Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
14 August 2024

    Comparing our Secret Service with Barney Fife is Inappropriate

                          Because we love and respect Deputy Fife

In art, incompetence can have a certain charm
But in stupid men with guns the charm is lacking
Our agents can’t even keep themselves from harm
Their greatest skills are in shacking and slacking

Colombian girlies and slanting roofs
Unman the best of them; they lose their guns
They lose laptops, but never their 90-proof
And break into private property for poopy runs

To them a President entrusts his life –
He’d surely be safer with Deputy Barney Fife

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com


                 Barney Fife! Thou Shouldst be Living at this Hour

                              -as William Wordsworth did not say

Police chiefs are costumed as admirals these days
Or as generals, with medals and eagles and stars
Peaked caps and polished boots, more Patton than Patton
In stern command of parking-lot plywood lecterns

Their trousers are crisply pressed, as are their frowns
And all their seams line up with military precision
Each gold and silver button polished as befits
Leaders formidable to civilization’s foes

And thus they appear, gloriously attired
Explaining to their people why they’ve just been fired


(I admire police - beat cops, the proper coppers - but the resume’ builders who rise to high office and dress up like Hohenzollern postal clerks are another matter.)