The Ballad of the Useful Idiots

How they got to script this scene

it’s not granted us to know.

(Back in nineteen seventeen

they did a deal with So-and-So.)

The magic name of Lenin

and the mystic fame of Marx

stirred up dreams of Heaven

and treason of the clerks.

John Reed wrote his paen

Ten Days That Shook the World.

Soon everyone was sayin',

"Go get that flag unfurled!"

But when the folds unfolded

they made the blood run cold.

Our youthful hearts soon gelded

were sick to death of old.

Moreover, just across the board,

the wealth of J. P Morgan,

the cars of Henry Ford--

how could they be forgone?

They did what you were done by.

You were done by what they did.

No use now to weep and sigh--

all that’s left us is to kid!

The wiseacres are still wondering

what the hell we're supposed to do.

The fires of hell are raging.

How now your other shoe?

Putin’s comfy in his Kremlin,

J. P. Morgan in his tomb.

Musk, or some other gremlin,

will soon spiffen up the moon!

Onsin

Aai, aai, die Witborskraai!

Hiervandaan na Mosselbaai

Hoog gevlieg en laag geswaai

By die groot see omgedraai

--Afrikaans traditional*

Sick of sitting on this comfortable fence

I take refuge in poetic nonsense.

White-nose fungus is killing all the bats.

Antipodean kiddies take pot shots at cats.

Democracies are falling one by one.

My native land no longer boasts its sun.

You may call these frivolous excuses--

perhaps, but nonsense has its uses.

It spares me the painful job of either thinking

or drowning out the world by drinking.

*“Oh, oh, the pied crow! / All the way to Mossel Bay / Flying high and swinging low / At the big sea turns to go.” Onsin = "nonsense" in Afrikaans.

Running out of Leftovers

“Vive la bagatelle!”–Jonathan Swift’s favorite maxim (according to Dr. Johnson)

A look shows my fridge short on charity--

a lot was spent feeding fair weather friends.

The milk of human kindness gets consumed, you see,

in lashing out on brunch and things to make amends.

I’m lacking faith and hope. They don’t come free!

Some stuff’s left over from last night’s dinner,

but whether you’d like those scraps of fate depends

on if you’re hungry, or, wanting to be thinner,

will make believe you’re leaving them for me.