Numb. 1042 Forecast

Should Civil War sequel

follow last's path,

with body count just about equal,

we will lose masses of various classes

and this, I fear, will not speak well

of our sowing so as to wreak well.

Nations and Empires rise and fall.

What, after all, is the point of it all?

                    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Numb. 1041 On Your Marx

Marx never met a worker or peasant

except in a book on statistics.

For if he had, even he could have seen

his conclusions were unscientific.

Workers and peasants, concerned with the present —

food, sex — care not a jot about economics.

Unlike bourgeoise, they've no time to waste

on historical arcs or other colonics.

They cannot conceive of an interest in common

with anyone living anywhere foreign;

who ooh and aah in barbarian ways;

who could not be their comrades — 

AND CERTAINLY AREN'T!;

who have different names; 

who dress in ways strange;

who eat and drink God only knows what;

who, if your sister decided to marry one,

both bride and groom would find themselves shot.

Had he looked to THE CHURCH, 

he'd have learned from that search

that despite pretenses transnational,

CHURCHES remained, local and rational.

But Master Marx lived in the library.

Save when he knocked up the maid.

So we have to ask was his Socialist mask

deployed to shirk work and get laid?

Numb. 1040 A Patriot Prayer

If we can not insist how you live,

that is discrimination.

With History and Scripture as corroborative

our goal is to save the soul of the nation.

We're here to inform you who you can marry,

how to vote, who's right, and who's wrong.

Here to say who's Tom, Dick, who's Harry,

who's always welcome, who does not belong.

Who's good, who's bad — there is no middle —

who, if they don't like it, can leave.

If you object, we don't give a piddle.

That you exist makes us the aggrieved.

Our God has determined we are the sole

people who can be trusted.

Fulfilling his mission is our sacred role.

If you don't agree, you are maladjusted.

Of course, we love all of our neighbors

and that is why we must strive

to drive away at the point of our sabers

all those we know God wants not to thrive.

Once we achieve complete conformity,

once the whole country agrees,

we will rejoice in this blessed enormity,

along with the rest of you down on our knees.

Numb. 1039 Evict Us

Here's the thing about “Invictus”*:

    Henley has it all wrong,

insisting that we can master FATE.

    Short-term? Perhaps. Never for long.

“Count no man happy, 'til he be dead,” 

    Herodotus said Solon's alleged to have said.

Hamlet's “fardels” — that's bundles to us. 

     Approach or avoid? Analyze and discuss.

Why are we here? We MUST be important.

    (Or was our creation God being mordant?)

Man IS the measure, id est the ruler.

    (Who needs a God who lives to fool ya?)

Philosophers along with makers of verse

    see us as central to the universe,

failing to grasp that we human beings

    are mere extras in the crowd scenes.

——————————

*              Invictus

  by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

      I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

      Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

Numb. 1038 Ptrumpkin Village Retrospective

Behind the façade, another façade.

Nothing is real. Everything's odd.

Nothing is solid. Even the gilt

is an illusion to cover the silt

that clogs the channel and blocks the lock.

Dumb as an ox, binge watching FOX, 

true Dunning-Kruger to bettor's end,

too incommensurate to comprehend,

ineffectual as a capon,

flying to Florida, finally gone,

failed/flailing dictator apprenticeship,

footnote forgotten, SAD comic strip.