For those among us who lived by the rules,
Lived frugal lives of *****-scratching desperation;
For those who sustained a zombie-like state for 30 or 40 years,
For these few, our lucky few—
We bequeath an interactive Life-Alert emergency dog tag,
Or better still a dog, a colossal pet beast,
A humongous Harlequin Dane to feed,
For that matter, why not buy a few new cars before you die?
Your home mortgage is, after all, dead and buried.
We gave you senior-citizen rates for water, gas & electricity—
“The Big 3,” as they are known in certain Gasoline Alley-retro
Neighborhoods among us,
Our parishes and boroughs.
All this and more, had you lived small,
Had you played by the rules for Smurfs & Serfs.

We leave you the chance to treat your grandkids
Like Santa’s A-List clientele,
“Good ‘ol Grampa,” they’ll recollect fondly,
“Sweet Grammy Strunzo, they will sigh.
What more could you want in retirement?

You’ve enabled another generation of deadbeat grandparents,
And now you’re next in line for the ice floe,
To be taken away while still alive,
Still hunched over and wheezing,
On a midnight sleigh ride,
Your son, pulling the proverbial Eskimo sled,
Down to some random Arctic shore,
Placing you gently on the ice floe.
Your son; your boy--
A true chip off the igloo, so to speak.
He leaves you on the ice floe,
Remembering not to leave the sled,
The proverbial Sled of Abbandono,
The one never left behind,
As it would be needed again,
Why not a home in storage while we wait?
The family will surely need it sometime down the line.

A dignified death?
Who can afford one these days?
The question answers itself:
You are John Goodman in “The Big Lebowski.”
You opt for an empty 2-lb can of Folgers.
You know: "The best part of waking up, is Folger's in your cup!"
That useless mnemonic taught us by “Mad Men.”
Slogans and theme songs imbibe us.

Zombie accouterments,
Provided by America’s Ruling Class.
Thank you Lewis H. Lapham for giving it to us straight.
Why not go with the aluminum Folgers can?
Rather than spend the $300.00 that mook funeral director
Tries to shame you into coughing up,
For the economy-class “Legacy Urn.”
An old seduction:  Madison Avenue’s Gift of Shame.
Does your **** smell?” asks a sultry voice,
Igniting a carpet bomb across the 20-45 female cohort,
2 billion pathetically insecure women,
Spending collectively $10 billion each year—
Still a lot of money, unless it’s a 2013
Variation on an early 1930s Germany theme;
The future we’ve created;
The future we deserve.

Now a wheelbarrow load of paper currency,
Scarcely buy a loaf of bread.
Even if you’re lucky enough to make it,
Back to your cave alive,
After shopping to survive.
Women spend $10 billion a year for worry-free *****.
I don’t read The Wall Street Journal either,
But I’m pretty **** sure,
That “The Feminine Hygiene Division”
Continues to hold a corner office, at
Fear of Shame Corporate Headquarters.
Eventually, FDS will go the way of the weekly ******.
Meanwhile, in God & vaginal deodorant we trust,
Something you buy just to make sure,
Just in case the *** Gods send you a gift.
Some 30-year old **** buddy,
Some linguistically gifted man or woman,
Some he or she who actually enjoys eating your junk:
“Oh Woman, thy name is frailty.”
“Oh Man, thou art a Woman.”
“Oh Art is for Carney in “Harry & Tonto,”
Popping the question: “Dignity in Old Age?”
Will it too, go the way of the weekly ******?
It is pointless to speculate.
Mouthwash--Roll-on antiperspirants--Depends.
Things our primitive ancestors did without,
Playing it safe on the dry savannah,
Where the last 3 drops evaporate in an instant,
Rather than go down your pants,
No matter how much you wiggle & dance.
Think about it!

Think cemeteries, my Geezer friends.
Of course, your first thought is
How nice it would be, laid to rest
In the Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey.
Born a ******. Died a ******. Laid in the grave?
Or Père Lachaise,
Within a stone’s throw of Jim Morrison--
Lying impudently,
Embraced, held close by loving soil,
Caressed, held close by a Jack Daniels-laced mud pie.
Or, with Ulysses S. Grant, giving new life to the quandary:
Who else is buried in the freaking tomb?
Bury my heart with Abraham in Springfield.
Enshrine my body in the Taj Mahal,
Build for me a pyramid, says Busta Cheops.

Something simple, perhaps, like yourself.
Or, like our old partner in crime:
Lee Harvey, in death, achieving the soul of brevity,
Like Cher and Madonna a one-name celebrity,
A simple yet obscure grave stone carving:  OSWALD.
Perhaps a burial at sea? All the old salts like to go there.
Your corpse wrapped in white duct/duck tape,
Still frozen after months of West Pac naval maneuvers,
The CO complying with the Department of the Navy Operations Manual,
Offering this service on « An operations-permitting basis, »
About as much latitude given any would-be Ahab,
Shortlisted for Command-at-sea.
So your body is literally frozen stiff,
Frozen solid for six months packed,
Spooned between 50-lb sacks of green beans & carrots.
Deep down in the deep freeze,
Within the Deep Freeze :
The ship’s storekeeper has a cryogenic *******
Deep down in his private sanctuary,
Privacy in the bowels of the ship.
While up on deck you slide smoothly down the pine plank,
Old Glory billowing in the sea breeze,
Emptying you out into the great abyss of
Some random forlorn ocean.

Perhaps you are a ******* lunatic?
Maybe you likee—Shut the **** up, Queequeg !
Perhaps you want a variation on the burial-at-sea option ?
Here’s mine, as presently set down in print,
Lawyer-prepared, notarized and filed at the Court of the Grand Vizier,
Copies of same in safe deposit boxes,
One of many benefits Chase offers free to disabled Vets,
Demonstrating, again, my zombie-like allegiance to the rules.
But I digress.
« The true measure of one’s life »
Said most often by those we leave behind,
Is the wealth—if any—we leave behind.
The fact that we cling to bank accounts,
Bank safe deposit boxes,
Legal aide & real estate,
Insurance, and/or cash . . .
Just emphasizes the foregone conclusion,
For those who followed the rules.
Those of us living frugally,
Sustaining the zombie trance all these years.
You can jazz it up—go ahead, call it your « Work Ethic. »
But you might want to hesitate before you celebrate
Your unimpeachable character & patriotism.

What is the root of Max Weber’s WORK ETHIC concept?
‘Tis one’s grossly misplaced, misguided, & misspent neurosis.
Unmasked, shown vulnerably pink & naked, at last.
Truth is: The harder we work, the more we lay bare
The Third World Hunger in our souls.
But again, I digress.  Variation on a Theme :
At death my body is quick-frozen.
Then dismembered, then ground down
To the consistency of water-injected hamburger,
Meat further frozen and Fedex-ed to San Diego,
Home of our beloved Pacific Fleet.
Stowed in a floating Deep Freeze where glazed storekeepers
Sate the lecherous Commissary Officer,
Aboard some soon-to-be underway—
Underway: The Only Way
Echo the Old Salts, a moribund Greek Chorus
Goofing still on the burial-at-sea concept.

Underway to that sacred specific spot,
Let's call it The Golden Shellback,
Where the Equator intersects,
Crosses perpendicular,
The International Dateline,
Where my defrosted corpse nuggets,
Are now sprinkled over the sea,
While Ray Charles sings his snarky
Child Support & Alimony
His voice blasting out the 1MC,
She’s eating steak.  I’m eating baloney.
Ray is the voice of disgruntlement,
Palpable and snide in the trade winds,
Perhaps the lost chord everyone has been looking for:
Laughing till we cry at ourselves,
Our small corpse kernels, chum for sharks.

In a nutshell—being the crazy *******’ve come to love-
Chop me up and feed me to the Orcas,
Just do it ! NIKE!
That’s right, a $commercial right in the middle of a ******* poem!
Do it where the Equator crosses the Dateline :
A sailors’ sacred vortex: isn’t it ?
Wouldn’t you say, Shipmates, one and all?
I’m talking Conrad’s Marlow, here, man!
Call me Ishmael or Queequeg.
Thor Heyerdahl or Tristan Jones,
Bogart’s Queeq & Ensign Pulver,
Wayward sailors, one and all.
And me, of course, aboard the one ride I could not miss,
Even if it means my Amusement Park pass expires.
Ceremony at sea ?
Absolutely vital, I suppose,
Given the monotony and routine,
Of the ship’s relentlessly vacant seascape.
« There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea,
And I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates. «
So said James Russell Lowell,
One of the so-called Fireside Poets,
With Longfellow and Bryant,
Whittier, the Quaker and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.,
19th Century American hipsters, one and all.

Then there’s CREMATION,
A low-cost option unavailable to practicing Jews.
« Ashes to ashes »  remains its simplest definition.
LOW-COST remains its operant phrase & universal appeal.
No Deed to a 2by6by6 foot plot of real estate,
Paid for in advance for perpetuity—
Although I suggest reading the fine print—
Our grass--once maintained by Japanese gardeners--
Now a lost art in Southern California,
Now that little Tokyo's finest no longer
Cut, edge & manicure, transform our lawns
Into a Bonsai ornamental wonderland.
Today illegal/legal Mexicans employing
More of a subtropical slash & burn technique.

Cremation : no chunk of marble,
No sandstone, wood or cardboard marker,
Plus the cost of engraving and site installation.
Quoth the children: "****, you’re talking $30K to
Put the old ****** in the ground? Cheap **** never
Gave me $30K for college, let alone a house down payment.
What’s my low-cost, legitimate disposal going to run me?"

CREMATION : they burn your corpse in Auschwitz ovens.
You are reduced to a few pounds of cigar ash.
Now the funeral industry catches you with your **** out.
You must (1) pay to have your ashes stored,
Or (2) take them away in a gilded crate that,
Again, you must pay for.
So you slide into Walter Sobjak,
The Dude’s principal amigo,
And bowling partner in the
Brothers Coen masterpiece: The Big Lebowski.
You head to the nearest Safeway for a 2-lb can of Folgers.
And while we’re on the subject of cremation & the Jews,
Think for a moment on the horror of The Holocaust:
Dispossessed & utterly destroyed, one last indignity:
Corpses disposed of by cremation,
For Jews, an utterly unacceptable burial rite.
Now before we leave Mr. Sobjak,
Who is, as you know, a deeply disturbed Vietnam vet,
Who settles bowling alley protocol disputations,
By brandishing, by threatening the weak-minded,
With a loaded piece, the same piece John Turturro—
Stealing the movie as usual, this time as Jesus Quintana—
Bragging how he will stick it up Walter’s culo,
Pulling the trigger until it goes: Click-Click-Click!
Terrestrial burial or cremation?
For me:  Burial at Sea:
Slice me, dice me into shark food.

Or maybe something a la Werner von Braun:
Your dead meat shot out into space;
A personal space probe & voyager,
A trajectory of one’s own choosing?

Oh hell, why not skip right down to the nitty gritty bottom line?
Current technology: to wit, your entire life record,
Your body and history digitized & downloaded
To a Zip Drive the size of the average *******,
A data disc then Fedex-ed anywhere in the galaxy,
Including exotic burial alternatives,
Like some Martian Kilimanjaro,
Where the tiger stalks above the clouds,
Nary a one with a freaking clue that can explain
Just what the cat was doing up so high in the first place.
Or, better still, inside a Sherpa’s ***** pack,
A pocket imbued with the same Yak dung,
Tenzing Norgay massages daily into his *******,
Defending the Free World against Communism & crotch rot.
(Forgive me: I am a child of the Cold War.)
Why not? Your life & death moments
Zapped into a Zip Drive, bytes and bits,
Submicroscopic and sublime.
So easy to delete, should your genetic subgroup
Be targeted for elimination.
About now you begin to realize that
A two-pound aluminum Folgers can
Is not such a bad idea.
No matter; the future is unpersons,
The Ministry of Information will in charge.
The People of Fort Meade--those wacky surveillance folks--
Cloistered in the rolling hills of Anne Arundel County.
That’s who will be calling the shots,
Picking the spots from now on.
Welcome to Cyber Command.
Say hello to Big Brother.
Say “GOOD-BYE PRIVACY.”

Meanwhile, you’re spending most of your time
Fretting ‘bout your last rites--if any—
Burial plots on land and sea, & other options,
Such as whether or not to go with the
Concrete outer casket,
Whether or not you prefer a Joe Cocker,
Leon Russell or Ray Charles 3-D hologram
Singing at your memorial service.
While I am fish food for the Golden Shellbacks,
I am a fine young son of Neptune,
We are Old Salts, one and all,
Buried or burned or shot into space odysseys,
Or digitized on a data disc the size of
An average human *******.
Snap outta it, Einstein!
Like everyone else,
You’ve been fooled again.

It's unfortunate that Parisians
Are very hard to bear,
In terms of flash obsequiousity,
They drive me to despair!
And patience is an attribute
I don't profess to have
To mercifully administer
When accents veer to Slav.

Baltics look like jellyfish,
The Germans are obscene
And loud and overbearing
But the Swiss are very clean.
Italians are a swarthy lot
Who gourmandize on food
And sacrifice their suavity
By being impudently crude.
The Spanish are no better,
In fact they are probably worse,
For obsessing in the blood sports
I actually rate them in reverse.

Starchiness is British
They're convoluted to the core,
The Old Boy system's lost it's sheen
Aspirants flock to it no more.
The Yanks are looking slightly crass
Whilst fighting foreign wars,
Their pinky held up squeaky clean
To call "foul" to China's flaws.
China sits inscrutably
Holding all the cards
Waiting for the moment
To strike beneath the guards.

India and Pakistan
Are squabbling like kids
The uproar over Kashmir
Rates them lower than the Yids.
The Yids are walking tightropes
With Iran's nuclear ******,
Whilst currying Yank approval,
Eventual bombing is a must.
The Dutch behave so anally
They're always proven right
When faced with rigid negatives
They blanch with haunches tight.

But not the Argentineans
They love to dance and flirt,
To chase the senorita
Cavorting in the scarlet skirt.
The South Pacific's wallowing
They're adrift from World affairs
Oz's self preoccupation
Mirrors Kiwi's vacant stares.
Africa's way past comment
Lost to heat and dust,
Warfare, **** and pillage
And the rest decayed by rust.

Eskimos are OK
Clean living on the ice
The population static,
Zer-O pollution's nice!

Marshalg
@theGate
Mangere Bridge
14 April 2009

A simple bottle,
Cheap chunky plastic,
Designer garbage.
Empty of its liquid energy.
Glossy label parrying the flash,
Glaring retrieval of light.
Sickly bold orange cap,
Impudently tight,
Defending the blanched carpet below.
Moment of fragility,
Suspended on the humid waves of air,
Eternity in an insubstantial moment.
It wafts away from his fingers,
Plastic given wings,
Fixed by his steely eyes,
A forced arc,
Stretching to the ceiling.
Focused intensity.
An infinite gap looms
Instants before the catch.
He didn’t notice the stray,
A camera pointed his way,
Capturing this moment,
Making it magical.
Clarity is threatened by obscurity,
People pressing in,
Bending the frame.
Time is lost,
Too much wasted on boredom,
And playing catch with yourself.
Spine lax, body slumped.
Interruptions and distractions surround.
His face vivid in the mix,
Lost in the wash of faces,
So much like his,
Flushed by the same blood.
His unwavering gaze
Holds the emptiness in shackles.
Second of silence in the crushing sound,
Relentless muttering rumble,
The voices of family,
So constantly buzzing.
Jumbled tumbling voices.
A peanut gallery seeking constant attention.
The camera congeals the moment,
Silencing the mass.
In the absence the bottle and the boy
Infinitely alone,
Endlessly still.

Do you remember
That afternoon--that Sunday afternoon!--
When, as the kirks were ringing in,
And the grey city teemed
With Sabbath feelings and aspects,
Lewis--our Lewis then,
Now the whole world's--and you,
Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came,
Laden with Balzacs
(Big, yellow books, quite impudently French),
The first of many times
To that transformed back-kitchen where I lay
So long, so many centuries--
Or years is it!--ago?

Dear Charles, since then
We have been friends, Lewis and you and I,
(How good it sounds, 'Lewis and you and I!'):
Such friends, I like to think,
That in us three, Lewis and me and you,
Is something of that gallant dream
Which old Dumas--the generous, the humane,
The seven-and-seventy times to be forgiven!--
Dreamed for a blessing to the race,
The immortal Musketeers.

Our Athos rests--the wise, the kind,
The liberal and august, his fault atoned,
Rests in the crowded yard
There at the west of Princes Street.  We three--
You, I, and Lewis!--still afoot,
Are still together, and our lives,
In chime so long, may keep
(God bless the thought!)
Unjangled till the end.

To the tune of "Song of Peace"

Year by year, in the snow,
I have often gathered plum flowers,
intoxicated with their beauty.
Fondling them impudently
I got my robe wet with their lucid tears.

This year I have drifted to the corner
of the sea and the edge
of the horizon,
My temples have turned grey.

Judging by the gust of the evening wind,
It is unlikely I will again
enjoy the plum blossoms.

Trending Tags
#love #life
#sad  #pain
#depression
#death #you
#sadness #heart
#hurt

this is my concession speech

having dabbled in the above black arts,
what needs saying, been said
and pun pardon,
not too alive,
like fav jeans,
pretty much worn to holey death,
put aside for a well needed rest

I am losing,
a real loss,
not candor, not inspiration,
but finding new ways to say new things,
well aware that Balanchine said
"there are only new combinations"

nature, I have dabbled,
but ready, easy to concede
this is Harlon's
River, his wilderness territory

he without peer,
unequaled in essaying on
this planet's essentials

as for the magic of daily grinding,
nothing could be finer,
than to see the family and the daily bread
made, fed, and put to bed,
than by the hands of
betterdays,
while
Pradip
makes me laugh,
with his wifely wisdom and jokes
and the humanity of his insights
and prods deeper,
make me a
weeper-profusely,
keeping us all
real and unplugged,
and
Bala's
journal's mysteries illuminate and spice
the places hidden,
by me, from myself

the
r
man who has got his shoes impudently railing,
cap'n never complains or whines,
but in precious few,
he rivets you to the earth,
fixing rooting you to a rooted place,
he intoxicates with
southern simple and pithy,
and makes the title poet,
a worthy one

could I go on naming names?

sure,
Mother
Maria
said, "chile, it ain't necessarily so,"
Kelly
adds beautiful,
and I agree with her rose
that grows even in her rugged soul's clime,
Simrik,
a child who writes
old wisdom from where acquired unknown,
and
Oliviaputs the
O
on my mouth smiling


anyway can't,
write so good no more (see),
finding
SJR's
voices now
in my head,
saying
careful boy,
you already wrote that
in a single consorting chorus voice

been authorized to dribble drivel,
but that don't cut for prideful fools
like yours true and truly,
tho looking at this,
what lies above,
would be doing
an inaccurate accurate,
calling this worthwhile,
feels like
a phony smile

so what to pursue?

silence not an option,
for the brain inferno'd
and the devils pitchfork
pinpricking with stabs of
visionary guilty judgements

so of what to write?

the answering simple uncomplexity,
Shauuna,
so here are the things I tell myself

forget the me in we and write
of thee, let that be my solitary
tag,
pray god don't make a hash of it,
write of new poets uncovered,
play thru ego and play hard to
recover thyself
by focusing on
uncovering
thee,
the new poets who
will lead the way,
bring this old dog~man,
way back from astray

Cowering in the corner, the boy began to cry,
******* in the gloom.
Searching the room
As his father slowly went by.

His father’s reddened ******
Caught under the weak bedroom light
His genitals pink and bright,
Like a swollen crucifix hanging impudently.

“Out my boy.” He called
In a voice that to the child
Sounded like thunder, ill-tempered and wild.
“Daddy needs you.” The father bawled.

The father’s affection was a wound
That disfigured body and mind
Care sullied, love unkind-
First loved, made love to, then wholly ruined.

His father’s hand jabbed the gloom
And laughing cruelly pulled him out
“I knew you were somewhere about.”
Dragging him through the room.

The child at first whimpered,
Then was muted. As his father began,
Through his small body the pain ran,
Biting his lips, the boy quietly simpered.

A husband -> a wronged wife

"My dear take a chair
Your affair is unfair
I can't stand
A suffocating air
This way you and I
Could no longer continue
A loving pair
Soon to my parents
I must repair!
How come for love of a ****
A marital vow
You thwart? "

This way since
You decided me desert
For what I did spurred
By transient lust
Chagrin my soul has hit.
As usual in deep slumber
When I extend my hand
To ascertain whether
You have slept sound
And stir you up
So as we sleep entwined
Yet get awake to a tragedy stark
That I but draw a blank
My heart indeed
Incessantly bleed
From the loss it incurred
Your obeisance and love divested.

If you can't find it in your heart
My folly to forget
Forgive me my dear
For without you near
My life turns insufferably sour.

A wronged wife—>A husband

After your body you befouled
And proved a down to earth cad,
After your spirits perfidy you debased
Impudently you demand
As before I should you hold
An esteemed husband.
Indeed this I will not!
For rancor laden my heart
Bleed incessant
It mustn't!
Away to my parents I fled
For you failed to abscond
After what you did.
'Once bitten twice shy'
Forgive you how could I?

A husband—>A wronged wife

Your forgiveness but
Nothing depurate
The blot
In your eyes
Down me brought.
I hope
Forgiveness is the least
Your impeccable heart
Me could grant.
Even the ocean of tears
I wept
Whitewash me still not
My dear there is a second
Man goes wild
And commits a deed
He condemns absurd,
My perfidy to nothing but
To this folly could be imputed.

Man is prone to err
So you should consider
What matters is his bid
Improprieties away to clear.
So my dear
Give me a chance second
To prove, you loving husband.
Your forgiveness will be a credit
That surely you catapult
To ensconce
In the apex of my heart.
A forgiving personality
Is a virtuous quality
Besides your heart
Me 'love' that taught
Which is also on me soft
Won't follow a policy
Watertight and
Once for all me smite

A wronged wife—>A husband

Raving ans volleying
Boisterousness nay, nay!
You stultify
Must not I.

My mind is bedeviled
Since you I missed.
On your misdemeanor
Brood I shall no more
To night
Come to the cathedral
We first met
As a jump-start
Together out
We have to spend the night.
The night's Zephyr wet
Will wipe away
Our disagreement!

Enclosed in off-white shell
Dug beneath earths dirt
Six feet underground
Pending, awaiting for the day
To be yours

In shadowed bloom
I rise
My body, soft and ripe
Yearns for your touch
To be only yours

You break me from my stem
Rip me from my roots
As I lay in the flame of your hand
You pierce your fingernails through my skin
Like shards of ice

Mercilessly, you peel off my layers
Leaving me all veins and flesh
I was made for you

Impudently, you apply me to your tongue
Your jagged teeth bite down
Sweetly, I burst in you

Turn to liquid in your mouth
Fill your organs
Quench your thirst
I am yours

You spit out
My bones when
You are done
And
I do not dwell

All that you’ve made of me
Lives inside you now

Selfies & The (Selfish) Need

Rembrandt painted hundreds in one medium or t’other.
Thanks to photo’s techno-grams
Selfies of all kinds abound,
Home paintboxes thick on the ground
Which begs the question:
Exploration or self-love?
Motives passive and elusive, definitely inconclusive,
Probably a votive to self-love;
The selfie shows its needs up front.
Pretext for one’s vanity, its insecurity.

Then there’s the blog:
A kind of selfie, yes?
There to impress via modernity’s express
A world you hope
Is waiting for your scoop,
Your dope, your ****.

When you’ve seen a glut of bodies
Photo-shopped and chopped to please,
Is there more you need to see?
Or is it true desire breeds desire
And that fact a warning dire?

Impudently, imprudently
Continuing until we rue the days that bluntly
Lead us nowhere in particular
But to the usual, predictable, familiar wrinkling
And the loss of beauty’s pull.

Selfies & The (Selfish) Need 7.5.2017
Circling Round Vanities II;
Arlene Corwin

cast me curmudgeons and frissons
of thousands of subliminal tokens askew
hailing from chalky isles and cloudy heads
where in sunken histoire Ordinances of one and three
afore one and one in the bespoke thiefdom of glass-eyes
and impeached rulers in colourless robes as does carpe diem(s)

The hue of night is deem unworthy
in beastly form the robed conjured and concurred
in dud recognition of ethical grace culture or heritage
not of rule or dignity shall we find charcoal mined from pits
yet in blazing brilliance diamonds of priceless lustre digs from black
eons of looters rapists and harbingers of scorched earth reek divisives

In Millileum archaic paths trod impudently
obtuse ignorance courts voguish moral decay et ideologue
voicing Artificial Intelligence and Levi's over robes et pointed hats
the poachers turn game-keepers at your service and equality is game
as of then so is now reprobate alchemists twisting truths to delusions
the snake oil merchant selling anti-monarchist lotions to cure laziness



Hide not your shame in skulduggery
aromantizing Robin Hood and perverse politicking stinks
these days Robin would be head of a Major Crime Syndicate
and if not languishing in jail would be hiding and living in dread
kings queens and princesses and princes all pay taxes legitimately
perchance you cannot work there're Social Assistance aplenty to help

This is the twenty-first century
work for a fairer just and peaceful society for all regardless
everybody has a cross they bear each in whatever way they can
stealing from your neighbour or another is not socially acceptable
even more reprehensible is blaming discrediting and ruining the victims
the truth will always out sooner or later even for princes with hues
you hate

There's a pandemic that still is not
Under control, and what's more,
A suffering economy
And weather extremes cause problems to soar.

And all across the country we have
Republicans supporting a guy
Who incited an insurrection
By pushing what we call the Big Lie.

Millions of people here are in
Desperate financial straits,
Trying to keep their dwellings and cars
And struggling to get some food on their plates.

And yet we have Republicans
In Congress who would rather waste time
Impudently obstructing bills
To help the people. What a crime!

With so much domestic terrorism
Flourishing and voter suppression
On top of everything else, these
"Leaders" have a strange obsession:

They have decided that it is much
More important to worry instead
About some books by Dr. Seuss
And the fate of Mr. Potato Head!

Listen to them scream about
"Cancel culture" as though it's true--
As though an evil plot exists
To ultimately cancel you.

With such legislators making
Decisions, we're in a real mess.
How strange that foolishness turns out being
The true measure of their success!

-by Bob B (3-5-21)