro,
             sure... you can ask me:
  i prefered prostitutes because i actually
knew i was using my phallus rather than representing
a ******* identity of some egocentrism
regarding the skyscraper -
                     and the last girlfriend i had?
i wouldn't wish her to be a companion of
any kind of a Mongolian invader as part
of a horde... i had an argument with her
and was so unhappy i actually wished i was dead...
          jerking off never seemed so holy
as when encountering this woman who
stood by the motto: life is ****...
           but i guess money does that to you.
**** me! i never expected to be so Japanese in
my outlook;
tragic, i know, but what can you do,
    you unlock the floodgates of feminism
and you think that lions will start to provide for
the household? then you aren't lionesses; obviously;
or reluctantly so:
           i find the 21st century is withstanding
  any kind of revision, given the 20th century's
revisions aren't working
        for any worthy necessitation of reciprocated
stipend.
Craig Dee Nov 2019
Born Clarendon Square, 1875

11th year, father and hero dies

Mother's moniker, The Great Beast

Carries proud 'til rest in peace



Scripture's words so clearly lies

One off the wrist and women's thighs

Such morals never suit The Beast

On original sin, so does he feast



Red light women, gonorrhoea

Inhale and hold, but have no fear

Bow to none beneath the sky

Affliction, addiction, getting high



Poetry, prose, philosophy, chess

Science, literature, quite the quest

Majestic Monch without a guide

Dispel the darkness deep inside?



A new Sunrise, The Golden Dawn

To most, The Beast is but a thorn

From all the hate, he does defend

"I shall endure until to the end"



A crashing bore, The Golden Dawn

Such petty games, reject them all

Traverse the world and left in awe

In India, sombre spirits soar



The Savage Mountain scrapes the sky

Never scaled yet still must try

Brash bravery, they do not lack

No savage spoils, men beaten back



Convenience ties Beast and Rose

Affection hankers hard to show

Rosa Mundi and Love Songs

One lake of molten joy, one pond



In Egypt, Prince invokes the Gods

Great Horus comes, the Equinox

Aiwass speaks, so Beast does score

A new Aeon, Book Of The Law



On Nepal's peak, his peers they die

Attempt descent beneath dark skies

For such a loss bears all the blame

To climbing clique, ne'er the same



With Godhead now is unionised

As hashish opens the Third Eye

Meagre means and thus provides

Tankerville's peace is bonafide



A∴ A∴ heart, see how it glows

Tree Of Life they seek to grow

A flower's bloom begins to fade

Whilst sadly withers in the shade



The Beast now pens The Book Of Lies

His Scarlet Woman within resides

And for *** Magic does devise

"Contra Naturam", come inside



World War One, it rakes the Earth

While Wilhelm is as Jesus birth

Did The Beast truly betray

A country that had held his sway?



Thelema Abbey, hear its call

Lewd libertine within these walls

Loveday discovers only death

Benito brings its final breath



To man, a prophet is declared

Thelema's message, for to spread

Magnum opus, now complete

Of France, fair punishment is mete?



High on Hell's Mouth, his heart it breaks

But both black ink and leap are fake

War once again now rakes the Earth

Will Blackshirts bond Thelema's church?



War service scorned by N.I.D.

The face behind the Victory V?

Olla: Sixty Years of Song

A final book, the last swan song



Hasting's last battle is now lost

The Great Beast feels the final frost

"A Black Mass", many tabloids cry

Cold ashes now in Hampton lie



Amoral man, your heart did sing

Black ballads of the blackest dreams

Listen and there's still the screams

Of Thelema's ghosts, it seems





Copyright © Craig Detheridge.

2015 - 2017.
This piece is based on the life of the infamous Aleister Crowley.
Born to a Christian family in 1875, he rejected their teachings and those of the bible, becoming a ceremonial magician and founder of The Church Of Thelema. Crowley was a prolific writer on many subjects such as philosophy, politics, and culture as well as Thelema. He was also a published poet and playwright and was an accomplished mountaineer.

Crowley was once described by tabloids of his time as "The Wickedest Man In The World".

It took me several weeks to complete this piece due to the research I carried out on Crowley. There are lines within the piece of which the meaning is not immediately obvious.
This piece has previously featured elsewhere on the net including my own site at https://originaldarkpoetry.wordpress.com/the-great-beast/
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2021
let's start this impromptu on the ugly side of "things"... i sometimes watch social-commentary videos... of note... the expatriate black pigeon speaks living it out in Nippon... Joy on a Frying Pan... ferrying pigeons to the gut... along with some squid... he showcased a sample of a mad crowd chanting: WHITE PIG GO HOME... well... PIGS becomes the acronym P.I.G.S. in the northern batch of You're-Epic... all that's Portugal... Italy... Greece and Spain... last time i checked... pig meat is unlike chicken meat... you can actually eat it slightly raw...  it's not sushi... forgive me... but then sushi is no raw Baltic herring in a creamy dill sauce...

clearly i was outnumbered in Venice... i used to take weekend
excursions in European cities by myself
and stay in hostels picking up random conversations
with strangers...
not that many... there could have been more:
Paris being the most memorable...
but Venice? Venice was something else...
i stayed in a hostel that started to resemble a nunnery...
i was outnumbered...
beside the other male who was sharing duties
of upkeep with a female...
i was... outstripped in the ratio of 1 : 10... at least
ten... there was a girl from Argentina...
a timid mid-30s Norwegian...
some others... but esp. these two...
travellers from the afar of H'america...
a Jewish Italian Leigh... and...
oh god... she was a mixture of plum and cherry...
and some peaches on the side...
they were taking a road trip around Italy...
both had some alliance to the heritage...
if you're sitting down at a table and
you're outnumbered...
and this peaches and plums and cherries
takes a fancy for you:
she doesn't disguise it:
'as handsome as you'...
hello ******... bad boy attitude implies what?
being unbelievably irksome?
Hannibal Lecter bad boy i.q. testing is
too: shudder flinging... vide cor meum...
the men women find attractive i find
simply annoying...
was i supposed to gloat in the paid compliment?
after dinner we took two or three riverboats
to Venice beach where i prescribed some
absinthe shots...
i was too drunk before the girls were gearing
up to giddy-up...
drunk's GPS... like that time in Athens
returning from a striptease-bar:
burrowing my face in the *****
of at least two strippers...

mythological blonde Australian girls...
yeah... they were in the mix...
next day a dispute arose...
a bunch of girls wanted to do X...
the H'american girls were split on decision
making...
i felt bad for Leigh... no one wanted to side
with her...
was i going to peacock myself ***** around
with these bunch of girls
or take up Leigh on her fancies?
of course i chose her company than have
to deal with a makeshift harem...
so me an her ended up sightseeing Venice
like a couple...
we ate pistachio ice-cream... St. Mark's wasn't
flooded... the blackshirts weren't there either...
she wanted to take me to the synagogue...
we went to the synagogue when it was just closing...
but there was still some activity in
the student centre nearby...
that's when i learned about the 613 (mitzvot)...

we ended up talking to some orthodox
men... one had a SHOFAR...
i told him to blow into it... he did...
now... i said: call it...
all of a sudden Leigh started to dart around
in chaotic vectors of ego...
i was being a tourist one minute...
the next i was keeping a wild thing...
she even paid for the water-taxi on our way
back to the hostel...
she still had about 2 weeks' worth of sightseeing
the Italian peninsula with her university friend...
all of a sudden
she decided to fly back to America...
she was gone before the makeshift harem
came back from their sightseeing...
i was sitting in the corner reading snippets of:
the Little Apocalypse...
- where's Leigh?
- oh... she decided to go home...
silence... it wasn't even awkward...
        for me it wasn't...
two girls that planned a tour of the Italian peninsula:
oh i'm pretty sure they still had
their sights on Rome...
then i came across their path...
i don't remember what i said...
i really don't... but this look of resignation
is still burning in my mind
like an epitaph might overshadow
the dates or birth and death on
a tombstone...
the female caretaker of the hostel
made me some hamburgers the next day
we sat in a makeshift scrutiny of silence
while she admired my way of eating
with a fullness of hunger...
she only made some hamburgers...
did i make an off-the-cuff remark about
Hey-Zeus in a museum?
don't know (dunno)...
my first girlfriend's father called me a charmer...
am i a charmer: self-love...
all that i am and...
               in a world bound to the poetic
of Je-Suis... a shade a tad bit more tiresome...
perhaps the Lebanese will throw in
historical antics:
apparently all the nations that were invaded
by the Mongol were given a sentence:
100 years behind the ones not invaded by
this: flea-infested.... ****-smeared nomads...
a tragedy: literally: a tragedy equivalent to
how the Christians burnt down the pagan
library of Alexandria: the Mongols did likewise
in Iraq...
as ever: crab-bucket mentality...
somehow: only "now" are we receiving
concerns for: what happens if certain people
are not allowed to properly state their prowess!
but that's only: vaguely...

i don't know how this slur came to be in my possession...
the word itself almost sounds Chapanese...
sorry: Japanese
KARAKAN...
not kraken... KARAKAN... (カラカン)
perhaps the Mongols brought it over
when they did their knock-knock party trick
of... the best party the world ever saw:
the expansion of the Mongol empire...
later known as the trumpet call of
the Cracow Hey-Now: Hejnał (mariacki)
st. mary's trumpet call...
the mongol arrow piercing the trumpeter's throat...
well... it's not Hejnał (maryii)
last time i read a newspaper
the Czech girls were supposedly glad
to have toppled the patriarchy
by losing the -ova suffix in surnames...
a bit like Mr. Kowalski becoming Mr. Kowal...
and a bit like Mrs. Kowalska becoming Mrs. Kowal...
Ms. Kowal:
language has most certainly become
a diseased hollow-house that once
entertained brains and tongues...


at best U2's angel of harem... is the closest i come
to Van Morrison...
can't just forget the M.O.P. (most oppressed people)
of the world: behind the Irish... running double
sure doubly blind...

tell me it's not true... the whole idea of romance:
as stated by the flick of: beautiful woman...
that a prostitutes' lips are niqab prone
sanctity... i don't remember how many kisses i have
stolen from the lips of: the lips that
willingly shared... more than mere lips to crease
themselves on...
drinking red wine: i don't like the numbing...
i add some pepsi... hey presto! kalimotxo...
the drink of Mayan gods...
feathers of peacocks and macaws...
tossed around for a joke of dice...
towing: bone...
by a macaque pirate: primate...

not all from Africa... i find my heart in India:
how i became morphed by mother Siberia
i will never truly know...
how much of history has to be forgotten:
lost... undermined... almost all of it:
it would seem...
the genesis of a game of tennis...
even in high-school we weren't interested
in girls... a game of cards...
and some slap-ball...
the "concept" of woman disintegrates
any further mention of the solidarity of man...
let alone brotherhood...
it's a sorry-*** affair of not being
as pristine as the ******* of swans...
live among us: in harems...
teasing the yawns of lion waiting for the growls /
roars...

good to have these bonsai tigers on a spare...
even as a man i adore these creatures...
i brought one home today...
holding its hind legs...
i brought him
hanging upside down:
to add to the concept of giving it:
added perspectives...

- i once sat in the same bench with a Thai girl...
during a biology girl...
the teacher: Mrs. Cowell asked each of
us to look into each other's eyes
and tell what colour our irises were:
sure... she's wasn't a Thai ssurprise
of a timid *****... she looked and looked...
*****: GREEN, GREEN... see a *******
leprechaun steering a tram into your soul!
Green!
so solid with these monochromatic
peoples are ****-smear skin, brown irises...
raven hair...
once upon a time the ugly head
of a ginger Pakistani beard...
some other beside the ***** Khan...
some blue-eyed of Afghanistan not sacrificed
like some Albino demon of...
whatever is to be leftover from Africa...

- カラカン (KARAKAN) it's hardly a racial slur...
did i insinuate ******* lemons for the proper
squint of the eyes?
the Japanese can reach a suntan status...
they're also very eager to showcase themselves
ski-jumping with the Europeans...
it's not a racial-slur... it's a slur of HEIGHT...
****** shogun! oi oi!
the man who demanded the building
of a pyramid... the greatest - ahem... joke -
of a celebration of life:
made it crystal clear:
build me a monument to celebrate my death!

i agree... it's not as well fathomable as the Korean
method...
the man behind Hangul... Sejong...
thank god he lived and died so close
to his existence not being undermined:
let's assume Abraham invented the Hebrew sprach...
the Cimmerian Sibyl: Carmenta
of all that's Latin? disguise as English:
now?

oh sure... patriarchy... more wine! more wine!
i need to find sleep!
to hell with the architecture of dreams!
i need to find sleep!

look here: a pseudo su doku
of the disappearing vowel:
the appearing consonant in the schematic of katakana:

カア
            ラア
                           カア
                                           ン

imagine rewriting these syllables as:
suffixes... vowel first...
hence? it's limited... phonetically...
perhaps for some... scarce fetish for exploring
hieroglyphs...
emoticons...
or what Vilhelm Thomsen made of
the Orkhon runes...
out of Africa... beside the hieroglyphs of
owl foster son of river flow...
perhaps the spectacle of ape came out of Africa...
but sure as **** the writing didn't...
the writing came out of India...

Africa can give up her grinding of the fringe...
i'm looking for skeletons:
who can't forget the spices
and the skeletons of writing excavated
from the blue Indians -
the smoky bomb that was forever
the black cardamom... who?
some Halved-African fudge-packaged
fufu?
the **** abhor the Chinese...
the English hate the Germans...
i'm a ****** that abhors fellow Polacks
in the diaspora of Polacks...

Darwinism is great: up to and including
a concern / conceptualising history...
**** similis was well known...
the ancients of Rome acknowledged
the blatant similarity...
of man's descent from ape...
but none would ever tease it as:
somehow a "shortcoming":

pierdolony karakan: azjatycki!
here's my racial slur against the Japanese...
keep them sedated: islander quirks...
Tokyo juicy...
it's not ******* lemons squint of
the eye... it's their ******* samurai height...
you know... you can write white as:
wite... right... whyte..
lite... wha-cradle...
bring on the peddle... later: latest of all:
the stool...

islanders: *** or Eng- alike!
their ******* diet of... fish...
crustaceans: in the houses of parliament
the topic is leveraged surrounding:
can humans feel... apathy?
if snails are being debated convening
their experience of pain:
no tiger would ever **** me for pleasure:
no lion would ever **** me or keep
be tortured: for sadistic ulterior avenues
of expression...
next thing you know:
i'll be bargaining with a foreign
entity of a parasite's worth...
than... convene a human: who's man?

how we have become almost claustrophobic...
disorientated within the provided confines
of ourselves...

i once imagined myself talking FOR these "people":
   oh god...  had some more aplenty prepositional
jargon to work with...
i ended up "talking" WITH these "people":
democratically viable...
i go my way... they go their own way...
almost everyone is satisfied...

to fear the old gods in a h. p. Lovecraftian sense...
who needs any supposition of love
when the emblem of said, "supposed" love
is being nailed to a ******* cross?
only a a Greek might...
but where's the Hebrew in the entirety of
the stated equation to undermine the Roman
Empire?
scuttling like the ******* rat her better be!

of a people that have been so undernourished
that... the ******* guillotine might miss their
necks! karakany: plural of karakan...

— The End —